Vital Status: Alive & Stable😴
Analogy: When you realize who the dominant person in the bedroom is
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap
Length: 50min
Meg Thee Stallion coming off a wild and breakthrough 2019 into a life changing 2020, both musically and personally, finally drops her debut studio album Good News. Her previous EP Suga showed that she can craft up a hit quite easily with her direct tone and sexual rap lyrics.
This style of music making continues on Good News with what feels like at least 80% of her lyrics revolving around sex. This record feels one dimensional and if your listening for emotional stimulation this might not be the best spot.
As stated above Megan Thee Stallion did have a difficult year personally and she jumps right into this conversation on the first track “Shots Fired”. To start I enjoyed this song and it’s clearly a diss track about Tory Lanez and the situation that happened over the summer. Meg Thee Stallion takes quick jabs at Tory throughout the track and allows listeners a smidge more insight as to how things escalated that night. My only problem with this track is placing it as the first song on her debut album. This was her moment and unfortunately Tory Lanez is the story.
“Circles” can now truly set the tone for the album with a nice bounce beat that reminds me of Drake’s song “Nice For What”. Lyrically, Meg is still firing with some clever bars and her natural flow. We then get our first feature on the album with DaBaby in “Cry Baby”. The production on this track has this weird babyish noise playing throughout that may be annoying to some. Megan Thee Stallion raps circles around DaBaby who just sounds like every other DaBaby song. This is a very sexual song lyrically due to every bar being about sex.
Again, we get another feature but this time from City Girls on the song “Do It On The Tip”. This song provides us with a repetitive hook along with mediocre verses. Meg Thee Stallion continues to out rap her counterparts, slowly solidifying her position in hip-hop. “Sugar Baby” is a clever song where Meg uses bar after bar to bring awareness to men that don’t meet her standard or think themselves as relevant in her life.
Thinkin’ that he Future, I’ma leave him in the past tense
And I’m in my book, so I think like a bad bitch
He said, “Let’s make a movie,” and nutted so quick, we made a story
He tell people we not talkin’, no, lil’ ni**a, you gettin’ ignored
The production also creates a upbeat feel that Meg just thrives over.
Before Good News starts to wear thin and decrease in quality we do get both “Movie” and “Freaky Girls”. Lil Durk features on “Movie” another very sex oriented song and holds his own. The chorus does go on a bit long but the way both Durk and Meg sound on this track compliments one another. Also, Durk’s line about the strip club having the best wings in hilarious. “Freaky Girls” has SZA singing the hook and production from Juicy J. SZA brings a nice change of pace with her R&B singing but Meg Thee Stallion’s quick delivery on the verses doesn’t quite compliment each other like I expected. Meg does have a few bars with horse vocabulary such as
Lil’ people make lil’ people, stallions breed prize babies
Eat it up for a while, baby, buck on it, I’m wild, baby
which stands out and adds to the freaky girls title.
Making our way to the second half of the album we get some decent songs here and there but overall a quick decline. The song “Body” has these orgasmic vocals in the background that are distracting and in general the hook is repetitive and annoying. “What’s New” is a moment that Megan Thee Stallion uses to fire shots back at haters with a confident and careless chorus feeling as if she pays no mind to trolls and that is enjoyable.
But, the following 5 tracks on this album are flawed. Like I said, it’s a pretty quick decline and it all comes at once.
Starting with “Work That”, this song is another bounce track but with a way more poppy and bland chorus. It is nice that this song only runs a little over 2 minutes. “Intercourse” is next up and I just wish it was better done and for a dancehall track to be this boring is upsetting. Popcaan feels reserved as the feature and in terms of lyrics this is one of the weaker moments for Meg as well. “Go Crazy” has this unnecessary Jackson 5 vocal sample in the background and along with that we get Big Sean, who sounds like he traveled back to his Hall of Fame days, and 2 Chainz who doesn’t add anything. Now, “Don’t Rock Me to Sleep” is the worst song on this album. If a radio friendly, cringy song, was what they were going for then they nailed it and that’s all I have to say. Another Juicy J produced song appears with “Outside” and Megan Thee Stallion’s flow feels awkward over this chilled out beat and not as natural as earlier in the album.
Once you make it through that grouping the rest of the album picks back up with “Savage Remix” featuring Beyonce, “Girls in the Hood” and “Don’t Stop” featuring Young Thug. All these tracks are enjoyable and Meg Thee Stallion is back in her zone. “Don’t Stop” might not be the best way to close out this record but that would be my only issue.
My biggest complaint overall is that this record holds the same rhetoric over and over again. Megan Thee Stallion doesn’t change up the formula much and when she does its not great. Yes this record has bangers and it is clear now Meg can write and rap about sex and money but is she able toe expand her lyrical subject matter. Unfortunately, we wont be finding out on Good News.
Albums Are Dead💀 