I must say Tyga has certainly come a long way to where he is now. It seems like just yesterday he dropped his 2008 debut No Introduction which had that god awful single "Coconut Juice". If someone then was to tell me he'd be where is now I'd probably laugh. Well...a Young Money deal and a "Rack City" hit record later, Tyga is one of mainstream lands most popular rising artists. While I myself am not a fan of his music, I can see why a lot of people may like him and his music. Well here he is with his third album Hotel California. Coming off of his sophomore 2012 release Careless World: Rise Of The Last King, which honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, I said that this new album would be either a hit or a miss. To me, this was a slight miss. It's definitely a step back from his last album. This album sounded overly commercial and "clubby". Way more commercial than the last album. Production from a mainstream perspective was decent. Had it's ups and downs. Lyrics overall were pretty much basic. I think Tyga actually has some talent but his lyrical content is generic. Your typical money/jewelry/cars/women flaunting "swag rap" lyrics that a lot of these young radio rappers are on now. Plus I never really liked his voice. I just don't understand why he puts that extra strain on his voice. Is he trying to sound hard or intimidating? I would hope not. Anyway, I have more cons than pros with this album so I'll start there. The first single "Dope" really grinded my gears. You don't sample a classic hip hop instrumental like Dr. Dre's "Deep Cover" and turn it into some swaggy club music. That's a sin. I'm sure Snoop Dogg doesn't care because he's probably cool with Tyga but somewhere Dr. Dre wants to choke him with a Beats headphone cord for doing that to his masterpiece. "Show You" was hands down the worst song on the album. For someone who gets a lot of attention from the ladies he sure doesn't know how to make songs for them. Not to mention this is yet another song with a terrible hook by Future. He's starting to annoy me more and more with every song. He tries to deliver a 2Pac like flow on "For The Road" and fails terribly. Chris Brown's average ass hook didn't make it any better. "Enemies" was just too easy to call. You can blatantly tell Lil Wayne wrote this whole song. He even sounds like Wayne. To the point where I had to check the album credits to see if he was on this song. Bad song either way. One song that I'm on the fence about is the song dedicated to hip hop's newest ecstasy nickname..."Molly". Here he borrows the voice of the popular iPhone app Siri in which it repeatedly says "molly" over and over again. Anyone that knows me knows I hate repetitive hooks like this. I can see a lot of people loving this, especially in the club, but this will probably have to grow on me. Plus Wiz Khalifa delivered one of the worst lines I've ever heard from him that went like "I got a whip so fast that I caught a ticket speeding". Really? I didn't know you could get ticketed for that Wiz. Speaking of him, he's on another song called "M.O.E." which I thought would stand for Money Over Everything but apparently it's MUSIC Over Everything. Go figure. It seemed more like Wiz's style of music than Tyga's but again this is one that might have to grow on me because right now I don't like it. "Drive Fast, Live Young" and "Palm Trees" were both snooze fests. He couldn't have picked two more boring songs to end the album with. Now for the few things I did like. "Hijack" was pretty cool. Good beat and good guest verse from 2 Chainz. Is it me or is 2 Chainz starting to get better? His guest verses lately have been pretty good. Anyway, "Diss Song" surprised me because I thought he would be actually dissing or taking a shots at somebody. Turns out he's just dissing past enemies from what it sounds like. Still the song was ok. "It Never Rains" was cool laid back song with a summer time feel to it. Probably my favorite of the whole album. I like the beat, the Tony Toni Tone sample and The Game's verse was cool. It sounded like a summer radio hit from the 90's (back when it was cool to use auto-tune). Made me reminisce a little bit. "Hit'em Up" I probably would have hated had it not been for Jadakiss saving it from disaster. The fact that he basically stole C-Murder's entire hook from "Down For My Niggas" made me salty but I could probably listen to it again because of the beat and Jada's verse. Overall, This album was way more commercial and club oriented than the last one, but I liked the last album better than this and I feel like this was a step back from that album. I give it a final grade of a C-. Like I mentioned before, I think Tyga actually has talent, but his lyrical content and topics are so basic and generic. He doesn't rap about anything special which makes me not like his music. Tyga/Young Money fans will probably enjoy this but if you're not a fan, I doubt you will. Tyga needs to get more creative with his music before I can really start listening to it. While he's at it, get better at making songs for the girls because right now, Black Chyna is not impressed. End.
Final Grade: C-
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