Hyped up. Confused. Almost floating.

These are just a couple of the feelings fans experience when listening to a Playboi Carti album. From his near angelic melodies to his large vocal variety, Carti offers something new with each project and song.

After an over four-year wait since his last release, Carti released “MUSIC” on March 14. This is Carti’s third studio album, which has 30 tracks and a 77-minute runtime.

With such a long wait since his last album, expectations were high going into this. Unfortunately, it is a little underwhelming.

New Deep Voice

Playboi Carti has never been afraid to experiment with his style.

In his second studio album, “Whole Lotta Red,” Carti used darker, almost punk-like beats to go with his lighter voice.

On “MUSIC,” Carti played fully into this punk style, rapping with a deeper voice to accompany hard hitting beats.

Songs like “EVIL J0RDAN” and “TOXIC” showcase this new choice.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of this new vocal range. I appreciated the change to a darker style of sound from “Whole Lotta Red,” but enjoyed that he opted for his normal vocal style. Carti went away from his lighter voice almost completely in this album, which may turn away some fans.

Features Take Over

Carti enlisted the help of some of rap’s best artists — Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Uzi Vert and Future — multiple times in the album.

For whatever reason, Carti is barely heard on many of these songs featuring these artists.

While these are great artists, they almost take over the whole song making Carti just a feature on his own album.

Future takes over on “TRIM” and Travis Scott leads on “PHILLY.”

The song “WE NEED ALL DA VIBES,” featuring Young Thug and Ty Dolla $ign, sounds straight off of Thug’s 2019 album “So Much Fun.” The song isn’t what you normally hear from Carti and it doesn’t help that he only comes on in the end for around 20 seconds.

“TWIN TRIM” featuring Lil Uzi Vert had the opportunity to be the best song on the album. Funny enough, Carti is nowhere to be found on the track.

Songs Too Short

Speaking of “TWIN TRIM,” the song has a runtime of just one minute and 35 seconds. To make things worse, there’s a 40 second intro before Uzi even starts rapping.

While the upbeat melody and Uzi’s flow have the ability to combine for a classic, it’s more of a snippet at the length it is.

Too many songs on this album are under two minutes long, bringing quantity over quality.

The other song featuring Uzi, titled “JUMPIN,” is just one minute and 33 seconds long. In this song Carti is involved, but the song isn’t long enough to make much of an impact on anyone’s rotation.

Metro Boomin produced “RADAR” and brings his classic villainous beats we’ve gotten used to over the past couple of years. Carti mixes between his light and dark voice but only gets one minute and 47 seconds to do so.

So many short songs lead me to think they were just throwaways. I can only hope a full version of some of these songs, “TWIN TRIM” especially, get released but that may be wishful thinking.

Not All Bad

“MUSIC” has a couple songs made for concert mosh pits or for possible additions to a workout playlist.

“DIS 1 GOT IT” has a piano melody with Carti rapping about feeling invincible. “WALK” sounds like something from Metro Boomin with another villainous beat. “HBA” has Carti rage-rapping about his many critics.

Songs like “I SEEEEEE YOU BABY” and “OLYMPIAN” remind me of songs from “Whole Lotta Red.” An interesting beat with Carti’s light voice leading the way almost like “Slay3r” from his last album.

Arguably the best song on the album, “RATHER LIE,” gives you that feeling of floating, much like “Location” did on the self-titled mixtape or “Foreign” on “Die Lit.”

After the success of The Weeknd’s single that featured Playboi Carti, “Timeless,” the two linked up for another song together.

Carti raps over an angelic melody with his patented light voice. But he does show off his range throughout the song, switching between the deep and more singer voice. The Weeknd adds with singing the main chorus.

Final Thoughts

This album is definitely not Carti’s best work.

Carti took the backseat on the songs featuring other artists too often, making it seem that the song shouldn’t even be on his own album.

The short songs also gave this project an unfinished feel. Carti has been known to make some short songs, but barely cracking two minutes even with an intro isn’t good.

If you’re a fan of artists that Carti has taken under his wing, like Ken Carson or Destroy Lonely, this album may be right up your alley with its strong beats and Carti’s punk feel.

If you’re a fan of “old” Carti, you will probably be disappointed at first. Waiting four years for this definitely feels underwhelming.

“MUSIC” is nowhere near the same sound as “Die Lit” but there are some similarities, however small they may be. For now, I would put this as the worst album of his three.

“Whole Lotta Red” seemed very “out there” when it came out in 2020. It had a feel that many Playboi Carti fans were not used to. But after some time, fans came around, myself included.

I think “MUSIC” just needs time for people to appreciate it.