But Azealia Banks, even through her constant barrage of bullshit, remains one of the best. Ever since her 2012 mega single "212" became the talk of the Internet for a couple months, that much has been clear. Few artists are capable of creating such undeniably star-turning work, yet Banks has been glacially slow to deliver the coup de grâce to her life as a perpetually insolvent, bridge burning brat who couldn't keep a deal or stay on a label. Labels would remain a reoccurring issue until she was finally released from Interscope, who let her completely free, along with all the songs she had recorded during her tenure. Perhaps with a bit of irony, Banks' Broke With Expensive Tastes, her debut that so much had been made out of, dropped by way of a single tweet. The effects of the wait, of course, are apparent. Around half of the songs are older, previously released songs that sound out of place when mixed with the new, more extravagant material. Its jumbled, convoluted, and quite honestly, anything else would feel in-genuine.
Of course it's obvious that Interscope had its reasons for not knowing just what in the hell to do with this album. It starts with the music. Azealia has never been one to bring together a cohesive sound, the diversity is one of her main selling points, but this is noticeably more polyglot than last year's mixtape. Broke With Expensive Tastes opens up with "Idle Delilah" a natural mesh of house, dubstep, and Caribbean music, and it only gets weirder from there. Still, Banks never strays too far away from her trademark house sampling. "Wallace", "Chasing Time" "Soda", and roughly half of the album, are house and techno productions that really could have been just as prevalent at any point over the last twenty years or so. They sound relatively out of place today's style of electronic instrumentation, but chances are, they'll age much more gracefully.
But even in 2014, the production is solid across the board. The instrumentals come as products of Internet, Araabmuzik, Machinedrum, Lone, and Ariel Pink (their late album collaboration, "Nude Beach a Go Go", is every bit as weird as you'd expect). By the end of Broke With Expensive Tastes, though, they'll be an afterthought to the album's real star: Azealia Banks. And that's how it should be. The reason so many people have stuck with her through her antics is her incredible rapping talent and deep vocal delivery (her singing is definitely an acquired taste, but she knows how to use it). Its a true double threat that allows her to deliver consistently great hooks, while dropping her verse in a style that's unmistakably New York.
Her flow is really Eminemesque. She can cram in six syllables where it seems like only four should fit, while her writing is fresh and descriptive. Her voice is the single cohesive link that keeps the album moving, but the zaniness begins to take a toll on the second half. The clear example of this is ‘Nude Beach A Go-Go,’ a take off Ariel Pink’s song of the same name released…two weeks after Broke With Expensive Tastes. They've apparently worked together, but it’s unsure of whose song it actually is. Unfortunately, the clashing of subject matter is much less flattering than the juxtaposing instrumentals. "Soda" is a song about...soda, and is immediately followed by "Chasing Time", an ode to a failing relationship and Banks' escape from it. Both are alright songs, but the incoherence causes the album to stumble upon crossing the finish line, before "Miss Camaraderie" saves day, returning a level of stability and delivering a satisfying culmination.
As a whole, Broke With Expensive Tastes maintains a steady curiosity derived from Banks' mic skills and the production that carries them. For all her quirks, Banks' has the ability to craft an absolute banger, i.e. "Ice Princess". The song begins like a twisted Disney score, but quickly introduces a brooding bass similar to Mac Miller's "Insomniak". Conversely, "Desperado", without the traditional hip hop drums, sounds like something you could find on Radiohead's Amnesiac or In Rainbow. The weirdest part is that it works.
If the album were taken as a compilation of presumably Azealia’s last few silent years, Broke With Expensive Tastes stands defiantly as a great piece of work featuring a multitude of catchy songs, despite nothing catching "212" in terms of overall perfection for a Pop song. The closest she comes is on "Gimme a Chance", a previously released song that now features her rapping in Spanish on the back half. It's a messy, up-beat pop song that's symbolic of the album as a whole. Its bursting at the seams with talent, taking every minute as a chance to answer the question of whether or not Banks could possibly live up to her potential. The answer is clear, and if you don't want to take my word for it, well you probably stopped reading halfway through, so I'll just end with akfhqwf ksuiwnh Ghhulluw wo iqhndw owdjk. KJduw?
Rating: 4/5