On July 28, during FBLA’s Summer Leadership Workshop in Springfield, a friend I met named Siddesh and I held my phone up to our ears and listened to track one “HYAENA,” and thought to ourselves that this could possibly be the album of the year. In my opinion, that was not the case, as Lil Yachty’s January release of Let’s Start Here still holds that number one spot, but that’s a story for another time.
“HYAENA” opens with a sample from Gentle Giant’s “Proclamation,” and the use of samples is a recurring theme in this album. While listening to this album, the use of these unique sounds was one of my favorite components and really elevated each track to a great level of quality.
Moving down the tracklist, we reach the “oldie hip-hop” sounding track of “MODERN JAM.” Scott samples the original instrumental of Kanye West’s “I Am a God,” as well as the drum pattern resembling Goodie Mob’s “Black Ice.” Scott teamed up with upcoming artist Teezo Touchdown on this song, this arguably being Teezo’s breakout performance before his debut album How do you sleep at night? On September 8.
The next track “MY EYES” starts off with a relaxed beat but dark lyricism as Scott raps about his lack of a love life since his relationship with Kylie Jenner ended. Another recurring theme in this album is the amount of beat and tone changes in the second half of songs and MY EYES is no different, flipping the relaxed and dark mood into a faster kind of trap music, similar to Future Hendrix.
Scott brings back the iconic production samples in the psychedelic trap track “GOD’S COUNTRY” while still having the same beat as the song’s first version, that being “Lullaby From Rosemary’s Baby, Part 1” by Krzysztof Komeda. Travis eventually released a music video for this track, showing shots of a low-income neighborhood, suggesting that God’s country is a place where there are small and incomparable moments that you couldn’t find anywhere else, as if they were God’s wish.
Track Seven “MELTDOWN” also has an interesting Summer Leadership Workshop story to it. After the nighttime meeting, McKenzie Hughes and I were listening to this and heard Drake say a simple “yeah,” and we both audibly gasped. I’m not sure why we were both so surprised to hear Drake on this album due to his relationship with Scott, but we were.
MELTDOWN is a three-part track of Scott recruiting Drake to rap about their overall superiority over the rest of the rap industry, giving themselves a God-complex, fitting the album’s overall theme of being “against the Devil.” Drake solidified his superiority in the industry by taking subliminal shots at artists such as Pusha T and Pharrell Williams.
“FE!N” reunites Playboi Carti and Travis Scott for their second song together, following “Love Hurts,” off of Carti’s 2018 album Die Lit. The sound of this song sounded like a track off of Carti’s second studio album Whole Lotta Red, while he also adopted a deeper voice than he has in recent years, with Scott taking on the high-pitched tone. This could all be a hint at Carti’s possible third studio album “Music.”
Scott refers back to his 2018 release of “5% Tint” with “I KNOW ?” with an equally slow yet fascinating rhythm that only Scott can perfect. This track brings out the image of Travis’ drug and alcohol problems, while being annoyed by everyone looking out for him, that being the reason for repetitive “I know’s.”
My personal track comes in the form of number seventeen, “LOST FOREVER.” I had been in love with this song and anticipating its official release since hearing the original version on a random YouTube account. Scott keeps the original lyrics, as well as the slow and melodic beat, before switching it upon Westside Gunn’s verse, and ultimately adding in a brand new verse of his own.
Nearing the end here, we reach “TELEKINESIS,” also known as Kanye West’s unreleased track “Future Sounds,” before West was delegated to nothing more than a production credit throughout this album, assumingly for his series of lashouts last year. This production sample and beat were passed around to many artists before ending up in Scott’s hands, where he reworked the sound to fit the features of Future and SZA to create an absolute masterclass of a song.
Finally, Scott closes the album with the 21 Savage feature of “TIL FURTHER NOTICE.” My favorite part of this song has to be the production by Metro Boomin. The intro of James Blake saying “Where will you go now, now that you’re done with me?’ just hits in a different way. 21 and Scott did what they do best, and that is a rap over Metro Boomin’s dark production style and turn it into a masterpiece.
Utopia is definitely one of my favorite albums of the year and as soon as I heard the beat of HYAENA, while on super low volume in the middle of a meeting, I knew this was going to be an enjoyable listen through and through. That’s what it was, I never found myself being bored while listening to this album and I ultimately added a good amount of these tracks to my playlist.
