The Best Song on Travis Scott’s New Album Astroworld Is…
It can seem like Travis Scott’s mission as an artist is to comment on artifice or to blaze a new path within hip-hop or just to wile the hell out. But I think that’s all wrong. I think Travis Scott’s mission as an artist is to defy the laws of physics.
Take gravity: Scott, by his own admission, flies and floats, but does not fall. And sure, that’s something that any rapper might boast. But Scott is constantly providing proof. Watch him perform: The 26-year-old Houston MC and producer frequently jumps off stages and balconies, always seeming to land six feet above the ground.
Or better yet, take the planetary system. With today’s release of his third studio album, Astroworld, it’s as if Scott took William Herschel and Friedrich Bessel’s observation that the sun isn’t quite at the center of the universe and set out to prove that, no, he is.
The album, named after a closed Houston amusement park that Scott frequented growing up, is 17 songs long, and features two or three times that number of hip-hop heavyweights. There’s Frank Ocean, Drake, Swae Lee and Juicy J—and that’s just within the first three songs (not to mention a fire Beastie Boys sample, on the second track, “Carousel”). Together, his guests serve him.
If you want to get cute and imagine each song as a ride, well, suffice to say Astroworld is packed with its share of Kingda Ka’s and Twisted Cyclones. Peaks are constantly eclipsed. Tracks twist and turn, often bucking momentum. And there are creative surprises around every bend: Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker busts out a few riffs, James Blake croons, Stevie Wonder helms the harmonica, even John Mayer gets in on the action. Astroworld is Scott’s Pet Sounds—thankfully, sans baa’s and winnies.
Under the direction of a lesser architect, the album might feel like hollow thrills or a self-indulgent epic. But Scott is faithful to the album format, weaving a semi-continuous narrative about the ups and downs in his life and relationship. And like his musical mentor Kanye West, Scott is deft at using all of his resources lightly, to maximum effect. On “Who? What?,” Quavo and Takeoff are mostly reverb. On “No Bystanders,” Sheck Wes is a crunk chorus. Rather than being pure fun, Astroworld can often feel woozy and dark. Is the amusement park haunted, or is it the drugs?
The album has a lot of highlights, but its most important song is perhaps its least impressive. Astroworld’s closer, “Coffee Bean,” stands out amongst the rest for being slow, bare, and pensive. On it, Scott simulates the feeling at the end of a day at an amusement park. The sun is down, he’s all alone, the drugs have worn off, and he’s lost in his thoughts. He contemplates whether his in-laws, the Kardashian family, dislike him because he’s black (“Your family told you I'm a bad move/ Plus I'm already a black dude”) and he cops to struggles beneath the surface (“I've been going through a lot behind this glass tint”). A string section hammers home the vulnerable mood. But what’s most alluring about “Coffee Bean” is that it’s the rare moment where Scott’s perpetual motion is interrupted. He’s not flying or floating, or even falling. He’s already fallen, just trying to get back up.
