Utopia Review: Nocturnal Nirvana

 Utopia Review: Nocturnal Nirvana 

By Dylan Barbee

Image provided by @travisscott on Instagram 

Release Date: July 28, 2023

Stemming from Travis Scott and his bodyguards holding mysterious briefcases in public, the release of a film written and directed by the rapper himself, and the listening party at The Great Pyramid of Giza that never was, Utopia has been the album release on everyone’s mind. The unpredictable album rollout has created expectations hard for the rapper to live up to. Luckily, Scott’s fourth studio album slams through all of them with his impressive lyrical performance over an innovative production style that successfully creates an extraterrestrial listening experience.  

 
 Utopia has 19 songs that span over a great hour and 14-minute listen. The features on this track list were outstanding with prominent artists like Drake, SZA, and The Weeknd making appearances. Despite all these mainstream names, there wasn’t one time during this memorable listening experience where I thought a feature outperformed Travis as the rapper did a fantastic job at providing consistently great verses and euphoric vocals on each song.  

 
If there is one thing that Travis Scott has been successful at when dropping a new album, it is putting his listeners in a new world. Much like the rapper’s 2018 grammy nominated album Astroworld, Travis Scott instantly introduces us to a new setting. Utopia is quite dystopian to Travis Scott as this tone is revealed through the dark, energetic, and nocturnal beats throughout the album. Songs like “SIRENS,” “LOOOVE,” and “CIRCUS MAXIMUS” make listeners feel like they’re in a chaotic nightlife setting where little to no rules are in place. “Ain’t no cops here harassin,’ All the looks and the laughin,’ And outside, it got traffic, Cause inside, we wreak havoc,” Scott raps on “CIRCUS MAXIMUS.” 

 
While there is a rebellious tone on Utopia, there are also times where the rapper’s dreamy vocals become the highlight of some of the more mellow songs on the album. On the song “TELEKINESIS” featuring both Future and SZA, we hear about Travis’s hopes and aspirations for his future and how he hopes to be a better person. “MY EYES” is one of the best songs on the album as well where Travis Scott offers a great vocal performance while also experimenting with voice filters in the song that stylistically reminds me of Frank Ocean. On “MY EYES '' the rapper discusses his rapper lifestyle through his point of view and how he feels like he receives little love from the people who are in his circle. When the beat transitions into a much faster pace and Scott breaks out into a flow that seems breathless, we learn that he has done a lot of reflecting on his impact on the youth especially after the Astroworld festival crowd surge that occurred in November of 2021 resulting in him receiving major backlash.  

 
Although Travis Scott has become a controversial figure in the public eye these past few years, he is still respected by his peers in the music industry considering the features on this album. When it comes to the features that were memorable on Utopia, I feel like Travis Scott collaborated well with Drake and successfully recreated the feeling of excitement that once was around their hit song “SICKO MODE” on Astroworld without feeling like a complete repetition when it comes to that song’s structure. Drake’s feature on “MELTDOWN” is much different as he effectively adapted to the dark tone of Utopia by whispering menacingly while boasting about his fame and dissing Pusha T and Pharell Williams. The chorus of this song was catchy too and the beat switch allowed Travis Scott to have one of his best verses on this whole album. Another memorable feature for me was Playboi Carti on “FE!N” where he raps in a much deeper voice than usual over a typical rage rap beat. It was just shocking to hear Playboi Carti’s deep voice being so different from his usual delivery style to the point where I could not even recognize that it was him at first. The deep voice verse overlapping with his baby voice chorus just showed the versatility of Carti’s vocals. Beyoncé was another voice I was stunned to hear on Utopia considering the album did not have any listed features on release day. She surprisingly worked very well with Travis Scott on “DELRESTO (ECHOES)” as their voices beautifully coexist with one another's on a very hypnotic production style.  

 
Travis Scott really tapped into his experimental side with Utopia and took a lot of risks that paid off. “MODERN JAM” featuring Teezo Touchdown might be Travis Scott’s most experimental song to date as he provides a decent lyrical performance over an old school boom-bap type beat. Although it may take a while for listeners to like this song, it goes outside of the box when it comes to its creativeness and its ability to mix retro production with Travis’s natural futuristic sound. Teezo Touchdown’s impressive vocal performance is just the cherry on top. Travis Scott also adapted his style to complement the Griselda kingpin, Westside Gunn’s verse on “LOST FOREVER.” Travis raps over a very typical grimy Griselda beat with the occasional fading in and out of voice that gives him the opportunity to display his classic panoramic sound.  

 
There are a lot of well-made songs on this album that I have revisited quite a bit since Utopia’s release and only a few songs I feel like are skips. The intro track “HYAENA” did a poor job at setting the scene of the album and the more I revisit it, the more I dislike it. Stylistically, I can see “PARASAIL” being the interlude track on Utopia, but its 2 minute and 34 second run time goes by dreadfully slow and the only unique part about it is Yung Lean’s haunted sounding vocals. Before Utopia dropped, I would have never considered revisiting the song “K-POP” featuring The Weeknd and Bad Bunny but when I listen to it with the rest of the album, I can understand the direction Travis Scott was trying to go in. I do not think he should have released it as the album’s lead single because it does not give the correct representation of what the rest of Utopia sounds like but it is clear that this track was just a cash grab with two of the most streamed artists today having their names on it.  

 

Utopia is the best rap album of the year so far. It is dark but imaginative as Travis Scott experiments with both retro and futuristic sounds that takes listeners on a wildly immersive experience. It feels like he has taken certain musical elements from his past records like the production style on Rodeo and the ability to world build from Astroworld and culminated these stylistic choices into potentially his best release yet. Utopia exemplifies how Travis Scott continues to evolve as an artist and it includes some of his best performances with some of the best artists in the music industry today as features. Travis Scott tells listeners that utopia is only what you perceive it to be. It could be a memory from your past, a place you eventually want to be in your future, or utopia could be now. For Travis Scott, it is a mix of all three. His whole life has been a utopia which is why this album is mixed with a dystopian but dreamy sound as he reflects on the obstacles he faced during his upbringing, the impact he has now, and the aspirations he wants to reach later in his life. 

Rating: 9/10