A Review of Logic's "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind"

Coming off a subpar 2018, Logic looks to build momentum towards a better 2019 with the release of “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” Logic’s 2018 started with the release of “Bobby Tarintino II,” a project that I felt was subpar compared to his earlier works simply because none of the songs resonated with me. With the release of “YSIV,” which came in October of 2018, Logic had seemed to return to the standard set by earlier projects, redeeming himself to some extent. Fast forward to 2019 and Logic had already released a soundtrack to his book titled “Supermarket,” in March only to quickly follow that up with the release of “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” a little over a month later. With the rollout to this project came two singles, the first being “Keanu Reeves” which I thought was an okay song and the second being “Homicide” featuring Eminem which I haven’t heard yet. With these two singles come fourteen more songs on the sixteen song tracklist which adds up to about 55 minutes of music. Eminem, YBN Cordae, G-Eazy, Gucci Mane, Wiz Khalifa, Will Smith, and Logic’s Dad appear as features throughout seven of the sixteen songs. I’m interested to see the quality of this project so, without further ado, let’s get to the review!

Categories

The songs on this album divided into two lanes that are prevalent throughout the project

I’ve Heard This Song Before

“Homicide” ft. Eminem (1), “Wannabe” (1), “clickbait” (1), “Mama / Show Love” ft. YBN Cordae (1), Out of Sight (.5), “Pardon My Ego” (.5) “COMMANDO” ft. G-Eazy (.5), “Still Ballin” ft. Wiz Khalifa (1), “Cocaine” (.5), “Limitless” (.5), “Keanu Reeves” (.5), “Don’t Be Afraid to Be Different” ft. Will Smith (1),

The typical Logic song, a nice flow, typically fast paced on a fast-paced high hat driven beat with content about self-improvement, loving yourself, etc...

Something Different

“Confessions of A Dangerous Mind” (1), “Icy” ft. Gucci Mane (1), “BOBBY” ft. My Dad (.5), “Lost in Translation” (1)

These songs have different flows, vibes, and cadences to them.

Must Listen Songs

The concept of Must Listen songs are the songs that would give the best overview of the album as a whole. Songs that stand out for reasons to be described in the pending descriptions of the songs.

“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”

The first track on “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” starts off with a smooth beat produced by 6ix. With this beat comes a smooth baseline, harmonizing, a violin, before the soft bass and high hats come in. With this song, Logic shows off his flow while changing his cadence to a softer voice on the hook. Altogether this is a beautiful song, the beat, lyrics, cadence, and flow shine through to create a nice chill vibe.

“Icy” ft. Gucci Mane

The ninth song on the project is produced by Logic, 6ix, and Kajo. The beat is a particularly choppy one, slower than other songs within this project. The beat has a hard bass with high hats in the background and a nice piano within it. The beat starts and stops randomly which causes Logic to adjust his flow to the tempo of the beat which he does well. Gucci Mane fits on this beat well with a solid second verse that is easy to follow along to. The aspect that sets this song apart is the cadence changes within the hook as Logic executes the line “I’m Icy” with a high pitched voice that works as a catchy aspect to hook the listener in.

“BOBBY” ft. My Dad

On the fifteenth song on this project, we get a guitar-driven beat where the drums come in with a slow pace with a slower high hat. The beat produced by 6ix also has some harmonizing with what sounds like a woman saying “bum” and a man scatting throughout it. The beat is honestly a lively work of art but can drown out the lyrics of Logic at times. Logic’s dad, Smokey Legendary closes the song with an outro claiming his son saying “This is Logic’s dad, this is Bobby Smokey Hall and he came out my balls.” Overall, the great beat drowns out Logic’s voice which doesn’t make the song as good as it could be.

“Lost in Translation”

The outro to “Confession of a Dangerous Mind,” produced be Logic and 6ix, starts off with a smooth bassline with a background flute which Logic starts rapping over before the boom bap high hats and bass mix come in for the hook. The beat switches the typical Logic song, fast-paced high hat and bass mix with Logic using his standard fast-paced flow on the first verse. The beat switches for the second verse to a slower, truer boom-bap beat as Logic slows it down for the better verse on the song. The song ends with a woman speaking Japanese on the outro.

Final Review

To describe this project in a word, it would be dangerous. Logic’s “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” is a solid album, however, many of these songs feel like reruns of songs we have heard from logic before, with the typical self-improvement message, over a fast-paced flow and fast-paced beat. While executed well because it’s what Logic does really well, it becomes boring when you have essentially gotten the same project multiple times over the course of a year. Logic seems comfortable giving listeners the same project over and over again which shows with a quarter of the songs on the same pace, flow, and cadence. With this, there’s no real incentive to keep the listeners' attention. This unearths two problems for Logic, the first being the beats he raps on and the second being oversaturation. Logic and producer 6ix have been working together for years since Logic’s first album “Under Pressure” in 2014. While their collaboration has proved to be a fruitful one, it has now become one that is repetitive. With that being said, I think Logic needs to try working with other producers that might give his music a different sound, therefore challenging him to create. The second problem is oversaturation which can be fixed if Logic simply doesn’t release another project until 2020. Since March of 2018, Logic has released four projects, “Bobby Tarantino II,” “YSIV,” “Supermarket (Soundtrack) and now “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” This deviates from Logic’s previous timetable of dropping one project a year which in my eyes worked better because then the market for Logic’s music would actually be there. If Logic takes these two things into account we can expect the next project to be better, but until that happens it looks like we will get the same Logic project for years to come. Overall, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” is a solid project which is something we have come to expect from Logic.

Scoring

Raw Score: The number of good songs on a project versus the overall amount. Songs must have a +1 or above to be counted.

Quality Score: The total amount of points accumulated over the total amount of songs.

Playback value: The resonance an album is perceived to have if played again in full. Scale out of 5.

Raw Score: 9/16

Quality Score: 12.5/16

Playback Value: 2/5

Go out and listen to Logic’s “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” wherever you listen to your music. Also, don’t forget to check out OLDMLK’s Instagram page (@OLDMLK) and Twitter (@OLDMLKDOTCOM) for updates on OLDMLK.COM: The Most Essential Hip Hop Blog, The OLDMLK.Com Playlist, The OLDMLK Radar and more!