Summer on Smash? A Mid-Season Look at What Albums You May Have Missed

It’s about halfway through the summer, the heat is settling in and BBQ playlists are just about set. At this point last year, we were still recovering from a huge release weekend (Astroworld, Swimming and Stay Dangerous) and had found stability after the barrage of takes surrounding Kanye’s five albums in five weeks campaign. Some people were still even playing songs on Scorpion.

This year doesn’t feel quite as momentous as that, at least so far. Releases from Brockhampton, Vince Staples and J̶i̶d̶e̶n̶n̶a̶ could potentially bring some more hype toward the end of the season, but those could very well become back to school classics.

In my research around this summer’s hip hop releases, a lot of the lukewarm feeling comes from some notable disappointments. Even with such a large fanbase, Chance the Rapper’s The Big Day fell short upon release and already seems to have lost listeners’ attention. The album lost the #1 album spot to NF, an artist’s whose top image on Google is a picture of Logic.

After some initial hype, Nas’ Lost Tapes sequel was even more disappointing. Maybe this shouldn’t have been a surprise, it was a B-Sides album after NASIR… J Cole and Dreamville’s put out the Revenge of the Dreamers IIIproject. However, the project gained more traction as a testament to collaboration than it did musically.

And Iggy Azalea released an album that people ignored because of a seven-foot pig.

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