Is an album actually an album if it’s only 15 minutes long? Well, it depends on who you ask I guess. Old heads will say no, it doesn’t, but the youngins will most likely say yes, it does. So, like everything else in the world, there’s no real consensus on the topic. Not that Earl Sweatshirt cares about the opinions either way.
In his first release of the year, and his first album since leaving Columbia Records, Earl Sweatshirt drops off Feet of Clay. The seven-track, fifteen-minute album is filled with harsh sounding beats, witty lyrics, and soundbites throughout the album that’ll leave you pondering for a while. So, basically a typical Earl Sweatshirt album. Also in typical Earl Sweatshirt fashion, the album gets better the more you listen to it.
In even more Earl Sweatshirt fashion, the album cover, as well as the album as a whole, is a bit on the trippy side. The album cover features a goat, who may or may not be possessed, lying down in the middle of a forest that looks like it’s from a scene in Twilight. Upon seeing the album cover, I couldn’t help but ask myself: Is Earl Sweatshirt calling himself the GOAT?
Earl Sweatshirt doesn’t seem like a cocky person who just goes around calling himself the GOAT, however, he does have one of the greatest rap names of all time, in my opinion. He also got released from his contract with Columbia Records after he dropped an album named Some Rap Songs, which may or may not have been a collection of random rap songs he had lying around on his computer.
I, admittedly, didn’t rally like Some Rap Songs, so if it’s true that he got out of his record deal by giving his label a bunch of left overs, he may have to be considered in the realm of GOATs. Especially after his friend A$AP Rocky told the story of how their other friend, and Earl’s group-mate, Frank Ocean finessed Def Jam to get out of his record deal (and a cool $20,000,000).
Finessing the record label = GOAT status. That’s simple math.
Audio Dope 