Total Xanarchy

Lil Xan is by no means the worst thing to happen to hip-hop, nor does he symbolise its death. However, he isn’t very good either. Stretched to a full album’s worth of material, Xan’s music, like a certain branded prescription drug, quickly tires those with little tolerance.

If adult critics really loved this stuff, the Xanarchy team would no doubt feel they’d made a wrong turn somewhere. It’s punk, or it’s the thing people who don’t really know what “punk” means call “punk,” or it’s a dog whistle meant to sail over the heads of the the elderly (i.e. anyone over 24).

The best you could say for Lil Xan is that he can be serviceable: “Saved by the Bell” and “Shine Hard” are catchy enough, and at least fully-formed ideas. The album may be bad but it is not especially so. It’s paint by numbers and as such blends in with everything else. You might hear it at an Urban Outfitters and confuse it for three other recent rap albums you’ve heard.

I can confidently report that there are no good lyrics on this album. ... Bad lyrics don’t necessarily matter in pop-rap, and his intermittent facility for hooks means that some of the tracks succeed nonetheless.

Underneath Lil Xan’s disengaged delivery, TOTAL XANARCHY ends up slogging through his sketches of abandonment, addiction, and, conversely, fame and success, with total listlessness.