Cruel Summer is not a Kanye West album and anyone preparing to listen to it needs to know that. Rather, a G.O.O.D. Music album featuring 23 different artists, only one of whom is Kanye West. G.O.O.D. Music is a record label started by Kanye West in 2004, and it has since signed some of the biggest artists in music including John Legend, Common and Kid Cudi. All of the other G.O.O.D. Music artists are much less well-known; thus, it was a smart marketing tactic for West to release an album with both big and small names, giving his less-popular artists a huge amount of exposure. In addition to the famous acts on the G.O.O.D. Music roster, Cruel Summer also features some of West's successful friends including Jay-Z, R. Kelly and Ghostface Killah. With such a star-studded lineup led by West, the king of high expectations, Cruel Summer had a lot of hype to live up to. Websites such as Pitchfork and Global Grind made excited posts about the album long before it was released.

Unfortunately, the album comes across as forgettable. Cruel Summer is a compilation album, but some efforts should have been made to make it feel more cohesive. Ideally, Cruel Summer would serve as a G.O.O.D. Music crew album, appropriately displaying the talents of the label's members in the form of an enjoyable record. Puff Daddy & The Family's 1997 release, No Way Out, proves that great crew rap albums can be made. Like those featured in Puff Daddy & The Family, the members of G.O.O.D. Music are not officially a rap crew, but that does not excuse the record's sloppy track arrangement.
"Creepers," which featuring only Kid Cudi, comes awkwardly after a stream of tracks that each features four to five different artists and sounds comparably out of place. On its own, "Creepers" is an enjoyable, catchy song and serves as a nice break from overly-crowded songs. Within the track listing, however, Kid Cudi's solo performance and comparatively peppy song do not belong.

"The Morning" features six different artists. It has a simple beat, giving the rappers a chance to show off, but none of the verses are memorable. Besides the lack of cohesion, this is one of Cruel Summer's biggest problems: lacking ambitious beats or powerful verses, many of the songs become repetitive and boring fast. "Mercy," the album's second-highest charting single to date at No. 13 on the Billboard 100, is difficult to listen to all the way through, thanks to Lil B saying "swag" every fourth beat, which is no longer a creative technique.

"The One" is led by the rapping of Big Sean and 2 Chainz. Both are up-and-comers on the G.O.O.D. Music lineup (Big Sean was recently featured on the new Justin Bieber single, "As Long as You Love Me"), but neither is a very good rapper. Big Sean and 2 Chainz's unexceptional, boring flows start to test the listener's patience, especially toward the end of the six-minute song.

Within the jumble, Cruel Summer does have some decent songs individually. The opening track, "To the World," is particularly catchy. The song features just R. Kelly and West, allowing for a nice balance of melody and rapping - good rapping, at that. "Clique" is the album's highest charting single to date at No. 12 on the Billboard 100. A good beat and a couple of solid verses from Kanye and Jay-Z make the song one of Cruel Summer's best.

But that still isn't all that amazing, especially in the grand, non-cohesive scheme that is Cruel Summer's track listing. Even the album's best songs would be considered bad when compared with the rest of West's library. No, Cruel Summer is not a Kanye West album, and it shows. If this is what we have coming in the future from the G.O.O.D. Music artists, I respond with a great big apathetic "eh."
*