?

the take

I remember the day I first listened to this within a week this came out. Though I enjoyed it as a whole, I wasn't too keen on returning to it anytime soon. Fast forward five years later, and I'm finally giving it another chance to see if my initial opinion is still valid. Before I continue, R.I.P. XXXTENTACION. Bro didn't deserve to die the way he did. Fly high. 🕊️ What I've always liked about X was how artistically multidimensional he was. He can both rap and sing (the latter to the best of his ability) over different kinds of beats. Before, he had specific projects have their own respective musical themes (trap metal, full-on rock, boom bap, etc.); with "?", X manages to cram almost every style he's known for using into one project. And that's where I think that this project suffers. I don't really mind popular mainstream fan favorites like "SAD!" and "Moonlight" all too much, but if you were to ask me, I'd redirect you to others that's more my cup of tea. As a true hip-hop head to the core, the Joey Bada$$-assisted "infinity (888)" has always been one of my favorites, having the two spitting over the boom bap production that sounds like near-literal perfection to me. In hindsight, there are a lot of high quality songs I can run back, such as "Floor 555", "schizophrenia" and "i don't even speak spanish lol", to name a few. It's just that the highs aren't as memorable as the lows were for me. I can probably live without "$$$" and "Pain = BESTFRIEND"... but then, I remembered that X was catering to everyone: the SoundCloud day ones, the ones that came after his "17" album (like me, but lean more toward his SoundCloud bangers), and the mainstream fans he was accumulating around this time. "?" finds XXXTENTACION just having fun experimenting with whichever sound he feels comfortable in. It's a mixed bag for me, but a part of me feels like this could be a great starting point for X's music... if you go through his discography backwards.