Hi, everyone. Crankthony, Thattano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for maybe a slight reassessment of a review of a Yung Lean mixtape from 2013, Unknown Death 2002.

So at this point, more than 10 years deep into my YouTube career, and that hurts to say on some level, I have done a lot of reviews, a lot of commentaries, a lot of opinions, a lot of dissections. Thousands, in fact, in total at this point. I think I'm going to be nauseous. A vast majority of them, I actually remember quite vividly, which is weird. I mean, for sure, some are falling to the wayside in the recesses of my rotting brain. But still, a good deal of them I do recall.

In fact, a lot of people recall, as my comment sections and my subreddit and a host of other places on the internet are loaded with reminders of whatever particular review a viewer of mine may disagree with in that moment on that day, even if that particular review is, at this point, years and years old.

My review for this project over here that I just mentioned, this Unknown Death 2002 record, this review is over 10 years old now at this point. It's actually one of my weirder and in some circles more controversial reviews because it's one of a handful of reactions and opinions that I've given over the years on my respective YouTube channels where I just went absolutely absurd with it. There's little to no substance to this video whatsoever. I really just spend the majority of the review eating bread off of my hands.

Now, at this point, I do wish that I could go back and interview and talk to my former self and just get a sense of, "Why did you do that?" When I say, "Why did you do that?" I don't mean do a piss take review. I meant, "Why the bread? Why the hands? Why the bread? Why the bread? Why the hands?" I guess I must have just been feeling particularly silly that day and just wanted to consume some extra carbs.

So, yeah, that much about the review, I do wonder. But there are even more questions about it, in fact, from a lot of viewers who, looking back on Unknown Death 2002 at this point, see it as a classic cloud rap mixtape and are just perplexed as to why I would go out of my way to disrespect such a legendary and important project.

Especially since the release of this tape, along with Yung Lean's full-length commercial debut, Unknown Memory, he has since become a cloud rap, pop rap, alternative R&B legend, deeply influential in his own right, and cosigned by the likes of Charli XCX. He's an artist whose records I actually wholeheartedly review to this day.

So again, with that, why would I go out of my way to crap on such a formative project of an artist who went on to become, in his own right, a legend? Bluntly put, it's because upon release, when I listened to that mixtape, I did not like it at all.

And while I did appreciate many of the meme-centric and Y2K era aesthetics that Yung Lean and his crew were bringing to the table with their music videos and overall online branding and presentation at the time. I more or less read the hype behind what he was doing as just a lot of young white music fans getting excited over the idea of this odd Scandinavian child jumping into the cloud rap fray and doing the genre at least halfway effectively along the likes of Lil B and A$AP Rocky.

Sure, while I can appreciate the way that Yung Lean stood out in that lane at the time that this mixtape dropped, back during when this mixtape dropped, I still felt like, creatively, what he was doing very much lived in the shadow of those other artists and wasn't anywhere near as good as going back and listening to the mixtape now, I still very much feel that way.

To my ears now, right here in 2025, "Oceans 2001", still sounds like a terrible Lil B song. And while I do understand Yung Lean has a bit of a terminally online and outsider appeal to him, there's not really anything on this project that, in my opinion, is nearly as good as what you might find on pretty comparable projects like LIVE.LOVE.A$AP. Yeah, it's just not for me.

But look, here's the thing, that's not to completely undercut the creativity and maturity and growth that Yung Lean and the greater Drain Gang sphere around him have shown in the wake of this project. Just because I don't enjoy starter mixtapes and records such as this one, that doesn't mean that I can't go on and enjoy records that artists are involved with down the road.

I mean, even Yung Lean and associate Bladee, who is on this mixtape, I believe my first big review of his music, I gave it a one, really one of my most brutal reviews, looking back on it. But I have since gone on to review some of Bladee's music very positively, and especially loved that collab project that was done in 2022 with Ecco 2K. And there's obviously even a lot of rage-style bangers on 2024's Cold Visions, too. But I digress.

I mean, look, this Yung Lean mixtape, while I didn't like it then and I don't like it now, I chalk a lot of that up to the fact that the early 2010s was really a Wild West for music on the internet. You had a lot of such cases of very young, up and coming, sometimes ground-breaking artists getting an audience very early on in their career, leading to a phenomenon where they're just a little over exposed before they're really truly mainstream ready.

Again, Yung Lean was not the only person who suffered such an awkward, growing-pain period. I would argue it was the same for Lana Del Rey to a degree as well, even if her debut record was pretty successful commercially. There were also moments during those early years, like the infamous SNL performance, where she was very clearly not ready for prime time in that moment. She has since gone on to drop some music that, in my opinion, is really great.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, while my opinion on this mixtape has not grown more positive over the years, I will admit I was very silly in that assessment and that review of that record, and maybe too silly. I can't really come on here and blow any smoke up your guy's asses in terms of saying, "Oh, well, I don't do silly reviews like that anymore." I actually do.

I actually do very silly reviews still. I'm sorry if any records that you hold near and dear to your heart were victims of such silly reviews. I just think this is a project that I'm just never going to warm up on, I'm never going to like, and that's okay.

Okay, I don't know what else to say. I'm just sorry for getting a little bit silly sometimes, okay? It's just going to happen occasionally. I guess I'm just going to leave that here right now and hope and pray that you guys continue to have faith in me, that I won't be silly all the time. Let me know in the comments what you think about all this. I'm sure you absolutely positively will.

Anthony Fantano, Lean, Forever.