![]() To call Ross a liar in his music was reductive. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. Its introspection and chest-thumping are just enough to keep the stakes reasonably high.Ĭatch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Expensive Pain is Meek’s first album not embroiled in or directly inspired by controversy since 2015’s Dreams Worth More Than Money, a place to regain his footing without playing defense. Many of the experiments on Expensive Pain don’t pan out, and a handful of the album’s more traditional songs bleed together, but the glitz, glamour, and paranoia typical of his music generally hold. He was clearly inspired to continue pushing his voice after isolated singing moments on his 2017 album Wins and Losses and Championships, but it’s largely an unwelcome expansion, drawing attention away from the more melancholy corners of Meek’s brain.Īs a rapper who’s now five studio albums and nearly a dozen mixtapes into his career, Meek can’t be blamed for wanting to switch things up. Paired with one of the most unique voices in rap, Meek sounds like a deepfake. He sounds so much like Young Thug on “We Slide” that it’s genuinely surprising when Thug himself shows up on the second half for a duet. “On My Soul” aims for glossy vocal runs but scans as Roddy Ricch cosplay. He’s singing more often on Expensive Pain, too, but his Auto-Tuned vocals are indistinct, the exact opposite of his well-established persona. The fun and energy are there, but there’s little separating these Meek Mill songs from those already clogging workout playlists. Mid-album highlight “Hot” is most notable for the velocity of Nick Papz’s beat and a nimble guest verse from Memphis rapper Moneybagg Yo, distracting from Meek’s unsexy sex bars. He’s made dozens of songs like “Sharing Locations” and “Me (FWM)” before. There, he’s mostly running in place, recycling well-worn stories of haters lurking in the shadows and women lurking in his bed and his wallet. His trademark pumped-up anthems, on the other hand, are more of a mixed bag. ![]() He’s nervous about his friends leaving jail and jumping back into the streets (“Expensive Pain”) he’s reflecting on being a “gangsta since like 5, since my daddy died” (“Cold Hearted III”). The soul-searching on Expensive Pain is some of the most potent of Meek’s career. For better and worse, he’s a long way from the cold Philly street corners where he cut his teeth, and the album’s best moments amplify the pros and cons that come with attaining wealth while grieving loved ones. Other times, like on both the title track and “Tweaking,” he dwells on falling out with friends over money and being told to seek therapy after admitting to cuddling his gun in bed. Sometimes, like on “Intro (Hate on Me)”-the latest in his series of explosive album openers-he barrels through the commotion and flexes for the hell of it (“I put baguettes on all of my dawgs they fall, they makin’ a sound”). ![]() Meek is pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars per show and is freed from the bondage of parole, but money and fame can also isolate people from the world. With no tangible enemy to rally the troops against, the idea of “expensive pain” creeps along the edges of the album.
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