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Jan 15, 201380In the end, A$AP Rocky comes off as rap's Jim Morrison, offering an accessible, attractive, and brutish journey into darkness while remaining true to his spirit.
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Jan 11, 201350Florence, Santigold and the usually brilliant Danny Brown do little more than tick boxes, and ultimately Long.Live.A$AP fails to match its hype with a coherent trend-setting statement.
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Jan 14, 201374Unsure whether he wanted to create a sunny, party album, gangstafest, or a record of cool pop vibes, Rocky seems to have tried to make them all, and with minor successes in all departments, he sacrifices something stronger.
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Jan 15, 201371Long.Live.A$AP may not change the game like "good kid, m.A.A.d city," but A$AP Rocky's absorbing debut is more physical in its pleasure--as in, you'll be knocking your head to some of these songs for months.
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Jan 15, 201360Harlem's A$AP Rocky finally delivers his long delayed major label debut, and while it builds on his mixtape legacy and emphasizes his strengths as an inventive stylist, it also amplifies his flaws.
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Jan 14, 201340Long.Live.A$AP, his major-label debut, is both cunning and desperate in its attempts to please every possible demographic without looking like it's trying too hard.
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Feb 6, 201380It’s an exhilarating listen, even if all of this dread seems to be in the name of dread only.
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Jan 7, 201370On LongLiveASAP, his major-label debut, Rocky expands his horizons even further, indulging in relative experimentation while also adhering to the gifts that have catapulted him to stardom in just over a year.
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Jan 16, 201380In many ways Long.Live.A$AP is an album of the present.
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Jan 10, 201350A little shallowness is fine by me, but Rocky's studied, humourless delivery is harder to swallow.
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Jan 9, 2013100His major-label debut proves he's more than a magnetic hedonist.
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Jan 15, 201380You'll love this album, but you won't learn much from it.
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Mar 8, 201383Rocky raps over the music without saying a damn thing older, meaner, and sharper rappers haven't said before. Then, bang, three dynamite songs.... Then, aww, three tracks that could be more obvious by half.
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Jan 10, 201380At its core, Long.Live.A$AP succeeds because it lets Rocky be Rocky: a rapper with a unique voice and an ear for captivating beats whose lyrical shortcomings can be glossed over with healthy servings of charisma and panache.
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Jan 14, 201380Debuts this good just don't come along very often, and it all comes down to the precocious Harlem rookie's vision.
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Jan 15, 201375ASAP Rocky's songs don't lack for emotion.
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Mar 7, 201380Rocky bests every beat thrown at him. [Apr 2013, p.94]
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Feb 1, 201370Long.Live.A$AP is unlikely to win over the doubters, but it will consolidate A$AP Rocky’s status as an exciting talent.
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Jan 22, 201370Criticism aside, Rocky's debut is full of superb moments and offers a rich tasting menu of unique sounds.
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Jan 22, 201370While the production is as fresh and exciting as you're likely to see anywhere in hip-hop right now, lyrically it's a regression to less enlightened times.
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Jan 10, 201360A macabre mood keeps it cohesive and lends a cinematic quality, kind of like the A$AP Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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Jan 7, 201385LongLiveA$AP delivers on and even exceeds the promise of LiveLoveA$AP. Like that mixtape, the album is a triumph of craft and curation, preserving Rocky's immaculate taste while smartly upgrading his sound
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Jan 15, 201360A fine enough retail debut, but when you can get the stronger, more unique product for free that's a strange thing to strongly recommend anyone.
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Feb 11, 201375It builds on the promise of his mixtape, extends itself into new territory, and in the process reveals some of the shortcomings of Rocky’s craft.
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Jan 22, 201380There are also some genuine standout tracks, and all in all, A$AP Rocky and his team deserved the critical and commercial acclaim that will inevitably flood their way.
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Jan 7, 201370Like all great sequels, the album ups the ante without losing what made the original compelling.
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Jan 7, 201360So like A$AP's debut, Long. Live. A$AP is an intermittently dazzling collection of slinky, mutated R&B helmed by an unsteady, half-interested voice.
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Jan 22, 201350When consumed passively, as ambient music, his conceptual flaws recede into the fuzz of his production, a raw mush of sound that provides an appropriate and occasionally great backdrop for refreshing your Tumblr dashboard, at least until it delivers a more engaging artist to look at.
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Jan 14, 201380In short, Long.Live.A$AP takes what made his debut new or exciting and more finely hones it.
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Jan 22, 201383On any number of blockbuster mixtapes, all that posturing would feel cold and calculated. It's purposeful here, too, but warmly and adoringly so.
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Jan 16, 201363If there's a knock to be had against the Harlem rapper, it's that he lacks an original presence. So it's curious that for his major-label debut he's opted to further venture down the rabbit hole of references, loading Long.Live.A$AP with a bevy of guests with personalities far more distinctive than his own.
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Jan 10, 201380Long Live A$AP's is frequently thrilling, a dense splurge of woozy electronics and samples, packed with lovely production touches.
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Jan 22, 201370Rocky's rhymes are believable when reminiscing about growing up poor.
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Feb 11, 201370The Skrillex moment aside, there are really no glaring missteps here.
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Jan 22, 201380An absorbing, immersive listening experience, Long.Live.A$AP outshines the recent full-lengths of technically more proficient rappers as well as those of strikingly safer hip-hop hitmakers.
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Feb 21, 201380It is a step up for Rocky and the perfect documentation of today's new forefront in hip-hop. [Feb-Mar 2013, p.88]
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Feb 28, 201370Rocky synthesises the cutting edge experiments of his peers into a more commercially polished product that lacks the eccentricity of its influences but is uniquely out there when compared to most mainstream fare. [Feb 2013, p.61]
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Jan 15, 201340There are enough genre-hopping and synergistic, trans-genre partnerships present on the tracklist that Long. Live. A$AP, its commercial bets hedged, feels not unlike a myriad of other major-label rap disappointments from nearly any other era of rap.
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Feb 4, 201380His technical prowess is thrilling in its time signature hopping. [Mar 2013, p.65]
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Jan 15, 201380Long.Live.A$AP has its moments as a cohesive album with top producers (Hit-Boy, Danger Mouse, Noah "40" Shebib) and frequent collaborators (Clams Casino) that offer choice beats.