Andrew Berman
In a music industry being taken over by awful soundcloud rappers, Juice WRLD stands out as one of the only ones with a future in music, so jump on Juice WRLD’s bandwagon before your friends beat you to it. Originally born as Jarad Higgins, Juice WRLD is ready to stun the world with his debut album Goodbye And Good Riddance.
The album takes a look at his life right now, opening up with a song entitled, “Intro.” This track introduces the story that Juice WRLD will be singing about throughout the album. The track, produced by Don Rob, is the receiving end of a phone call from his soon to be ex-girlfriend yelling at him over their relationship. Throughout the track she continues to put him down and eventually ends their relationship as an emotional violin plays in the back, “On Snapchat , and Face- I don’t wanna hear from you no more. Alright, I’m gonna hang up on you now, okay? So stop calling me.” This first track is not what would be considered as a song but more of an intro to the story.
Following “Intro,” “All Girls Are The Same” gets fans excited about what is to come. Produced by Nick Mira, “All Girls Are The Same” is Juice WRLD’s way of venting out his frustration over all girls ending things with him the same way. This song continues on the topic from “Intro” that he just broke up with his girlfriend and wants a long term relationship. With a catchy piano bassline and easy to sing along lyrics, Juice WRLD managed to get an audience when the song was released as a single on December 22, 2017. In January he followed his hit with a music video that has many optical illusions and animations. This will probably be one of the most streamed songs on the album after a few weeks as it appears as a sentimental song with a pop vibe.
Next song on the album is “Lucid Dreams,” also produced by Nick Mira. This song was also released as a single in July 2017 – Juice WRLD’s first big hit. The beat behind “Lucid Dreams” is a little more complex as it samples “Shape of My Heart,” by Sting, from 1993 as the bassline. This beat is unique for the hip hop genre because most hip hop songs these days do not include an acoustic guitar but Juice WRLD destroys this awesome beat that inspires moving on and avoiding pain by forgetting. Juice WRLD uses lucid dreams, a dream in which you are aware you are dreaming, as a metaphor for the fact that he can control the pain in his head by thinking about something else and forgetting, “I cannot change you, so I must replace you. Easier said than done, I thought you were the one.” Clearly this song will be his top song from the album as it already gained 4 million streams in the past 3 days on Spotify alone. If you have not listened to the song, get to it now.
“Lean Wit Me” is the following song and once again is produced by Nick Mira. This song takes the story away from the story of his previous girlfriend and takes a look at one of his more physically painful problem’s that he has to get over. Looking and admitting his drug addiction, this song is a lot darker than the previous two but because it is about him ending a drug addiction which has resulted in “[Screwed] up liver with some bad kidneys,” the song may receive support and positive reviews as not a lot of other artists can admit their problem and ask for help like he did.
“I’m Still,” also produced by Nick Mira, gets back on to the story of Juice WRLD and his ex-girlfriend. The beat is a medley of instruments that result in a unique and sentimental rythm. In this song Juice WRLD talks about right before the break up and immediately after. In his verse he refers to the “Elephant in the room,” which is later described in the verse as their relationship problems and her disapproval of his drug addiction. In the chorus he talks about how her telling him the relationship is over due to the drugs, he is still going to do them and it is going to make him wanna do them more to deal with the pain.
Next is “Betrayal – Skit.” This is not worth a listen since once again, it is not really a song. It is the same voice from “Intro” and it is her explaining she is over Juice WRLD and already has another man.
“Candles” is an amazing song that takes a look at an emotional topic. Produced by Taz Taylor and Nick Mira, “Candles” explains Juice WRLD’s problem of always turning to drugs to conciliate his emotions and how it keeps on happening.
Following up next comes “Scared of Love.” Produced by Mitch Mula, “Scared of Love” is Juice WRLD expressing how his breakup is going to effect him going forward and how he will never love again because he is so heartbroken over his ex-girlfriend, “The weight is heavy on my shoulders, girl, you’re too much.” It also elaborates on the idea that he is not scared to be in love, but scared of love and the emotions it can draw out of him.
“Used to,” produced by Nick Mira, is an interesting sounding song because it has a lot of editing on his voice that makes it sound like a poorly connected radio for the beginning and the end. “Used To” is how Juice WRLD looks back at the breakup and realizing “It don’t hurt as bad as it used to.” It also throws shots at his ex-girlfriend expressing her pettiness in the breakup because she knew he would go to drugs to cope with the emotions.
The last skit is where it gets interesting, “Karma – Skit.” Once again this skit is his ex-girlfriend, but in this voice message she is trying to get back with him but Juice WRLD just turns her down and it acts as a sort of karma for what she did to him.
“Hurt me,” produced by SIDEPCE, was originally released on soundcloud where it racked up over four million streams. This song has a very catchy chorus that samples a childhood riddle, “Sticks and stones may break my bones.” This song describes that he had drug problems after other breakups previously and that the drugs are not going to hurt him anymore since he has taken too much. This song is sure to get stuck inside of your head if you listen to it a few times.
The next song has no meaning at all, but is an amazing song that will be receiving a lot of listens. “Black and White,” produced by Cashmere Cat and Benny Blanco, is a very uplifting beat with a catchy chorus to start off the song – although it does refer to drug use. After first listen, one may think it is a very happy song but reading the lyrics, you would realize this is a very dark song about drug overdoses and never waking up.
“Long Gone,” produced by Cardo, is a very unique song with a crazy beat. Juice WRLD repeats “long gone” ten times in the chorus which draws the mood of moving on. His verses express his excitement for his new career in making music and having fans.
“End of The Road,” produced by Nick Mira, just jumps right into the song with no mellow intro. It truly is a great song but it comes at the expense of Juice WRLD’s emotions as it explains how his drug overdoses, caused by breakups, is gonna make him reach the end of the road, aka death.
By the end of this album, if you wanna be reassured, listen to “I’ll Be Fine,” produced by JRHitmaker and Nick Mira. In this song Juice WRLD’s flow is absolutely nuts as he goes bar for bar over a quick tempo beat expressing how he is over his ex-girlfriend and is moving on.
It has been only a week since Juice WRLD released Goodbye And Good Riddance and he has already gotten up to 7 million weekly listeners on spotify alone from it being in the thousands previously. Goodbye And Good Riddance is surly an outstanding debut album that promises a bright future for Juice WRLD.
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