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Add the "Jam on It" sample producer Nottz lays on "Ya Heard," the sultry backing track Scott Storch designed for "Let Us Live," and a superstar guest list that's a mile long, and this scattershot album is easy to recommend despite its flaws.
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The Game goes surprisingly mellow in comparison to his first two efforts.
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Problem is, much of this record is just Game keeping up with the Joneses: everything you'd expect from a 2008 rap album is here (Lil' Wayne guest spot; boring, '80s-styled Kanye track), and the stuff that makes him unique seems harder than ever to get at.
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L.A.X. might not hit the heights of its two predecessors, but it is one of the more complete and satisfying major label rap releases of the year.
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That inferiority complex and desperate need for approval keeps L.A.X. surprisingly entertaining even though there are far more weak tracks on it than good ones.
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The Game pairs that unabashed love with swirling ideas and concepts that elevate the record to an easy contender for album of the year.
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Almost everything here, from the boasting ('Money') to the baiting ('LAX Files,' 'Cali Sunshine'), is pro forma. Worse, the Game, never a fluid rapper, sounds positively lumpy, as if he were delivering verses while running up a steep flight of stairs, or as if the last few years of pugnacity have finally left him winded.
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LAX spins beautifully at first, but, like a '64 Chevy with chrome rims that hasn't paid a visit to the mechanic in 20 years, it doesn't take long before the wheels come off entirely.
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When it's good, it's really good. Otherwise, it's never really bad, just excessive and somewhat unfocused.
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He has definitely still come back with an admirable album - I'm just not sure that it is as MEMORABLE as it could have been.
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The Game has always borrowed from the greats. Here, he cannibalizes his own tired shtick so extensively, he lapses even further into self-parody.
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With the Game's third and best album, LAX, which drops without the baggage of a high-profile beef, we learn more about who the rapper really is: a guy who loves hip-hop, from top to bottom, and is as comfortable giving shout-outs to Will Smith and Uncle Luke as he is to Wu Tang and NWA.
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At 19 tracks, LAX is bloated and uneven, more often than not marked by weak beats and uninspired appearances. The Game’s skill and wit alone save this from being a complete disaster.
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The album, weighed down by a few awkward romance tracks and a well-meaning but ill-fitting MLK tribute, drags in the second half, and there’s no one moment to parallel the odd ache of 'Doctor’s Avocate.' But it’s once again more than the sum of its parts.
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While the 19-track disc could use a good trimming, The Game's routine is just as entertaining the third time around.
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LAX is an intense and remarkably focused record - almost every syllable concerns Compton, gangsta rap and (as one song title has it) Game's Pain - but the minor-key, would-be emotive beats of tracks such as Money or the Kanye West-produced Angel (featuring rapper Common) don't bring the best out of his expressive flow.
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Though LAX has its debilitating faults, it certainly stands up with any rap full-length released this year, which for this point in Game’s career, might even make it a miracle.
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Perhaps one of the telling strengths of LAX is that despite all star guest appearances from the likes of Ludacris, Travis Barker, Nas and the aforementioned Ice Cube it is very much The Game's album.
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Somehow, the Game is still coasting on wispy, West Coast–nostalgia fumes--chronic, red rags, lolos, etc.--but the goodwill, at this point, has pretty much exhausted itself.
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Bad-boy rapper fails to raise his, er, game. There is something peculiarly insecure about The Game (AKA Jayceon Terrell Taylor).
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 53 out of 67
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Mixed: 10 out of 67
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Negative: 4 out of 67
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Apr 22, 2015
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Feb 4, 2012
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BeauG.Sep 19, 2008There are alot of hatters out there. game does a solid job on this album. I haven't taken LAX out of the cd deck in my car for 5 days now.