This new ian album... it's not good.

Yep, new album from rapper and Minnesota native ian. The five-month follow-up to his extremely unimpressive Valedictorian mixtape, which, yeah, I didn't like. That tape was trash. It was garbage. Maybe you could say I was expecting a bit too much from it, given that it was just a mixtape. I also might have been taking it too seriously, considering ian is provably a guy who isn't taking his own career all that seriously.

But regardless of how driven and or focused Ian comes across, the hype around him is very real. The press coverage is real, the Lyrical Lemonade music video, and endorsement is real. The many features that he has gotten in the wake of his rise to fame are real. From the likes of Lil Yachty; his manager who comes to his defense in a reaction to Tyler, the Creator throwing some subs his way in an interview – that's real, too. In the past six months, ian has proven to be genuinely unignorable in the way that somebody like, for example, Lil Mabu is; a kid who, despite his best efforts, is still seen by many as a clown in the hip hop world. Somebody who's essentially doing a terrible and very unflattering impression of what Brooklyn drill music is supposed to be. And Even though in many respects, ian is just as entrenched in an act of mimicry, he's still being ushered into the music industry as an artist to watch.

Now, as a result of this, I could start going on and railing about kids these days, about the state of music and so on and so forth, that thing. But I don't think ian is all that reflective of the current state of music broadly or the shape of hip hop to come or anything like that. I mean, right now, the guy just stands at 4.9 million Spotify listeners a month. And broadly speaking, I think young people want to listen to music that on some level is catchy and melodic and showcases the featured artist, putting something on the line emotionally. However, I will say the internet does make it really easy for people who want absolutely nothing from their music to collectivize and demand just that. Nothing. Because that's pretty much what ian brings on this project, musically anyway.

He does manage to offer one other thing, though, on Goodbye Horses, and that's hope. Hope that below-average white kids can forge their own fledgling rap careers the media will take seriously without having to learn how to rhyme words like Eminem or put jazz chords together like Mac Miller. Of course, you don't want to be corny like Macklemore, so just essentially write bars that are Mad Libs based off flexes you've heard a dozen other rappers do that are more popular than you for the past three years.

As far as the core content of this album goes, it sucks, and it's not better than Valedictorian by any stretch of the imagination. The opener "Showboat" pretty much sounds like a bad Travis Scott demo, and ian's flows don't really amount to much more than just rhythmless ranting. The following track, "Till I Die", is proof that ian has lost his ear for beats almost completely. In fact, there are numerous pieces of production on this thing that just sound like cheap FL studio jobs. Don't make the mistake for taking the scuffed-ass production on this project as odd or weird or experimental, as this is just cluelessness and a lack of taste on display, nothing more. Especially when you're talking about the combination of nonsensical flows and sputtering diarrhea bass on "3.5". I feel like I'm listening to Yeat, but with no vocal presence or sense of rhythm.

The following track "On the Floor", is legitimately the first listenable song on the entire record. But lyrically, I feel like all ian can muster are just a bunch of brags that you've heard uttered and written a hundred different ways a hundred times before. Then around the midpoint of the album, we have "My Call", which is this attempt at a dramatic, auto-tuned, almost like Kanye-type moment. Yeah, it's like when Ye is your biggest influence, but all you've heard is stuff he's put out after Donda. Plus, the abrupt ending on this track just goes to show that ian has no idea what he's doing in terms of structuring a track out.

Down the road in the tracklist, the song "Shit Sad" featuring Chief Keef is perplexing because ian is often framed as a new up and coming artist who represents a younger generation of listeners. But this track just sounds like some underproduced auto crooner trap shit from 2016, and not even in an interesting homage way. It's just a rip off of a sound that's dated by almost 10 years. We've heard these same fucking snare rolls hundreds of thousands of times at this point. Not to mention the throw away Keef verse in the second half of the track does nothing for the song.

Following this, "End Up Gone" has some of the cheapest and most ridiculous synth patches on the entire record. This is literally some preset shit. It's so crazy that he's as popular as he is, and yet is there no producer willing to step up to the plate to make this kid a beat you actually want to fucking hear? Jesus Christ. The upright synth bass licks at the start of the song and everything, it just sounds so cheap and embarrassing.

The track "Loco", unfortunately, is not loco enough. ian also has to, sadly, supplement the tracklist on this thing with a Lil Yachty song that he featured on. The production and mixing is noticeably less crappy than every other track here, which is another reason it sticks out like a sore thumb.

And the closing track on here, the title track, "Goodbye Horses", ian tries to yet again give us another emotionally dramatic moment, this time with something that vocally has almost an emo trap type of feel. It's difficult to parse out because I'm not even sure if ian knows what influences he's pulling from here. Either way, it just doesn't work because vocally, he doesn't bring any range or dynamics or passion to the table. His voice is flat, it's lifeless, it is so blah. Doing something that actually tries to speak to the heart or pull at your heartstrings is just going to fall flat.

Yeah, Goodbye Horses. I'm just not really sure I have anything else to add. This is just the definition of mid.

Yeah, ultimately, ian, Goodbye Horses... It's not good.