Album Review: UTOPIA | Travis Scott
Are we sure this isn't supposed to be dystopia?
After 5 years, Travis Scott returns to deliver his highly anticipated 4th studio album, UTOPIA. La Flame has been busy since 2018’s ASTROWORLD. He’s dropped several musical collaborations with stars like Rosalia, Quavo, Kid Cudi, Ed Sheeran, Young Thug, and Pharell.
Outside of music, and expanded his reach outside of music to film (working on the Tenet soundtrack and dropping his own movie with A24), fashion (Nike, Saint Laurent), video games, (Fortnite and Playstation) and even he even references his expansion to food on this project “I might still eat McDonald’s / But don’t think I’m a Ronald.”
In his personal life, Travis now has 2 children with Kylie Jenner. Most notably in the time between ASTROWORLD and UTOPIA is when Scott returned to touring, finding himself in a significant controversy in the wake of 2021’s Astroworld Festival crowd crush. Despite the gravity of the event, Travis only makes one reference to it on this album.
This lack of substance really sets the tone for the rest of the album. Although it has shiny, exciting production. The album is empty. There is barely any meaningfulness or significance to the content on this record. Travis may be a brilliant curator, but at the end of the day this album doesn’t have anything interesting to say.
From a production lens, Travis’s experience in dark & moody vibes is ever-present here, but UTOPIA is a risk; it is an excellent expansion of the psychedelic trap sound that Travis Scott pioneered. Scott chooses to play with song structure all over this record, best seen on CIRCUS MAXIMUS & SKITZO. The choices are usually cool and accompany the sporadic and psychedelic vibe UTOPIA is going for but also helps contributes to the album’s overall ambiguity.
UTOPIA isn’t complete without the surplus of features on the project. Mostly, the additions are a highlight on the album, but far from making this record salvageable except for SZA. She can do no wrong. MELTDOWN (feat. Drake), AKA SICKO MODE 2, is a manufactured attempt to relive the energy from ASTROWORLD. The track is okay, but it feels incredibly forced. Along with Drake, one of the other significant personalities featured on UTOPIA is long-time mentor of Scott, Kanye West.
This album does not exist without Kanye, as elements borrowed from Ye’s 2013YEEZUS serve as a jumping-off point. However, all these A-List features fall flat. While Kanye West is able to draw out the best of his collaborators, Travis accepts the bare minimum from them. You’d think a record that can pull together Bon Iver, Beyonce, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, and Drake could also pull off incredible work. On UTOPIA, Travis Scott takes us to an empty paradise.
Check out our favorite tracks, listen to the album, and see our scores below:
Can’t Miss: MY EYES, SKITZO, TELEKINESES
You Can Skip: K-POP, TOPIA TWINS
BY THE NUMBERS
Bennett’s Score: 6.3
Carson’s Score: 6.5
Album Score: 12.8
A note on scoring: We both rank a song 1-10. 1 being a really bad song and you won’t ever listen again, 10 being a fantastic song. For kicks, if we think a song is SO TERRIBLE or SO PERFECT we can rate it a 0 or 11. We can give 10’s and 1’s to as many songs as we’d want, but only one song per album can get an 11.
So, when we combine scores, anything that gets around 18+ is going to be a song you’re going to want to check out. A score of 22 is a PERFECT score, meaning we both gave it an 11.
Notes from Bennett:
uh… UTOPIA! I don’t get it!
I’ve been looking forward to this release for quite a while and it didn’t live up to the hype for me. Maybe it’s because I’m no longer a teenage boy and no longer am in Travis Scott’s target demographic. IDK, UTOPIA is clearly an attempt to evolve his sound and some of the decisions are cool but most of them leave me confused.
My main issue with this album is the lack of narrative and world-building. What makes Travis Scott's albums appealing to me is the environment he builds in his music seen clearly in ASTROWORLD (& arguably done better on Rodeo). Like what does he rap about here, what are the themes? The album also fails to create a unique sound although obviously tries and then gives up once FE!N! hits the tracklist. Still a fun moment though.
That’s what I have to take away here: Travis created a bunch of fun moments here. Teezo Touchdown on Modern Jam is like actually sick they were the correct feature here. I also can’t get that opening Westside Gunn lyric out of my head on Lost Forever. It was also nice to hear a good Young Thug verse in 2023, especially after the ~interesting! vault project BUSINESS IS BUSINESS.
Drake’s outro on SIRENS was funny, unfortunately, I don’t have a ton of positives to say on what follows just questions.
Shoutout Mike Dean.
Notes from Carson:
Some of the songs on this album scare me. Like idk the vibes are giving Halloween and scary?? Particularly on Modern Jam and Hyaene. The instrumentals are haunting.
Overall, my take on this album is that the production makes it interesting. The lyrical content is flat. It’s all bark and no-bite in my view. Travis will not evolve if he doesn’t give us interesting lyrics. He needs to evolve past “music to rage to.”
Sooooooo Kanye on Circus Maximus. It samples Black Skinhead so of course but it’s a little too on the nose here. Don’t like the screaming.
My Eyes is a highlight. It feels like a Frank Ocean song. So does Parasail. The production on My Eyes is also absolutely sampled by Over Here by the Japanese House. Both songs are produced by Justin Vernon so I think he just duplicated his own work here 6 weeks apart.
Meltdown is really the watered down version of Sicko Mode (tears). I’m mourning a world where this was actually really good. It’s fine.
Normally a Playboi Carti hater but can’t deny how much I love FE!N! Also, his hook on Popular w/ The Weeknd & Madonna really works too. Interesting in seeing what’s next. This track is just exactly what’d you expect from them.
TikTok is going to find the hook on I KNOW? And completely ruin the song one day but for now I will be enjoying.
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Are you guys planning on attending his next Fortnite concert? I hear they will sell some Travvy Patties at the concessions!