The Appeal, Gucci Mane's third major label album and first official album to be released since his release from prison, is destined to be underrated, if only because expectations were high. His rapping here is as great as ever, and many of the songs rank with his best material. But the LP arrived without much impact: Its singles failed to catalyze much of an audience, never mind reach the "Lollipop"-level ubiquity they aimed for. But even the excitement surrounding his release from jail this spring had dissipated by the end of the summer, as he was eclipsed by Waka Flocka Flame as rap's public enemy #1. Considering Gucci re-energized gangster rap with a new style and methodology for rap performance just as a restless media elite had begun writing the subgenre's obituaries, The Appeal definitely feels like a missed opportunity.
But some of it is great. The tracks by Memphis producer Drumma Boi in particular seem to catch Gucci at his best; the stomping "Trap Talk" was unveiled earlier on the Jewelry Selection mixtape, and it's nearly bested here by "What's It Gonna Be", with its memorable double-time chorus and autobiographical boasts. Tracks like "Dollar Sign and "Weirdo" offer fresh takes on the Gucci Mane archetype. The Appeal's best moment is "It's Alive", built around an atypically atmospheric Swizz beat. Gucci slurs in a relaxed, streamlined flurry of images and boasts that somehow manage to sound simultaneously fresh and ageless, as if he were marking a mile-point in rap history. Longtime Gucci producer Zaytoven offers a novel direction on "Brand New", although his other contribution, "Missing", is a generic rehash of much better tracks the duo have previously released. But it's not this conservative approach that sinks the rest of the record; it's a different kind, one that suggests that Gucci's label, and perhaps even Gucci himself, didn't quite understand the nature of his appeal to the public.
One of the things that set him apart early on was his musicality. In an era of scarce investment, Gucci seemed to realize he had to do it all. His ear for hooks and concepts, best illustrated by tracks like "Lemonade", exemplified how rappers had to take responsibility for constructing pop songs if they wanted to build that millennial-era populist audience. And in fact, this era's most successful rappers, like Drake and Soulja Boy, seem to follow a similar mindset.
But Gucci, unlike Drake or Soulja Boy, is 30 years old. In interviews, he has stated a desire to work with the beatmakers of the super-producer era of his career's early days. On The State vs. Radric Davis, Scott Storch and Bangladesh laced him with beats that emulated and fleshed out the blueprints set by Gucci collaborators like Fatboi and Zaytoven. On The Appeal, the co-authors are considerably more tone-deaf. Swizz's lead single "Gucci Time"-- which recently charted just below "Beat It Up," a Gucci mixtape track from mid-2009-- is an attempt to wed Gucci's lyrics to a traditionalist "banger," but there is no artist-production synergy. The Neptunes fare even worse; although "Haterade" features some of Gucci's better writing, the song itself is a cocktail-bar-lite disaster, with a crooning Pharell hook. Wyclef's beat is a nice diversion until the chorus returns. But what hurts the most is how on-point Gucci's actual rapping is throughout. It's not like he fell off as a performer; it's just that he was already making great pop, which left to his own devices was more interesting than the work he tried to buy with a bigger budget.
Gucci's label, in the rush to transition him into a Proper Album career path, may have helped cut him off at the legs. His buzz and popularity grew because of the overlap between his prolific creativity and the breadth of his musicality; if you were more a fan of his hardcore street tracks, his tracks "for the ladies," funny cuts, straight acrobatic rapping, or all of those things wrapped into one song, there was a Gucci song for you. He was one of the first to start creating music that worked perfectly in this era of free musical distribution, a non-stop flood of verses, guest spots and, most importantly, individual songs, created and released in an overwhelming manner with little respect for chronology. While his label forced websites to take down Gucci's older free mixtapes, this constant stream began to dry up this year. Gucci released only two official mixtapes (with redundant material) and a scattering of guest verses in the lead-up to The Appeal. Perhaps the most important lesson here for listeners is that waiting for the "real album," in rap music 2010, is an utter anachronism.
