In many ways, Slime Season 3 should be typical. The beats are sparse as the latest style dictates, but here they don’t matter. Light sizzles and pulses exist only to make way for a voice, the bitchy little auto-tuned yelp of Young Thug.

Why it’s compelling is hard to explain. Thug is so fucking annoying that you’ll probably want to punch your speakers the second he comes on, but he knows how to wrap his voice into a pop-friendly package. His flow, hooks, and percussive spurts all come to a fine point early on with tracks like “Drippin” and “Memo”. A couple tracks give Thug a solid minute of time to just move freely over space, and they’d be pretty appealing to even the most mainstream ear.

Not surprisingly, the finest moments are all straightforward pop. “We ran out of digits/We ran out of money/We ran out of digits/We ran out of money/We ran out some digits/We ran out some mon-aaay” will be looping through your head for hours*. “Worth It” is the most honest hood ballad you’re likely to find, and “Tattoos” is the only time a delicious beat sneaks alongside the vocal gymnastics.

Nothing sticks out as particularly bad, but “Problem” and “Slime Shit” are standard trap garbage in comparison. Losing all of the slick style, they’re all “Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-BLAH (‘EY!)/Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-BLAH (SKIRR)”, probably a bid by Thug to keep one of his feet grounded in the ghetto.

But Thug can’t fight it; he sold his soul years ago and mainstream vampire blood is in his veins. A couple top 40 hits will do that to you. Thank the corporate shills for that.

B+

*This is clearly an example of Ay-hole’s Track Five Conspiracy©. I’m tagging this post as such.