Steve 'Flash' JuonIt’s a bit unflattering to say listening to “GAULTIER” is a chore. At only 11 songs and 23 minutes long, it’s an easily digestible experience. I’ve waited longer for a table at a restaurant than that. I’ve been stuck in traffic on the interstate between two exits for longer than that. I’ve… alright you get the idea. It’s not that long. “GAULTIER” feels like it’s over right after you start listening to it in more ways than one.
“Alex Moss ring and the Johnny Dang chain
And now the young nigga get it poppin every day
I was on the road nigga, poppin bottles with the gang
Now I’m finna grow, in the SRT, I’m switchin lanes”
Who is saving who from what exactly? “Saving Me” is apparently a refutation of being saved at all as tana is be bragging there “ain’t no savin’ me” from a lavish excessive lifestyle. The good thing is that this single sums up tana nicely. The bad thing is that tana never gets any better than this. It’s hard to know whether or not tana is a real human being or an AI bot programmed to simulate trendy AutoTune rappers. His voice is so modulated it doesn’t sound real, and the platitudes of songs like “Fear No Man” are as generic as they come in the genre. I’m rich, I got haters, I fuck bad bitches, and I’m not worried about anything, because I’m as alpha as it gets. The beat’s nice though.
Even on an album as short as “GAULTIER” I struggled mightily to find anything worth listening to twice let alone offering praise to. I had to stretch to the utmost just to single out “Hills at Night” and to be honest it’s the VISUALS that I enjoyed. The editor, director, cinematographer or whoever deserves the credit for this choice bathed every scene in a single color — often green — achieving a visual effect that makes you feel like tana is trapped in a rave inside his own home. Perhaps it’s even a rave in a video game. It’s nice. The song’s generic, but that visual is cool as fuck.
On the album’s finale tana blesses us with the sing-song words “I can’t numb the pain/I’m stuck in my ways.” That’s incredible — not because it’s good but because it’s so MYOPIC. tana has the ability to recognize he has a problem, yet lacks the resolve to do anything about it. He can’t see the forest OR the trees. Why should you as the listener care about tana as a person when he’s incapable of growth and actively refuses to improve himself? Why should I? The truth is I don’t. This is what happens when you copy a formula so many times that the end result is a pile of nothing in a shiny package.