Nav’s Reckless: NOT GOOD

[Intro: Anthony Fantano]
Let's go. Let's go! Ahhh! Ahh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! (explosions)

[Review Part 1: Anthony Fantano]
This is Reckless, the latest album from Toronto rapper and singer and also producer Nav - someone who's been having a pretty big last couple of years, with his debut album landing on the Weeknd's XO label. He also had a follow-up record last year, a collaborative effort with none other than Metro Boomin, and now he's just staying on that prolific progression with this latest project over here, Reckless.

With Nav's last album, I didn't even really give it a big, formal review becausе it just seemed like the most tеdious, generic, off-brand, lifeless, personality-devoid, R&B-pop-rap-auto-croon record of the year. And even though I felt like this album was severely lacking in terms of anything that would make it interesting to listen to, I kind of chalked up some of its issues to, hey, maybe Nav is just kind of starting out here and it's going to take him a little bit to get his footing, find his niche, find his sound. I mean, in this more melodic, more cloudy, more moody brand of rap and R&B, I didn't necessarily expect that to be the case because it seems like a lot of artists benefit from just being as generic and washed-out as possible in this trend, but surely Nav going forward would have to try to drum up something in the way of personality on the next record, right?

No! Absolutely no! That's not what happens here! At all! In fact, I feel like this album is even more sanitary and less, even less human than his last album!

(laughter) I can't even describe it! I feel like this record, I feel like this album comes out of a simulation! If I took a hundred records that sound just like this and fed them into a computer and then said "Computer, make an album that sounds exactly like this!", I feel like Nav's Reckless would be the record that pops out. That would be the CD it burns and comes out of the tray.

Everything about this record sounds so inhuman and robotic. I can't tell what exactly it is about his voice, maybe it's the way that he repeats his flows so flatly and so tediously every single bar, with very little in the way of any changes and emotional delivery or inflection. It just sounds like the way a robot would rap. Never veering out of one single delivery. Always delivering things the same exact way. Showing no alterations in speech patterns whatsoever.

Yeah, I just don't feel like I'm hearing the voice of a human being after a while. It just gets really, really numbing to the mind. I don't know. This album just really makes me afraid. It makes me afraid that the cyborgs are now living amongst us and they're landing record contracts, and before you know it they're just gonna be dominating every aspect of our lives.

And I don't want to give this impression that his voice sounds the way it does just because the auto-tune makes it sound a little digital. Certainly, it kind of lends credibility to that, but it's really that his voice just kind of sounds like the equivalency of having a very...expressionless...look...on your face.

Girl, I'm calling your house 'cause I'm poppin'
My life will never be the same
But I'm scared I'm never gonna change
I've been going down the wrong path
And I'm ignoring the signs
I'm having trouble organizing the thoughts in my mind

And it's not just his voice, it's not just his delivery, it's not just the auto-tune, all of which pretty much remains the same across the entirety of this project to the point where it all just kind of blends together into this endless disgusting deja vu. But also it's Nav's lyrics and his word choice that I think contributes to this feeling that I have that this album is somehow computer-generated, because I feel like if you took the entirety of all of the pop-rap lyrics of 2017 and punched them into some kind of algorithm, for sure you could come together with verses like this. The rhyme schemes on this thing are so basic it's hard to listen to.

I could sell tags to a shirt
Asking me if you got tickets for sure
I don't know, for sure
You just got hit with the curve
I didn't know that girl is yours
She said she don't got a boyfriend, but sure
I grabbed her ass and she called me a perv...what?

Look, I'm not trying to run your rap career or anything, but bragging about unconsensually grabbing women's asses in 2018, it's probably not a very good look. Not going to get too far in the entertainment industry with that one.

I grabbed her ass so she called me a perv
Opened her legs so I had to insert
Make my own beats and I write my own words...

You know, I was just so amazed by the content of what was delivered on this song, I was like, "This cannot, this cannot be the..." (laughter) "This cannot be conceived by one man! Surely it is a GOD telling him to say these things! Surely it's Zeus himself producing these beats!"

[Sample: Nav]
I didn't know that girl is yours
Said that she don't got no boyfriend, but sure
I grabbed her ass and she called me a perv
Opened her legs so I had to insert
Make my own beats and I write my own words

[Review Part 2: Anthony Fantano]
Yeah, I mean, damn, that production, it's, it's fire. I mean, the piano chords, the synth lead, the clap, the rattling hi-hats, the kick drum, I mean, who would have thought of that.

(slapping himself in the face) Ugh, I'm slapping myself because I don't want to talk about this any more, but I feel like there's still more to say. The pain. The pain.

Believe me when I say that everything that's absolutely awful about a single track on this record pretty much runs throughout every track on this record. I feel like some of the artists featured on this thing, like Quavo and Lil Uzi Vert and Travis Scott, are almost conscious of how mediocre this project is going to be, so they do their best to try to just blend in with it so they don't stand out, so when they do pop up, it doesn't actually grab your attention, you're like "What, what...what's Travis doing on this?"

So yeah, while the vocals, the singing, the lyrics, the production, it's consistently bland - so bland it should really be an insult to anybody who chooses to listen to this record - but also I feel like there are moments here lyrically that are a bit of a personal embarrassment for him, or at least they should be. Like the song "Just Happened", I mean, pretty much every bar on this thing reads to me as like, very sad bitter boyfriend, like you're super successful now from what you say and whatever this person or whoever this person is that you used to be with you should pretty much be over whatever you had together by now, but instead you're just kind of going on and on like:

I just wanna hear you say you miss me
I know it hurts you every time you diss me
When I'm fucked up you're the one I'm always hitting
When I lost you I feel like I lost my kidneys - LIKE I LOST MY KIDNEYS! The demise of our relationship has resulted in me going to regular dialysis treatments!

There are moments here on the song where it seems like he's trying to make it clear to this person that he's putting in the effort to get them back, but then simultaneously it seems like he's saying things to try to get this person pissed at him, to make them think that he doesn't want them back? It just seems like he doesn't know what he wants. What do you want? What is the purpose for this song? What are you trying to convey? What are you trying to say? Why are we here? What are we doing? What is life? What is love? Baby, don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more.

Fucking bitch after bitch, got a sickness, I'm sick
I know your man isn't shit, I got his car on my wrist
Don't give any of these girls a kiss, most likely I hit it and quit
You the only one that I miss?

I know often there's a conversation about how rap lyrics have really kind of devolved into utter trash these days, but more often than not I feel like that change and that progression has occurred in order to emphasize other ideas, other artistic choices, other aesthetics. Hey, maybe a certain artist's delivery is a bit more amplified or aggressive, so their lyrics are a bit more simplistic to kind of give the song a sense of bluntness, directness. Or maybe a particular artist is trying to convey something that's really catchy and straightforward, trying to put together a bit of an earworm. Or be funny, or just be really in your face, or just be something. Something at all. Convey something.

The simplicity of Nav's lyrics don't seem to come by way of some sort of emotion or idea or concept, or hey, let's be really experimental, or minimal. It just seems like things on this record are simple because he's simple. There's just not really nothing on this album that strikes me as having a whole lot of forethought to it. Also, aren't records that are typically this spacey and dark and cloudy and auto-tuned and slowed down, these blends of trap rap and R&B - aren't they supposed to be particularly moody or sad or depressed or dark or something? I mean, not that those emotions have to be conveyed, but I just feel like in place of that, Nav really kind of conveys very little in the way of any emotion at all.

I wouldn't say this album is particularly moody, I wouldn't say it's particularly upbeat, I wouldn't really say it's particularly anything. That's kind of the thing with this record - it's scary in a way because I feel like I'm listening deeply into a hollow abyss. Really, truly, the void of something. It's like the auto-crooned equivalent of a black hole. I feel like I'm listening to music, but it's like, almost every aspect of this album is trying as hard as it can to not stand out in any way, shape, or form. It's almost like it wants to disappear into the background, desperately. Absolutely nothing about this album commands attention or respect.

Unfortunately, for a good part of this decade, a lot of albums in this style have been trending toward a more generic sound, a more homogenized sound, and I feel like finally now we've reached peak homogenization in these moody trap-R&B blends. This is it. You can't get more generic than this in this particular genre. This is the peak. I can't envision from here, unless Nav next comes out with a triple album, someone conceiving of a more cliched sound in this particular trend. So this should be absolutely it. If being generic is a competition, Nav has won. First place. Gold medal. I'm sorry, I know you want every girl in Toronto totally in love with you, but you're just going to have to find another way to rip off The Weeknd, okay?

Yeah, this Nav album...it's not good.

[Outro: Anthony Fantano]
--sition. Have you given this album a listen? Did you love it, did you hate it? What would you rate it? You're the best, you're the best. What should I review next? Hit the like if you like, please subscribe and please don't cry. Hit the bell as well. Over here next to my head is another video you can check out. Hit that up, or the link to subscribe to the channel. Anthony Fantano, forever!