Joji is a current YouTube star gone R&B singer, who has just released his first commercial project, Ballads 1, on October 26th, 2018. Joji has been known for his incredibly moody, lo-fi beats and was signed on to the 88rising record label in 2017. Since this point, he has made numerous songs and featured in other tracks around the music world.

Before he was Joji in the music industry though, he was Youtube sensation Filthy Frank, who is thought to have changed YouTube as a whole as well as shaping the dark grimy humor that his fans are typically known for having. He made a long-lasting impact on the site, with his multiple characters that he would play to make vulgar, disgusting videos. One of these characters was labeled “Pink Guy”, who was personified as a man in a pink body suit who could not speak English unless he was rapping. These raps usually followed the gross humor that was reflected in his videos, and over time, they started getting realized by bigger people, skyrocketing him to even more fame. Enough backstory about how Joji came to be though. Is Ballads 1 good or bad?

The opening song “Attention” starts with incredibly melodic, moody vocals from Joji, which is incredibly relaxing until about the halfway through the song when a multitude of massive bass drops muffles the singing to the point where you can not tell what Joji is saying, putting a massive damper on the song. Fortunately for us, the following song is “Slow Dancing in the Dark” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Qzzggn–s which features incredible production, an incredible vocal range from Joji, and some of the best lyricism that you hear on the entire album. This leaves a lasting impression and makes you crave more songs similar to this one, but the rest of the album just does not live up to it.

Joji’s main fault is that in all of the songs from here on out, there is close to no change in the format of each song. It sounds as though you are listening to the same song over and over on repeat. Of course, if you love this type of music, then that would be a plus for you, but from a critical standpoint, Joji simply lacks range in his songs.

While almost every song does sound the same, Joji does a good job keeping some truly hard-hitting moments throughout the album. Despite these, it is an overall lackluster project in which Joji does almost nothing to broadcast his full potential and stays to the same rhythmic formula throughout.

If you are a fan of moody, edgy, depressing teenager music, then this is the perfect album for you and deserves a listen. However, I would only give this album from Joji a 5 out of 10. It is simply average, and while there is one song in it that stands out above all others, and could be considered great, you could mix every other song on the album together and you would not know that they were different songs 90% of the time. Hopefully, in the future, Joji is able to pull a more diverse range from both pockets, instead of sticking to just one formula.