Oh I totally agree with this I absolutely adored him during the coloring book era, but with the way his career arc has gone since I just tend to associate that era with the second half like it’s the beginning of the end. I think the 3 merch drops and the Apple deal kind of pushed him towards his current state but he didn’t start acting like a clown until the tail end of the coloring book cycle (double down on ye, bad takes on black women, lashing out at groceries reviews, MTV news piece taken down etc etc)
I do wonder where he goes from here though post pandemic. His last tour he had to cancel because of low ticket sales (I actually wanted to go to the one Chicago show that happened but the cheapest tickets were $80) so clearly he is not an arena artist anymore, right? At least not an NBA arena level performer. That must be a harsh reality for him to face. I wonder if he will tour this album at all or just release another album. His antics are only bringing his popularity (what is left) down even more, as previously mentioned, so that is clearly not helping his case for getting people to come to his shows and listen to his music.
This really has become like Connor 4 Real, he blew up organically with close friends making good music, got an ego, surrounded himself with yes men, alienated his friends and fans, and then released a shitty album without the friends he had when he was blowing up and lost all the good will he had built up. Even couldn't sell out arenas like he planned. If this ends like the movie we're getting Acid Rap 2 and a follow up to Surf featuring Michael Bolton.
He should definitely go back to being around/working with his old friends. When he associated himself with people such as the Kids These Days crew, Ohmme, Saba, Jamila Woods, Lili K., Noname, etc. (just to name a few) he made good music.
Didn’t he perform on SNL and have a top 5 single with Bieber just a short time ago? He’s definitely dropped off since 2017, but I don’t think he’s exactly hit rock bottom or anything.
I think that song being popular has way more to do with Justin than Chance honestly. Same with being on SNL. Any song with Justin Bieber is going to do at least moderately well on the charts. Not saying there were not people who tuned in to hear Chance, but I do not think it was some absurd amount that immensely helped the song rise on the charts.
He currently does have that hit with Bieber. I imagine he’ll ride that wave and probably go back to doing mid-size shows. It would take a lot to get him the hype he had from Acid Rap to Coloring Book.
If he knocked the next album out of the park, it'd do him a lot of good. At the end of the day, a looooot of people are willing to overlook just about anything if the music is good.
To be fair, The Social Experiment is still his band and produced most of The Big Day, and a lot of the members produced a ton of Acid Rap (and a couple were even in Kids These Days). But yeah, the features on TBD felt super inorganic and like he was just going for big artists (Shawn Mendes? Really?) instead of his actual friends. He needs to work with Vic again
The Shawn Mendes song does slap and I still love I Got You? I think it’s that one. Has an awesome female vocalist/rapper feature that I’m going blank on.
I definitely don’t think his supporting cast changed much since he still makes music with Peter and Nico and the SoX guys but at some point the vision got muddled and the music started to feel like a product instead of artistic expression. I agree big time that he should go back to working with Vic and Noname (though idk if she’d work with him now) and even some of his newer collaborators like Saba. I think on Coloring Book the big features made sense so I’m not against him using big names, but it shouldn’t feel slapped together.
I thought this would be the release of the full project. Oh well. Song’s not bad, not memorable at all though. I also think this is four years old based on his tweets.
Both songs kind of suck. But it'll be nice to have the Christmas tape back. Hope they finally take off the "homo" line this time, but considering "Acid Rap" still has a gay slur in it, not holding my breath.