The Jack Harlow Experiment Has Failed

this video is brought to you by keeps.com stay tuned to find out more like i'm listening to the songs and i'm like he doesn't seem like a polished pro yet which is one of those things where like i'm wondering if the album came too quick and by the way i know the label had to put out an album because he's too hot but bro like even hearing him kind of you know keep up with drake i feel like he's getting his legs under in him under him and i feel like this album kind of deflated the balloon then added to it in an industry where record labels trading your excitement for cold hard cash hype can be dangerous and while building hype is a necessary evil of the music industry the problem arises when you can't live up to it and at the moment this is a lesson that jack harlow is learning the hard way slated for release in may come home the kids miss you was set to be jack harlow's coronation as pop rap's next golden boy but somehow someway what should have been his victory lap feels like more of a diversion or worse a bonafide flop built up to be one of the biggest musical events of the year this project was supposed to be his take care his bourne center or perhaps even his graduation instead it's underwhelmed and underperformed and with that harlow's status as next up has taken considerable but not quite irreparable damage but to make sense of what the album's lukewarm reception really means we need to consider his come up and how it tied into the rollout of the project a rapper since his adolescence come home the kids miss you seemed like a fairy tale story and was built up in promo appearances as the eventual payoff of a lengthy grind that really picked up steam when he was signed to dj drama's generation now at the time i wasn't surprised i mean you always look back and it's like when you look at pictures of yourself in middle school like you just you're like ugh that could have been so much better but i always had something raw i mean when i was 12 years old i had something you know there's some there's something there i just salute him and everyone that's been supporting me for the longest foreseeing seeing the vision after kicking the rollout off with nailtech harlow stock would experience another organic increase when he received props from none other than kanye west labelled as top 5 right now by kanye it wouldn't take long till he was linking up with yay for the sessions for the ill-fated donda 2. after setting the world to light with a tick-tock snippet the eventual release of the fergie sampling first class felt like a landmark moment for harlow and before long it made its ascent to the top of the charts in doing so it marked the first time that he'd made it to the summit of pop music on his own and to say that it put some wind in his sails would be an understatement no i feel lucky i feel blessed and you got it quick you didn't have to put 40 albums out before you got that yeah i mean i'm 10 years in i've been wanting it for 10. and working towards it for 10. i haven't been in the industry for 10. you know how many years you said he was in the game before he had a number one i believe it was empire state you know it's my second number one god's blessing right now his timing is good fortune and there's hard work and a lot of thought and care put in the music while it was all going so well but it felt like a note perfect rollout was dealt a major blow when churchill downs his first ever collab with his personal go candidate drake leaked oh i hurt my feelings i'm really tired about leaks i've i don't bounce my music so i haven't had leaks in the house especially because that's the idol in my i wanted to control that moment but it's destiny what did what did drizzy say about it he was sad too he kind of you know nudged me like hey don't trip rattled but by no means deterred jack carried on with the promotional push and promised the most complete representation of him as an artist to date you'll be able to hear a big difference between this one and the last one because i'm so involved in the production and the arrangements and the sound selection the chord choices i just had my hands all over this i think i was picking some beats out of packs on the last project and that would be the finished product this time everything was cooked from scratch i wrote so many of the records while the beat was being made in front of me everything kind of came from this ground up situation i one time read like the beatles when they got to rubber soul like they just got so much more hands-on i don't know if i'm in that space yet but i'm definitely in a space where i'm open-minded and anything can happen to a song at the same time he was bolstered by the industry on an industrial scale and alongside lil dirk remarking that told jack harlow a couple days ago he gonna do 200 000 first week he also received the highest degree of praise that an artist can hope for from one of the legends assembled on the project this is history i love everything we did but this one yet somehow all of this external enthusiasm and personal ownership of the project hasn't translated to an outstanding record and in some quarters it was seen as actively unimaginative and a far cry from the major moment that had been billed as for some odd reason people immediately want to throw the drake clone or the drake look-alike on jack harlow simply because he makes what i would consider boy music alright so i want to take a quick break to thank our friends at keeps.com for anyone that's endured about it with thinning or receding hair you know that it could be a real uphill battle even if it hasn't affected you as of yet two out of three guys will experience some form of male pattern baldness by the time they're 35 but rather than waiting for that to happen the best way to prevent that is by getting ahead of the problem keep specializes in doing exactly that safeguarding the hair that you do have and in some cases promoting growth 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comparison is just downright disrespectful it's apparent when we hear a track like churchill downs or even after adding a couple of additional bars to his verse the gap between him and drake is so big that you need the hubble space telescope to cover the distance it's rare when the song that pops is your best song but in jack harlow's case it's actually true what's poppin is literally the best thing i've ever heard from him and even that song is me every album since 18 has just been a reskin with the exception of a few tracks off of that's what they all say everything that this album is is exactly what jack has been making you can say y'all don't understand what happens when an artist has to go pop he's never had to go pop he's been pop but while shaun c has had a well-documented distaste for harlow even some of the outlets that had thrown their weight behind him were left similarly unmoved the record doesn't feature a bunch of seminal tracks read the nme review instead packing filler between his knockout singles such as first class you find a gem or two here and there but this collection's longevity is questionable shockingly the review of his latest project closely mirrors what pitchfork was saying about 2019's confetti with alfonso pierre writing that his music has no identity but he has a natural charm and energy that helps you overlook the fact that you've heard countless albums like this before just by different names as such it suggests that his artistic progression has reached a crossroads that he seems unsure of how to escape on top of his decision to pen a lustful ode to a pop star not landing exactly how he intended and the world feeling like he was completely outshone by drake and justin timberlake on churchill downs and parent trap respectively what will send alarm bells for the label is that this won't be the crowning moment in which he assets himself as a man with the number one album as per the most recent reports harlow was earmarked for 110 to 135 000 sales a downgrade from the previous estimates of 180 000 to 200 000 meanwhile hits daily double calculates that the latest from bad bunny is estimated to open with 235 to 260 000 sales facing the public indignity of an album that was so relentlessly gassed up falling short dj academics draws a clear parallel between the quality of the album and the quantity of its sales as when the first criteria isn't met it can have a knock-on effect the 180 comes from atlantic so atlantic is like oh yeah we got him pegged for 180 based on the sales from this based on whatever based on the love the dsps don't give his label thought he was going to 180. his label told the bigger conglomerate they're gonna do 180. this is what is a good thing about music because every prediction meets the people and it meets the best promotion ever word of mouth you know future's real projection was like 170 180 right you know what future ended up doing 227 why people loved a lot of the songs and they realized how much they missed future this jack harlow projection is the same way the label projected he was going to do 180. that 180s turned into 120 130. how are you losing 50k sales in the first week is because by and large most of the conversation about jack harlow's album is that it's mid you're not going to do 180 if people ain't rocking with it jack hall is about to sell 50 000 under what he was projected before his album went out because he didn't deliver courtesy of this misfire harlow for the first time in his career has had to falter in full view of the public where his early career was low stakes and intended to simply entertain his classmates he's on a much bigger stage now and with everything he's achieved in recent years and the cult of personality that he commands he should be reaping the rewards of that 10 plus year journey instead he finds himself in a quandary where the headline making charm that he displays in his everyday life is absent from his projects instead he falls afoul to the same traps that many commercially minded stars do and that he sidelines an original flavor in favor of widespread appeal and rather than delivering timeless tracks the album seems as though we were engineered with spotify playlists in mind slipping seamlessly between other tracks on the charts but while there's plenty of rappers that create with this intention including to some degree his mentor and drake the real recurring threat in the criticism of his latest project is the lack of a distinct identity beyond the same old bars and recycled flows because if he ever wants to be seen as a great this is something that he's got to address granted this doesn't mean that all is lost despite the fact that he's been rapping for years at this point it may well be teething problems after all the temptation to emulate your heroes rather than expanding on what they do is something that all of the greats past and present have to deal with not least of all j cole i'm such a huge eminem fan and especially from from his first three albums i was like all the way in you know what i mean i'm still all the way in because he's still amazing uh my first song i ever made was literally just biting eminem and knives if you go listen you would hear both influences and i feel like when you when you start rapping in the beginning you really just take all your influences and and you just rap like them now left to face accusations that he essentially turned in a drake album that misplaced the depth or penmanship that makes drizzy's albums compelling it's clear that the next time he drops it'll have to be with a style of his own in tow despite the fact that he hit a pothole on the road to superstardom one thing which harlow still has in his favor is that he's easy to root for a true student of hip-hop who's been working towards his dream for a decade jack recently tweeted that life lately has been a never-ending dream come true and considering that all signs point to him being a genuinely nice person it's heartening to hear him experience that with a genre that's often defined by conflict but with that said being pleasant isn't enough to sustain a career at the top and if he ever wants to be mentioned in the same vein as the rappers he admires or even hopes to be here in five years then he has to go back to the drawing board and produce something in which his personality translates into the project as otherwise he's gonna be stranded at his current stature in the game until he fizzles out and in the words of anthony fantano so yeah again i think if this record shows anything it's that uh jack doesn't really have too much artistically speaking long game right now you know again good in short bursts but when we hear him try to really go the distance all he ends up doing is showing us just how little he has to say i'm feeling a light to decent three on this one

Channel: HipHopMadness

Views: 820,193

Keywords: Jack Harlow, Harlow Jack, jack Harlow first class, first class, jack harlow interview, jack harlow what’s poppin, new jack harlow, jack harlow whats poppin, jack harlow tyler herro, jack harlow lyrics, first class jack harlow, jack harlow confetti, jack harlow album, whats poppin, tyler herro, jack harlow freestyle, hiphopmadness, hip hop madness, jack harlow album review, hiphopmadness jack harlow, come home the kids miss you

Id: 5r0pOJL1Hk0

Length: 11min 48sec (708 seconds)

Published: Thu May 19 2022