Mike Posner – 31 Minutes To Takeoff

Score one for the list of “Albums to Play When Your Girlfriend is in Your Car.” Pop-fueled Michigan native Mike Posner finally hopes to see his professional career take off with his debut album 31 Minutes to Takeoff. With the kind of subject matter that the finest of sorority girls will relate to, HipHopDX Underground Report alum Posner provides his audience with a fitting soundtrack for ending your summertime fling and getting into the swing of back-to-school season.

While he came up on the buzz from his mixtape A Matter of Time , Posner managed to snag an audience of Hip Hop fans. It also seems that he’ll lose that same audience as quickly as he gained them with the path he chose to take on 31 Minutes to Takeoff.  Pop is the name of the game on the LP, as it unleashes a handful of tracks tailored toward a Top 40 radio station – a page from B.o.B.‘s playbook earlier this year. Flashbacks of college living will strike listeners as they hear tracks such as “Gone In September,” as Mike admits over an abstractly Reggae-influenced beat, “When I met you at the party and I told you you were pretty, I was honestly just tryin’ to score, but you made me wait a week just to kiss you on the cheek, now it’s breakin my heart to break yours.”

Each song seems tailored to a part of university life: the drunken urge to chase co-ed booty (“Bow Chicka Wow Wow” ), the popular girls on campus (the radio-friendly “Cooler Than Me”), unknowingly dating the loosest freshman on campus who happens to be named Carolina Stevens (“Cheated,” and yes, he calls her out by name), or the identity crisis that comes with maturing (“Delta 1406”).

Interestingly, a notable feature is Boyz II Men on “Déjà Vu,” who even after all of these years still manage to maintain their trademark sound. However, instead of actually featuring the group on the track, they’re disappointingly left to play the background and never really shine on the bass and synthesizer-laden track.

The bottom line is that Hip Hop fans may have to strain to appreciate 31 Minutes to Takeoff. Although the Electro-Pop style was executed well, with strong production and sound quality as evidenced on “Please Don’t Go” and  “Save Your Goodbye,” it will be too different than what some people may have expected from Posner for them to handle.