From ‘8 Mile’, all the way to ‘Black Panther’, hip hop has been responsible for some of the best soundtracks in film. Atlanta producer ‘Mike Will Made-It’ was the one in charge of creating the soundtrack for the highly anticipated, Rocky franchise sequel, Creed 2. But was it good?
Firstly, what makes a good soundtrack? For me, it either has to tell the story of the film, so if you if you’ve already seen the film, it will be able to conjure up the same feelings within you, that you had when you saw the film in the cinema. Or, if you listen to the soundtrack before the film, like in my case, then it will be able to give you an idea of what the film will be like. For example, what to anticipate, e.g. will it be funny, will it be fast paced, will it be romantic?
What I expected?
My main experience of Mike Will was his work on Rae Sremmurd’s ‘SremmLife’ albums. I liked what I heard, I (for the most part) enjoy their music, I was pleased to see that they were to be featured on this soundtrack multiple times. I was also familiar with his work on Eminem’s ‘Kamikaze’ album. Producing tracks like ‘Greatest’ and ‘Fall’. So, I liked what I heard, and was excited for this soundtrack to drop.
Highlights: My favourite songs were the ones where they were paced a little slower. The slower songs really matched with the calibre and style of the artists on this soundtrack. Mike Will had a knack for creating a sound that was perfect for the artists on them, on the slower, more melodic songs, there didn’t seem like there was a miss-match to any degree. Soon as you heard the instrumental you could already hear in your head, how you thought the rapper was going to approach the beat. This is particularly true with ‘The Mantra’ with Kendrick Lamar, and ‘Shea Butter Baby’ with J. Cole. Mike crafted instrumentals that really complimented their flow and delivery. Other songs I loved were ‘Bless Me – (Demo)’, ‘Fate’ and the sonically beautiful ‘Midnight’ by Tessa Thompson and Gunna. Overall these songs were mixed perfectly and tended to have the ‘catchiest’ qualities.
Low points: Despite this being a soundtrack for a boxing film, I really think a lot of the faster paced songs really fell short. The rappers on them didn’t particularly do anything exciting on the beats, and they weren’t necessarily rappers I’d expect to be able to make these type of songs anyway. ‘We can hit’ was decent, ‘Kill ‘em with success’ had interesting production, Nas and Rick Ross had pretty good chemistry on ‘Check’. However, the significantly bad parts of the soundtrack came towards the end where the story really lost its way. ‘Runnin’ was completely forgettable, ‘Ice Cold’ sort of just passes you by without you realising, and somewhere amongst all that, is the worst song on the tracklist ‘F.I.G.H.T’. On a track like this you wanna be hearing rappers like Tech N9ne, Twista, Busta Rhymes.. However, Quavo, Gucci mane, YG, Eearz, Trouble and Juicy J really struggled. Flows were non-existent and completely killed the song.This song was also responsible for arguably the worst bar of 2018, courtesy of Juicy, “They show me they hate me/ it’s a cold cold world no need for AC”. Please let me know if I am missing something here. Worst part is, ‘F.I.G.H.T’ is the longest song, with an overall run time of 6 MINUTES 31 SECONDS.
None of these songs are terrible (except ‘FI.G.H.T), they just didn’t serve their purpose like the slower, more melodic ones did. It’s just a shame that I never felt any real, heavy-hitting, bold, flows, that would’ve been awesome for a boxing film. Like the song ‘Beast – Southpaw Remix’ on the Southpaw Soundtrack – that song SMACKS.
Overall Thoughts: To conclude, I think this soundtrack was an all round success. Although some songs pulled off much better than others, I can still see myself listening to this in its entirety in the future. To be honest I’m surprised this soundtrack hasn’t got that much hype, given some of the high-profile features. Then again, it hasn’t really been well promoted, it is only a soundtrack after all, so none of the artists have that much at stake. I’m sure a simple Instagram post by Wayne or Kendrick would quickly increase the streams. But that is what it is.
Listening to this soundtrack has definitely given me a feel for what the film is about, quick, aggressive, glamorous, and often gritty. Mike Will should be proud of bringing together some of the best artists around, and making a soundtrack with new, ambitious sounds. Now I should probably go see the movie.
7.5/10
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