Logic - No Pressure ALBUM REVIEW

For the latter half of his time in the industry, Logic has been the butt of all the jokes. He started out with a lot of promise with his first two studio albums Under Pressure and The Incredible True Story, but as he became more popular, his music slowly dipped in quality. While Everybody was decent at best and his mixtapes YSIV and Bobby Tarantino II were listenable, his past two records were atrocious. The alt-rock leaning Supermarket (the soundtrack to a book he wrote) and the absolute dumpster fire that is Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was essentially career suicide. When Logic announced No Pressure, he confirmed that this was going to be his final album, at least for a long time. He was retiring to focus on being a father. Many artists have said that they’re retiring for many different reasons, but it didn’t stick. If Logic really was retiring for good, is No Pressure a good note to go on? We’re about to find out.

No Pressure is a hip-hop record. I mean, come on. There’s no other way to describe it. Most of Logic’s more recent albums don’t have that much of a concept, but as the spiritual successor to his first album Under Pressure, it feels like this was going to have a similar sound to it. Going into this record, I was hoping that it’d take me on a nostalgic trip back to 2015 when I had first heard Under Pressure. It did exactly that but to a fault. The laid-back and jazzy production from No I.D. is back and better than ever, but I can’t help to think about that there could be a little more experimentation. I’m not mad at what we got, but it felt like more of a nostalgia trip than a look to the future. As I’ve thought about it, I realized that the title No Pressure represents Logic’s future as a father, a family man, and maybe a Twitch streamer, we don’t know about that yet. After I listened to No Pressure, I found a clip of him crying after streaming a listening party for the album. He thanked his mentors like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Drake for building him up and helping his career. Before I saw this, I didn’t think he was going to retire. After this, though, I knew that this was genuine. He was moving onto the next phase of his life, and he went out on a high note.

No Pressure is Logic’s best album in a long time. Yes, there are some corny bars, but it isn’t a Logic album without it. He gives the performance of his career on the backdrop of some stunning production from No I.D., and while its no masterpiece, No Pressure is the perfect way for Logic’s career to come to a close: with love for the things that made him know. Cheers to an absolutely wonderful career.


7/10


Stream No Pressure here

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YouTube Music




Also, this is my favorite album cover of the year so far.

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