Harry
I was very nervous for Chance going into this album for a couple of reasons. Firstly because the singles he release last year were so mediocre. I had been hoping these might have just been a couple of throw-away tracks to keep us all attentive. Secondly because the thought of listening to 77 minutes of Chance content is undoubtedly a daunting task. With his high-intensity, enthusiastic delivery and dense production throughout his works, I would have preferred seeing a 35 minute album which could be jam-packed with all that Chance goodness. Despite these concerns, I was sure Chance’s breadth of talent would push him to deliver.
However this album is completely all over the place. There is no sonic focus and comes across as if he’s trying to imitate every trend under the sun. The worst this is that he doesn’t even do it particularly well. ‘Hot Shower’ is a terrible trap song that sounds like it’s a B-side from a Lil Pump album. Furthermore, everything that made Chance so distinct now don’t come off well in any way. He often sounds like he is mimicking himself on previous albums and comes across as completely inauthentic.
This album is a complete catastrophe. All I can wonder now is how Chance plans to resurrect his career from this.
42/100
Zach
Chance’s ‘debut album’ presents, The Big Day, is without doubt one of the most hotly anticipated albums of 2019. His previous work has catapulted him into stardom, putting a lot of pressure on this release, which I would argue is justified. Chance had to deliver here, to cement himself as a GREAT rapper.
What was great about his previous work was he combined gospel music and feel-good rap to create songs that were musically sound, lyrically interesting and overall created a positive atmosphere.
Unfortunately, Chance has completely abandoned this formula on this record and it is utter trash. Like, awful.
I don’t actually know where to begin, but lets start with the beats. Genuinely what on earth was he thinking? Speaking objectively, the instrumentals flitter between the most generic trap beats, to more soulful hip-hop tracks that are indicative of old-school Chance, even to a House track halfway through the tracklist. While Colouring Book presented a varied yet coherent body of work, by contrast this is slightly all over the place. Speaking subjectively, the instrumentals are comfortably the worst chance has ever used and provide no musical or even sonic interest.
Chance displays his quite sophisticated rapping chops on this project, utilising his signature impressive wordplay and intricate syllabic tools to create some decent bars. However, it’s a shame all of these are undermined by the worst song of all time, Hot Shower.
Another aspect of this album that I think let’s it down significantly is the hooks. Previous Chance has seamlessly merged catchy hooks with skilfully crafted bars, however I don’t think there was one hook that stuck in my mind, and as a result each and every song feels incomplete and underwhelming. If I were a radio station I would not know which song to play on the radio, as there is not a song that sticks out as sounding like a single at all, and also because they’re all really bad songs.
Furthermore, at 1hr 17mins, this album is incredibly long, and with the ‘All Filler No Killer’ shape that this record has taken, it really, really drags on.
Perhaps I am being too harsh, perhaps the expectation of a great album has caused it, but either way I am bitterly disappointed by The Big Day, and I will be very surprised if another album upsets me as much as this has for the rest of 2019.
40/100
Spazzy McGee 