Lil Uzi Vert released his third studio album, Pink Tape, on June 30, 2023. Last year, Uzi released his hit single “Just Wanna Rock,” which gave fans high expectations for this album. Fans were inevitably going to compare this new album to his last album, Eternal Atake, which was released three years ago in 2020. 

A main concern with “Pink Tape” was the length of the album. A recent trend in music is that artists have been releasing albums that seem to focus more on quantity over quality, which usually results in poor albums. 

Despite fans’ concerns about the album, it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. This was the first rap album to reach number one in 2023, the last one being Metro Boomin’s “Heros & Villians” in December 2022. 

The album feels different from everything else that Uzi has done before while also managing to capture all of his previous music eras in this one album. 

For a good portion of the album, he took on more of a rage vibe on songs such as “Amped,” “Suicide Doors,” and “Crush Em.” These rage songs are clearly influenced by Playboi Carti’s “Whole Lotta Red,” seeing as Uzi and Carti have been very close collaborators over the years.

Just off a first listen, most fans could tell that this album is best experienced being performed live. The aggressive and chaotic sound of the album makes for an immersive live performance, which was shown when Uzi performed at Rolling Loud Miami in July.

Uzi also showcased his earlier style of music, from his “LUV is Rage 2” album, with songs that were actually recorded in 2016 when he released the album. These seem to be the fan favorites, with songs like “Of Course” and “Zoom.”

Personally, my favorite song from the album is “Pluto to Mars,” which sees Uzi utilize his “Eternal Atake” style from 2020, which focuses more on vocals and catchy lyrics than anything else. 

Uzi does something extremely ambitious on this album, which was a very risky choice for a mainstream rap album. For this album, Uzi went into rock music, with songs like “Werewolf,” featuring rock band Bring Me The Horizon, and “THE END,” featuring Japanese idol/heavy metal group BabyMetal.

Although this album has some great tracks, some songs are much worse than others. One of these songs is “CS,” which is an awful cover of “Chop Suey!” by System of a Down. Not only does the song have awful production, but Uzi delivers a terrible vocal performance, even just leaving out parts of the song altogether and only playing the instrumental with no lyrics.

Critics have expressed their feelings about this album, such as popular YouTube music reviewer Anthony Fantano. “While I do appreciate that Uzi brings a super unique and specific brand of chaos to the rap mainstream, I can’t help but think of how much better this project could have been even if there was just like a bit more premeditation going on.” Fantano is one of many reviewers who believe there could have been more time spent on crafting the album.

Saint Paul’s sophomore Bobby Hanks also thought the album strayed too far away from Uzi’s strengths. “Experimenting is good in an album, but this album is too different than what he usually makes,” said Hanks.

Uzi himself talks about using different styles in his music. “There are always people who are into the old way of doing things. I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily, but things change – nothing stays the same. If you can stay true to yourself, you’re always going to be legendary.”

After listening to the album several times, I would rate it a 7/10. Although the album could have been done much better, the weird mix of different sounds and genres works very well together in some songs, making it unique from mainstream rap.