"Awaken, My Love!"

I'm more familiar with Donald Glover's work as an actor and television writer/producer/creator than I am with his music. I'm not sure I've listened to this before if I did I don't remember. I enjoyed him on Community, I think his casting as Lando was genius and Atlanta was truly one of the great TV shows of this century. Maybe that's why this feels like a little bit of a disappointment to me. It's not terrible or anything, it actually sounds amazing. I was surprised to learn that he regularly works with Ludwig Göransson who has done so much wonderful soundtrack work in recent years. He and Glover make a great team but a lot of this feels like pastiche. It's well produced r&b and funk but there's something empty about it. I know this is considered a departure musically so maybe if i were more familiar with Glover's discography, pretty much all I can recall is This Is America (and of course that's memorable because of its video) so maybe that unfamiliarity is causing me to miss something here. I don't hate this, I'd add it to a mix for a road trip or a get together but it's kind of forgettable.

Excellent. Funky, spacey, creative and deeply nuanced. A little soft on the back half, but I really enjoyed it. Fave Songs: Baby Boy, Me and Your Mama, Have Some Love, Stand Tall, Redbone, The Night Me and Your Mama Met

Expected hip-hop and got Funkadelic "space funk-rock". Very cool.

Well produced and styled, however it lacks coherence

Per usual for a Gambino album, this is a lush journey with some excellent production, arrangements, and thematics. Personally prefer Internet/Camp for their harder-hitting synth stylings and tongue-in-cheek vibe, but I can't fault Glover for exploring other genres and executing them with perfection.

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Gave it a couple of listens, and must say that it was quite pleasing.

Donald Glover is a formidable talent, his TV shows Atlanta and Mr & Mrs Smith are simply brilliant. Also the single Redbone is arguably one of the songs of the decade. Unfortunately apart from Redbone there wasn't much on this album to excite me, hence it only gets a middling 3 stars from me.

Another childish Gambino album? ffs. It's not bad but I didn't really want to hear it. 3/5.

I've never listened to any of Donald Glover's work, other than the one album that was on the original 1,001 albums list. Like that album, this also surprised me a bit, feeling more like classic R&B than what I would think of as hip hop. 3 stars.

It’s not bad but I didn’t like it.

Fairly unremarkable

Just because you can do something experimental and different, it doesn't mean that you should. I can appreciate the production, but this music leaves my boxes unticked.

Not a fan of Awaken, My Love at all. Often comes across as a really poor effort to be like Prince, without any of the authenticity, has lots of meandering beats and I've always really hated autotuned vocals as a stylistic choice, there's really not much in here for me. It's only really Terrified and Baby Boy I found worth listening to and they probably elevated it to a 2, just.

It’s a 2.5 for me. The first half is edgey funk which I really enjoyed. But unfortunately this fizzled out.

Still obvious talent but not for me this one.

There's no impressive, energizing or motivating rhythm, ...it's just conventionally boring.