See You Space Cowboy...
Singer, songrwiter and producer Logic has returned from what seems to be one of the shortest retirements in musical history. In 2020 Logic let his fans know that his upcoming project No Pressure, a follow up to his debut record Under Pressure would be his last album and that he would be retiring from making music. No Pressure was a great album and was ultimately a great high for Logic end his career on. Turns out he didn’t really retire, instead he released a project under an alternate Doc D persona and continued to make beats live for his audience while streaming on Twitch. However, not even a year into his retirement, Logic announced he loves making music too much and would be returning with the third installment in his Bobby Tarantino series. The Bobby Tarantino series sees Logic showing off his technical ability and flows over bass-heavy trap beats as opposed to the old-school boom-bap style you might hear on many of his other projects such as The Incredible True Story. Bobby Tarantino III (BT3 for short) doesn’t focus in on any particular sound in Logic’s discography, but instead sees him throwing a plethora of different flows, instrumentals and themes at us and seeing what sticks. Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot on this album that I’ll come back to.
Right: Bobby Tarantino III album cover
The intro track is aptly named ‘introll’ and features Logic hyping himself up over a chilled-out retro beat. For 1 minute straight he throws out adlibs, hyping himself and the listeners up as if he’s about to spit some nasty bars until the track ends abruptly without a single bar being thrown. The track is indeed a troll, but happily the album moves into the first single released ‘Vaccine"‘, which features Logic rapping over an energetic trap beat. The bass is nice, his flow is good (even if he hasn’t got much to say) and the chorus of people chanting in the background is a really nice touch. Next up is the song ‘Get Up’ where Logic changes his sound up for the third time in as many tracks and opts in for a guitar-driven indie track. Now, Logic’s singing has been a topic of hot debate in previous years, with many fans disliking his smash hit ‘1800’ because it saw him divert away from his regular rapping. It doesn’t matter if you like Logic’s singing or not, this track is bland and doesn’t go anywhere. Sadly, it doesn’t get any better on the next track ‘My Way’. Again, this is a guitar-driven track with a few drums and is primarily Logic singing in a, how do I put this……. interesting voice? I personally find the hook a little grinding and the instrumental leaves a lot to be desired. Rounding out the first half of the album are the tracks ‘Call Me” and ‘Inside’, the latter of which features a decent chorus from Cynthia Erivo, a calming, laid-back trap beat and good flow from Logic who raps about his fears and internal doubts while keeping a smile on his face because it’s what the people want.
The second half of the album sees an almost immediate jump in quality with the track ‘Flawless’. Rapping about his significant other, describing her as flawless, Logic comes through with an sure, he can be a litle cringe when rapping about sex, but the beat is just so. good. There’s a certain feeling of nostalgia that the beat provides, and is certainly one of the best beats I’ve heard this year. ‘Theme for the people’ swaps back to an old-school, guitar-driven beat and fast flow where he talks about switching up his sound to adjust to the new generation of fans, and the contrast of him growing up listening to “Biggie and RZA” compared to his contemporaries who came up listening to Future and Thug. ‘God Might Judge’ is a straight copy of ‘Nice For What’ by Drake with a bass-heavy breakdown at the end and nothing else needs to be said about the track.
‘See You Space Cowboy’ is the second last track on the project and is the standout. The beat on this is absoultely nuts. Whatever 6ix ate for breakfast the morning he made this beat, he needs to be eating more of. The bass, the snares, the beat, the flow. It all fits perfectly together and is EXACTLY what I wanted to hear from a new Logic song. The sad thing is this only lasts about a minute before the beat switches. Annoyingly, this second beat is also straight fire and would’ve been another great song if these two instrumentals were split up. As it stands, this song annoys me greatly as it could have been 2 perfect songs, but instead it’s 1 pretty good song.
Overall this album had some highs in ‘See You Space Cowboy’ and ‘Flawless’ but ultimately left a lot to be desired. There didn’t seem to be a theme to this album, it more-so felt like Logic threw a bunch of songs together that he thought sounded cool and called it an album (this is actually exactly what he did to fulfill his record deal with Def-Jam). I’m happy to see him out of retirement, but songs like ‘Space Cowboy’ show me that Logic has a lot more to offer.
STREAM AND DOWNLOAD 'Bobby Tarantino III’ HERE
