Padding in Pink: Young Thug's Big Budget Filler Album

A pandemic and some change ago, Young Thug catapulted into the mainstream with the release of his first studio album, So Much Fun. Earlier this year, he helmed the second group album for his Young Stoner Life label, Slime Language 2, an understandably scattered but decently entertaining mixtape that emphasized lesser known members more than their godfather. Shortly after, Thug revealed a bubblegum pink Lamborghini with dreads to match and the claim that he'd planted a cherry blossom at least three years ago for his next album, which he referred to as "P*nk."

Only one single released before the album, "Tick Tock." A mildly fun song that achieved its probable goal of trending on the app of almost the same name, but it in no way represents the album. Actually, it isn't even on it. So Much Fun was just in time to close out the summer, and Punk is its lazy, autumnal counterpart.

The album art depicts composites forming the illusion of two Thuggers facing one another, both swathed in pink. The towering figures give the impression that some past era of Thug's sound might mix with the new, or perhaps that the project will bear two warring tones. But the real signifiers of Punk's production style are the true images of Young Thug within the collage – one holding a guitar, the other tossing dice into a pool. It's just another hour of content to be swallowed up by his larger discography full of beats with acoustic guitar chords.

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Thug is, of course, a pioneer of the heavily autotuned, singsong trap ballad as much as he is of squawking adlibs and rapid flows. A guitar-laden soundscape is also territory he's conquered before, most notably on 2017's Beautiful Thugger Girls.

But the sheer amount of down tempo songs here becomes tiring. And for an artist like Thugger, who is a clever lyricist but sometimes difficult to take seriously, the continuous soft crooning of humorous lines can result in a disconnect.

In the opening track, "Die Slow," for example, he lists a series of family troubles - his mother's affair, his father's coma, his mother getting run over by a car then having a stroke in rapid succession, then follows it with the bar "I always knew I wasn't gon' be gay / I had her sendin' pictures to my mom phone when I was like eight."

Thugger's eccentricity is part of his appeal, but despite this moment, the first third of the album is sadly straightforward. There is little genre blending or wild vocal inflections, and in their place runs a steady stream of too-similar beats. Even guest verses from Young Stoner Life family members like Gunna and T-Shyne are forgettable enough to sound like leftovers from Slime Language sessions.

A turning point comes with "Rich N Shit," which features a verse from the late Juice WRLD over a hard hitting Pierre Bourne beat that sounds like a malfunctioning NES. The midsection performs a steady acceleration of BPM, but most crucially has Young Thug laying down some of his more light-footed cadences. On "Scoliosis" (with Lil Double O), Thug delivers an exasperating cadence over flutes and triumphant brass. "Bubbly" (with Drake & Travis Scott) delivers a hookless succession of verses against what sound like factory alarms ran through a flanger, complete with a dreamlike breakdown to wrap it up.

When the album slows back down however, much of the same issues return. The instrumentals are repetitive. The vocals are standard. The only outlier is "Icy Hot" (with Doja Cat), one last plug-in laden offering to the radio before the final crawl.

To put it plainly, Punk is a letdown. It does not invoke its title with any foray into off-the-wall territory, nor does the pink color scheme Thug waited three years to cloak himself in represent flamboyant opulence that could only come with a Warner Music budget. Had it been much shorter, its faults would have been less pronounced.

One has to wonder how the pivot to big label rollouts affects the creative process. But it would be overdramatic to call this album indicative of a fall from grace or a softening of edges — Thug has had duds before. He's still stealing the show on plenty of guest verses. Punk just is not the kind of project that will be cited in the water cooler G.O.A.T. debates. And that’s okay.

[Erick Zepeda is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. More of his work can be found at https://erickalexanderzepeda.wordpress.com/]