Lil Wayne is proof positive that rap superstars now enjoy the kind of unstoppable career momentum that classic rockers have been coasting on for decades. Wayne can go to jail for most of a year, release a horrible rock album with no hits and horrid reviews, and generally abandon the things that he built his fanbase on (great, unexpected punchlines and constant mixtapes) and still move a million in a week just like he did three years ago when the quality of his output was still just beginning to nosedive. All it matters is that he's still on dozens of hit songs ever years, not whether those songs would be just as good if you stripped his vocals off of it (really the only song I can think of in the past 3 years that that doesn't apply to is "Every Girl").

That said, Tha Carter IV isn't as bad as I thought it could be, and it's kind of funny that it's finally engendered a mild backlash against Wayne even from the brainwashed stans and critics who gave a pass to shit like No Ceilings. "How To Hate" is the belated arrival of a Wayne/T-Pain collaboration that's actually worth a damn, and songs like and "Abortion" and "Nightmares Of The Bottom" are kind of tastefully bland but effective, much more tolerable than the brooding 'thoughtful' stuff on Carter III.

Still, even the good stuff on Tha Carter IV isn't quite a dead cat bounce up from his low point a couple years ago, just a comfortable plateau of boring but not quite terrible. The Bruno Mars power ballad on the deluxe version is the kind of "Super Bass"-style deluxe-track-turned-pop-hit I'm afraid of being subjected to over the next year. But we'll see if people still care this much by the time Tha Carter V rolls around, or if Drake and Nicki will be just dutifully pulling their mentor along for the ride the way Kanye does with Jay these days.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 4:59 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.