Logic: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Album Review

Logic is back already with his latest album 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind', with 3 hard singles leading up to this album I had high expectations going in, but was it actually good?

5 Minute Read

One thing we can definitely say about Logic is that his work rate over the last few years has been exceptional. Since his 2017 hit album Everybody, he released a mixtape Bobby Tarentino II, Young Sinatra IV, released a soundtrack to his number 1 book Supermarket and now this: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (COADM). 

Having a good work rate is obviously something that is necessary if you ever want to release music on a fairly consistent basis, however, it can often spill over into the quality of the music in a negative way. For example, if you are constantly releasing new music, it kind of de-values it a bit and makes the listeners less interested. Plus, 3 albums, 1 mixtape and a soundtrack in 3 years, how much of your perspective on anything is going to change between projects, again making your music less interesting. 

Anyway, on COADM the beats were really nice. They were all varied enough to keep songs from sounding too similar but they were all very coherent to one another, none of them seemed out of place (except maybe Don't Be Afraid to be Different which had an 80's kind of feel), and the pacing of the beats really suited the parts of the album that they were on. One thing I can say about the album is that the pacing and tempo was really on point, for an album just short of an hour it plays fairly quickly and smoothly. Many of the beats contained big bass 808's and were thick and layered, and some were more minimalist leaving Logic a bit more to do on the instrumental. 

The features on COADM were a bit hit and miss. I was pretty excited for all the features, however, Wiz Khalifa, Gucci Mane and G-Eazy's came across as token efforts, they were so bland, I actually like the songs they feature on respectively, but they had such forgettable verses with basic deliveries and flows. I feel as though they let Logic down a bit to be honest, coming with absolute filler. Will Smith's verse was kinda good, even though it had an awful Fresh Prince reference at the start, even for Will Smith's standards this verse was ridiculously cheesy.

YBN Cordae and Eminem both actually added something to the songs they featured on, Mama/Show Love and Homicide respectively. YBN Cordae goes absolutely HAM on the rhyme schemes and his flow is just filthy, and Eminem picks up nicely with his delivery and tone that he brought on Kamikaze.

This album did grow on me with every listen, most songs are enjoyable, so why am I not getting the same feelings I had when listening to earlier Logic projects such as Under Pressure and Bobby Tarantino? The things I loved about those early projects were his ability to ride beats like no one else, his ability to use his flows and his voice in a way it acts as an instrument itself adding something to the beat and his attitude of just someone who loves hip hop, but also wants to prove that he can out-rap anyone. On COADM all of that is far and few inbetween.

Instead this album is just littered with cringe-worthy, braggy, repetitive lines about being rich and him "flexing" on his haters. That optimistic attitude he had on Under Pressure just seems to have completely faded and instead he's pissed off, but the content of this album is so unfocused it's hard to tell who he is actually annoyed at. I'm not sure, I think it's social media trolls or it might be mumble rappers, he never really convinces the listener to ever see things from his perspective anyway. 

And oh my days, some of the cadences he uses are so obviously copied from Drake, but that's not the worst bit of biting he does on this album. Go to 0:45-1:03 on the song Icy and tell me that doesn't sound exactly like J Cole! It's frustrating because Logic is a good rapper just doing what he does best, fast-paced, machine gun flows, he doesn't need to bite other rappers styles and then do them much worse than they actually do them. It happened numerous times throughout the album, that example on Icy was just the first one that came to my head because I remember at the time thinking "Fuck I didn't know J Cole had a feature". 

If you compare this to Tyler, The Creator who's new album Igor came out last week it is crazy. Even though I'm not feeling every song on Igor I can at least respect the fact that it is something original and unique and straight from the mind of Tyler himself.

What's crazy is despite my many criticisms I do like this album and will return to the better tracks. Some were just completely forgettable, after ample listens I still couldn't tell you what Out Of Sight or Pardon My Ego sound like. However, Homicide, Mama/Show Love, Icy, Still Ballin', Limitless and Keanu Reaves all still bang, even though they're not quite reaching the heights of older Logic projects. 

I just think Logic needs some time off now, maybe just re-evaluate where he is in the game and where he wants to go, it does seem like he is running out of creative lyrics and for someone with the technical ability of his that is a real shame. Hopefully he'll back maybe in a couple of years with a project that will put him back towards the top-end of the scene.

6/10