Today I'm bringing another "mainstream" album review with the new Big Sean album, Hall of Fame. As a whole, I really don't have much of a problem with this guy. I actually really liked his debut studio release from 2011, Finally Famous. The album, in my opinion, was like poppy radio hip hop done correctly. The songs were very catchy and Sean had a lot of entertaining punchlines. Since then, though, I have become a lot less of a Big Sean fan. His mixtape, Detroit, didn't do much for me and all his guest verses have been very corny or just dumb. Therefore, I was really not excited for this album. I still gave it a try because of how much I liked Finally Famous.
The first track, Nothing is Stopping You, was what I assumed to be Big Sean's "personal" track. Sean doesn't have much of an amazing story, so this track just came off boring from a rapping standpoint. The instrumental was alright though, and had my head bopping until Sean started rapping, of course. The second song, Fire, had a somewhat inspiring and catchy beat, and Sean had a much better flow. I still can't get past how annoying this guy's voice is now, though. With that being said, Fire was a pretty solid track. Tracks similar to Fire were all over this album. By that I mean songs with pretty good beats that I enjoyed, but were ruined by Big Sean's voice and delivery. Some tracks like this were You Don't Know, Sierra Leone, World Ablaze, and All Figured Out.
There were, surprisingly, a couple songs I really enjoyed. For one, MILF was without a doubt my favorite song on Hall of Fame. I wasn't bothered by Sean on the track, the hook was excellent and funny, and Nicki Minaj was so over-the-top ridiculous that it was great. Juicy J also totally killed it at the end with a great verse. Another good song was First Chain. Even though Sean was totally killed by Nas and Kid Cudi, he was still decent. This song definitely impressed me with the instrumental and the two features. Beware was the last song I enjoyed. The hook was undeniably catchy as hell and the track had a pretty cool vibe to it. Lil Wayne also didn't bother me at all, as he fit the song pretty well.
There were a handful of tracks here that were just awful. Toyota Music was just boring and Sean sounded like he wasn't even trying. Mona Lisa just had a bad hook that I found very annoying and a pretty poor instrumental. Ashley just came off like a very generic love song that didn't have much to offer and Sean delivering some bad verses. Those were pretty bad, but one of the worst tracks I have heard literrally all year was 10 2 10. Big Sean has no reason to be yelling for the entire track, as the hook was very corny and his verses were horrible. Sean's voice is just too high and nasally to do a yelling track like this. This song was just hard to listen to.
HALL OF FAME WRAP UP
+Some great instrumentals
+Good feature verses
+Production sounded polished and smooth
-Big Sean's voice is incredibly annoying
-He has a really bad flow and never sounds comfortable on a track
-Some really, really, corny hooks
-Full of stupid punchlines
-everything was a step down from Finally Famous
Best: MILF, Beware, First Chain
Worst: 10 2 10
Big Sean- Hall of Fame
4.5/10
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