The Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) has many flaws. Although early editions (most notably the 3rd) helped the psychiatric field find a footing in the 21st century, providing accessible common language interpretation of various mental illnesses, the text has only become more pedantic and convoluted in recent times. It’s expansive in its inclusion but narrow in its categorization: it’s hard to gauge severity, distinguish between persistent and fleeting issues or just diagnose someone in general. There’s a lot of guesswork, so much so that there’s plenty of room for error even when a skilled orator like Danny Brown blatantly states: “Depression is serious y’all think I do drugs cause it’s fun … I would no other way to escape.” How long has he been depressed? Does he experience anxiety? Are both these just comorbids distracting us from his addiction? Is his addiction genetic or is it a learned habit? Was it caused by childhood trauma that resulted in PTSD? Wait — is Mr. Brown bipolar?
Danny claiming “my whole family addicts,” over a chest-tightening sample of the Joy Division song Atrocity Exhibition was named after, isn’t enough to form a diagnosis – it only raises more questions. In a way, this is exactly what the Detroit wordsmith’s fourth, and most challenging album is about. On paper, it reads like a laundry list of symptoms hastily concocted by a manic mind at the peak of his delirium. You can almost envision Danny in a dark room, self-diagnosing at 3 a.m. until he realizes all the white lines on his table have magically disappeared and takes a break to go score some more uncut. Where Danny Brown’s sophomore effort, XXX, was a race against the Grim Reaper, and Old was him surveying the fallout of his tumultuous path to stardom, Atrocity Exhibition is the rapper wondering just how the hell he’s reached the previously-unfathomable age of 35. With age, survivor’s guilt was picked up as an additional symptom.
But, with age, Danny’s talents have only become sharper, his creativity now at an inhibited high. Just look at the lead single: “When It Rain” is an unapologetic, frantic ode to his hometown that sees Danny dodging literal showers of bullets with elusively odd time signatures over a noisy beat that dares you try and stay seated. With $70,000 worth of cleared samples, longtime collaborators Paul White, Black Milk and Alchemist, along with select others, help turn this project into the answer to Danny’s existential crisis. It sounds like the album he’s been waiting to make his entire life. It’s grounded in the present as Danny uses tours to escape from the CNN-blues (“cops killing niggas every day like protocol/watch the TV, turn on the news/make a nigga feel like/he listened to blues”), but sonically flits from genre to genre as the rapper’s well-documented obsession with music of all sorts comes to fruition in the most memorable manner. Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason, German metal band Embryo and dance-punk outfit Pulsallama both have equal real estate in Danny’s mind. Mixed by TDE’s MixedByAli, songs are often sparse and abrupt, glitching their way in and out of rotation. Although the unconventional song structures and ostensibly clashing influences may create an unsettling experience for some, this is Hip Hop’s most sonically focused project since Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly (which, ironically, Danny was supposed to be on).
Atrocity Exhibition is like one long, bad acid trip. Various corridors of your psyche are opened and shut involuntarily while you play the role of passenger. Danny walks around in the dark, “hearing ghost-es,” with nothing on but a bathrobe and a pinky ring (“Downward Spiral”), occasionally tripping over the carcasses of rappers and beats he’s conquered (“Hell For It”). He finds comfort in knowing he’s talented. However, these flashes of machismo aren’t as prevalent as on his previous works. Instead, they now serve as moments of humorous respite between the less joyful shrieks for help. The album opens with him sweating out some Molly, paying for a threesome and attempting to have unprotected sex despite the insane amount of Schedule 1 drugs in his system that prevent him from rising to the occasion. And it only get’s weirder from there: the defiant highlight “Ain’t It Funny” sees him spitting “might need rehab, but to me that shit pussy,” and sets off a three-track cocaine binge that ends with Danny counting heartbeats by the end of “White Lines.” It’s hard to stay grounded when even your fans are handing you drugs, thinking they’re showing you love — “kinda fucked up,” is right.
The most rewarding aspect of Atrocity Exhibition is the ease with which Danny Brown conducts this freakshow. The straightforward dichotomy of Old’s Side A and Side B put his creativity under question and the precise trainwreck presented here seems like a direct rebuttal. The highs (“Dance in the Water”) still come with the lows (“From the Ground”), the mania (“Downward Spiral”) is still balanced by sobering introspection (“Tell Me What I Don’t Know”), but it all coexists in a web of paranoia that Danny recounts in a disarmingly matter-of-fact fashion. He seems more complacent than he does despondent. His voice still fluctuates between his trademark shrill squawk and an equally gripping deadpan, but the execution has only found more nuance. From the first bar, Danny slams the naively eager listener’s face into a table full of blow and forces them into one uncomfortable situation after another, peeling back their eyelids Clockwork Orange-style. Rather than reel in his eccentricity, he delivers one of the most polarizing rap albums of 2016; a high-stakes juggling act that sees him puking up vile lyrics about cunnilingus one moment, whispering profound insight the next. The DSM-V may not be able to properly diagnose the self-proclaimed “Adderall Admiral,” but he’s clearly found a worthwhile method of treatment through his art.
AOTY
It’s a fresh album, catching new rhymes every listen. Haven’t heard anything with more substance.
AOTY
Fire from front to back.
This is epitome of great experimental Hip Hop album. This is my new favorite joint from Danny only next to XXX.
AOTY
Hey, HHDX… goes to show how out-of-touch with Real hiphop fans. This is near perfect nd has a 5 rating from us fans. Stop pushing kardashians on to young fans and stop it with the game meek crap we DONT CARE!!!!! DANNY BROWN ALBUM OF THE YEAR BY FAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amazing
so glad he released it early. dope album.
Great Album
HHDX Failed on this review.
The only fail is you commenting under multiple screen names. You know I can see that, right? OK, then.
BOOM! lol! Look at hhdx with the clap back.
No you guys also failed with review. Album of the year.
Prove it.
Danny Brown’s music, especially this album is musical therapy session. There are many layers and complexities that show a lot of pain, vulnerability and suffering but at the same time, such bravado and nihilism. Atrocity Exhibition sonically is on a different scale and lyrically DB in his prime. Great review btw. Dope album. 4/5.
this album is extremely dope from beginning to end.
Mtcheew… Dafuq hhdx!! You guys never give good albums their props. You guys think it has to sound like drake before its good. Danny is pushing hip hop to newer heights and y’all give it a 3.9?!! Y’all are tripping. so this is only better than THC? Come on. Mtcheeew.
But this album got a whole point higher than the last Drake album lol.
Album of the Muthaphukkin year!!
Wow by reading the review it should be a 4.5. But HHDX put a 3.9. It does not seem really logical. I just listened the whole album and it is easily a 4.5. Here you have one of the greatest example of creativity on the last years. The text really doesn’t match with a 3.9 but with at least a 4.2 or 4..5. This is weird, the 3.9 is really not consistent with the review. HHDX, for the notation I clearly see that you underrated this album. I just hope you will not overrate the next Kanye or Drake or any big shot album. This is one of the best album this year, maybe even the best. I am just afraid it was too creative for HHDX.
Nah it’s a polarizing release. I’m sure it can grow from 3.9 to a higher rating for many people. And for some it won’t even get that high to begin with. I’m glad you love the album though, I do too – as you can tell by the review.
p.s. drake’s last album got a 2.9 from us
How was Kanye’s last album rated? How do you feel about that rating in comparison to this album?
Fire review. Fire album. Feck off with that score HHDX
Danny Brown is the greatest rapper ever.
let’s calm down there now.
“Greatest rapper ever” is the title of a song on his first album. It’s actually one of my favorite Danny Brown tracks too.
No album sounds like this, and no album will ever sound like it. A classic
Album of the Year. This is a Album your gonna lovee or gonna hate. Cant hate those who Dont see this album as great as do because im wired Different mentally. Felt the same way about Old as it being album of the year but this one is definitely is
Sick
This is tha weirdest rap album I have ever listen 2 , and it’s great from beginning 2 end. Danny made a masterpiece , and it came of no where. His last album sounded nothing like this , koodoos 2 u Danny 4 being creative in hip hop
Danny Brown gave us experimental production, crazy switching flows, and hilarious lyrics. AOTY bruh bruh!
This album is fucking incredible. Best hip hop album of the year for me. Production is the freshest shit I’ve heard in a long, long time.
By far the best hip hop album this year. A downward spiral through an atrocity exhibition.
This album combines the elements that made XXX and OLD great and cuts out the fat. Exceptional work from Danny and the contributing emcees and producers. IMO him and Earl should do a joint record. They’re on the same wavelength and the contrast in voices compliment one another wonderfully. Hope Danny don’t OD any time soon, really enjoy this man’s music.
One of the top 5 of the year.
Hey yo!
I haven’t listened to this enough to really form an opinion yet… just flicked through it quickly (which means I could probably write a HHDX review on it, but that’s beside the point) but I have two things I wanted to put out there: 1. I love the HHDX clap back down in the comments below… and I think that should happen more often. 2. I do agree with a lot of other commentators who say the text of the review doesn’t really match the rating. I thought this review itself was inspired, creative and well written, but it definitely seemed to indicate an album better than 3.9. Didn’t it? I’m gonna give this a full spin today and see what I really think, but this feels like an under-rating right now. Or…. maybe it’s really just not better than Lady Parts?
Danny brown is fucking melodic
HHDX deludin in this bitch.. This is an isntaclassic an easily aoty
This is the XXX project on Acid. Incredible stuff bruh. Danny sounds like he reached a self realization on this album not many rappers (Kanye) his age are at. This dude is a super great writer and storyteller.
An acquired taste –like acquiring the taste for battery acid. Fuck this nigga’s album b. The only shit I fucks with is the songs he collabs with TDE on, and the opening song for Fresh Off The Boat
Agreed. If this album is considered good then hip hop is in a worst state than I thought.
I love Danny Brown but this album is really disappointing. Lyrically his worst performance. Tempo is like a rickety Rollercoaster ride about to fall of the tracks. Beats are very hard to listen to let alone rap on.
this project was a mess. too many fillers and no cohesiveness in sound. very overrated album
danny poo
Jesus Christ this album is awful