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Aug 31, 2011If you thought him too weird for your tastes previously, Tha Carter IV is the album to introduce you to the never boring world of an artist whose importance remains so significant that, should he finally collapse like the star he is, he's likely to take half the rap game with him.
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Aug 30, 2011On Tha Carter IV, Wayne's world feels more like a dream than reality, but the loyal subjects of Young Money get a wild ride and the great feeling of flashing those ruby slippers one more time.
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Aug 30, 2011I like what I see and hear on Tha Carter IV and no one is going to convince me he isn't a full-fledged artist worthy of being the household name he now is.
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Aug 29, 2011Even with some lack of vulnerability and risk, Tha Carter IV displays the nonsensical approach that fans have grown to love. Future and previous aside, Weezy's present is bright.
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Sep 11, 2011Beat-wise, IV doesn't attempt to outdo the top-dollar Carter III production, whose murderer's row of producers and beats is likely to remain unparalleled for some time. But Wayne uses the less showy selection this go-round to deliver a definitively rawer album that only smartens the impact of some of his career's best vocals.
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Aug 31, 2011Unfortunately, C-4 doesn't quite deliver the explosion it should have been capable of.
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Aug 30, 2011Because Lil Wayne has been so sharp, so dexterous in the past, it's tempting (and ultimately necessary) to overanalyze him. But even on this album's weak tracks, and there are several, he remains a commanding presence, deploying just enough of his insistent croak to tether the song together.
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Aug 30, 2011If anything, Tha Carter IV feels like a party, one that Wayne is throwing for his contemporaries in the hip-hop scene.
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Aug 29, 2011While it's likely to be a huge album -- and far more interesting than any other releases of its size -- it's not the leap forward his last couple albums were.
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Aug 29, 2011Wayne knows it's not 2007 anymore. But the high points here prove he's already looking ahead to the future.
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Sep 2, 2011It's quite hard to get a grasp on Tha Carter IV; in its relentlessly schizophrenic assault, you might end up falling in-and-out of love several times.
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Aug 30, 2011The stream-of-consciousness id that Iggy Pop might once have envied is still on display, but here it feels corralled into a pen of predictable similes and metaphors.
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Aug 30, 2011While Tha Carter IV isn't the first indication that Wayne's finest verses are behind him, it is the most glaring.
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Sep 6, 2011Each featured artist at the top of their games, masterfully dominating their segments, leagues above Tha Carter IV's comparatively tired host.
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Aug 31, 2011Overall, by the end of the album it feels like Wayne maybe pushed Tha Carter series one installment too far.
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Aug 30, 2011These are the blunders we have come to expect from Wayne, but we expect to be compensated for our time with some classic tracks, and on Carter IV, there are none.
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Aug 30, 2011Maybe he's burnt out, maybe he just doesn't care as much anymore, but whatever the reason, Tha Carter IV just doesn't feel like one of the biggest albums of the year – at all.
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Aug 29, 2011For the last four years there's been no greater force in hip-hop, but this isn't the way President Carter should be launching his campaign for a second term.
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Aug 29, 2011On what is Lil Wayne's ninth studio album, there's very little of the spontaneity you would expect from someone whose calling card is non-written, unrehearsed, free-associative rhymes.
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Aug 29, 2011Like all of Lil Wayne's albums, it's a mess; unlike some of its predecessors, it's not a terribly ambitious mess, nor is it much fun, which for Wayne is a sin.
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Aug 30, 2011There's plenty of great rapping on Tha Carter IV, but for the first time, most of it isn't coming from Lil Wayne.
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Sep 11, 2011We know he's capable of better. Whether it ever comes together on a Carter release is anybody's guess, but the prognosis isn't good.
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Aug 29, 2011At his best, Wayne was positively psychedelic in his wordplay, capable of creating entire alternative worlds out of a few surrealist metaphors. But he sounds slower, more methodical, less unhinged on Tha Carter IV.
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Aug 29, 2011Because of the jail time, Tha Carter IV feels like a comeback album when it shouldn't. Regardless, it comes off monotonous and redundant but, more than that, uninspired.
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Sep 12, 2011In short Tha Carter IV flops not because it's straight-up bad, but because it's boring.
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Sep 2, 2011If this album is a concrete example of Wayne's policies as a rap artist going forward, however, I don't see how he'll keep pulling in accolades. As a possible swan song for Lil' Wayne, Best Rapper Alive, Tha Carter IV ranks among hip-hop's most disappointing.
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Aug 30, 2011He's still getting more women than a taping of Ellen, but on Tha Carter IV – his most emo album to date – it sounds like what he really needs is a hug.
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Aug 30, 2011This is a bad rap album, and one that needed the shock of Internet promotion that the Jay-Z diss on "It's Good" gave it when C4 leaked.
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Aug 30, 2011From an MC that would call himself King, shouldn't we all have hoped – nay, expected – well, better?
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 115 out of 280
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Mixed: 60 out of 280
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Negative: 105 out of 280
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Aug 29, 2011
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Aug 29, 2011
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Aug 29, 2011