The Fool is the fifth solo studio album by the Swedish rapper Bladee. A surprise album, it was released on 28 May 2021, through Year0001. The album was produced by Lusi with contributions from a variety of record producers. The Fool is a pop rap album that scales back and softens the sounds used in Bladee's previous album, Good Luck (2020) with Mechatok. Using Auto-Tuned vocals, the album explores themes of love, illusions, and existentialism. Its title is a reference to the tarot card of the same name and extends as a metaphor into the album itself. Fellow Drain Gang member Thaiboy Digital is featured on the track "Inspiration Comes". The Fool was considered one of the best albums of the year by The Fader and Dazed, and received further approval from Pitchfork and laut.de.
The Fool is a rather generic rap/pop album by Swedish rapper Bladee. It is over-produced an is full of auto-tune. All tracks sound simular and as a whole it's just boring.
Hanging on to the threads of my 20s, but now fully ready to accept old head status if listening to this sterile, mumbling-ass horseshit is what's necessary to stay current.
Generic. This sounds like a 1000 other things out there. Nothing notable about it.
My personal rating: 3/5
My rating relative to the list: 3/5
Should this have been included on the original list? No.
I can only assume that Bladee is pronounced 'Bladdy', as in, 'This is bladdy rubbish!'.
It's a rare example of where I'm very grateful for autotune, because it means that Skynet is putting some effort into making this "not monotone". More than can be said for the actual human behind it.
Musically, I'm not sure I can describe this as anything other than skittish wodges of bass, accompanied by some soaring synths. It's unimaginative, and just leads me to wonder who on earth put this together.
There's been a couple of reviews out there about this being what music is now, and I fundamentally disagree. Another compared it to 100 Gecs and I absolutely disagree with that too. 100 Gecs may use heavy autotune, but their stuff is a grab bag of fun. This is a bag of warm flatulence.
At least it's only just over half an hour long.
I vaguely know about Drain Gang, but I've never bothered to check out any of their music.
Was expecting something like Viper or some real wacky experimental shit like that, but this just sounded like really mumbly boring nothingness to me. Not for me.