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Track List
01) Brand New Car
02) The Rising
03) Terry
04) Actin Crazy
05) Falconry
06) Thug Love Story 2017 The Musical (interlude)
07) City Boy Blues
08) A Light in the Addict
09) Baby Blue
10) Only in America
11) Galactic Love
12) The Passage (live from Prague)
13) Easy Rider
01) Brand New Car
02) The Rising
03) Terry
04) Actin Crazy
05) Falconry
06) Thug Love Story 2017 The Musical (interlude)
07) City Boy Blues
08) A Light in the Addict
09) Baby Blue
10) Only in America
11) Galactic Love
12) The Passage (live from Prague)
13) Easy Rider
2:21
4:02
4:49
3:59
2:30
2:19
4:06
5:56
4:40
4:14
2:27
3:37
4:19
Data Complete
70%
Total Rating
70%Total Rating
(3 users)
Back Cover
CD Art
3D Case
3D Thumb
3D Flat
3D Face
3D Spine
First Released
2015
Hip-Hop
Passionate
Urban/R&B
---
Medium
Album
0 copies
Album Description
Available in:
Mr. Wonderful is the second studio album by American hip hop recording artist Action Bronson, released on March 23, 2015, by Atlantic Records and Vice Records. The album is Bronson's first for a major label, after signing to Atlantic and Vice, in August 2012. It was preceded by several mixtapes and EPs, including the Blue Chips series and Saaab Stories (2013).
The album, recorded throughout 2014, was produced by several high-profile record producers, such as The Alchemist, Mark Ronson and Noah "40" Shebib. The album has guest appearances by Chance the Rapper, Meyhem Lauren, Chauncy Sherod, Party Supplies and Big Body Bes. Upon its release, Mr. Wonderful received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised Bronson's lyricism and production choices. The album debuted at number seven on the US Billboard 200 and was supported by four singles: "Easy Rider", "Actin Crazy", "Terry" and "Baby Blue".
Background
Bronson began attracting major attention after collaborations with American music producers, Statik Selektah (Well-Done) and The Alchemist (Rare Chandeliers). In August 2012, Bronson signed a recording contract with the Warner Bros. Records and Atlantic Records' imprint Vice Records. His first release for Vice was an extended play (EP) titled Saaab Stories, released on June 11, 2013. After announcing the title of his first studio album for Vice, in May 2014, Bronson spoke with New Musical Express about the album, "The album is sounding incredible. The whole album is a standout. I don't care about individual songs, I'm trying to make a complete, classic project. I just do my music uninfluenced by anybody else, or current trends, and it comes together at the end. Nothing needs to have a fucking theme all the time. This is just rap. I'm not trying to make people think I'm some sort of scientific wizard or inspirational poet. Fuck that! It's just happy, funny, rugged, rough rap." On November 24, 2014, Bronson revealed he had finished recording the album.
Release and promotion
On May 16, 2014, Bronson announced the title of the album in a Twitter update, when he tweeted: "MY ALBUM BEEN NAMED. THE ONLY THING TO DESCRIBE ME.. MR. WONDERFUL. THATS BEEN ME SINCE I STEPPED IN THIS BULLSHIT.." On November 28, 2014, Bronson revealed there would be a worldwide concert tour upon the album's release. On December 24, 2014, he took to Twitter to reveal the album would have guest appearances by Meyhem Lauren, Big Body Bes, Party Supplies, Chauncy Sherod and Chance the Rapper. Later that day, after exposing several fake track lists, Bronson tweeted 13 song titles, unveiling the album's official track listing. On January 7, 2015, Bronson revealed the album would be released on March 24. The following day, after releasing a song from the album titled "Actin Crazy", Bronson posted which artists would be featured on which song. On January 14, 2015, Bronson made an appearance on the New York City radio station Hot 97's Funkmaster Flex show, to promote Mr. Wonderful and performed a freestyle, which prompted Flex to declare Bronson the "nicest in the game right now". On March 11, 2015, Bronson announced on Twitter that his album would be released one day sooner than originally scheduled.
Singles
On August 5, 2014, Bronson released "Easy Rider" as the album's first single. The song was produced by Bronson's long time producer Party Supplies. On August 20, 2014, the music video for "Easy Rider", directed by Tom Gould, was released. The video pays homage to the 1969 Peter Fonda/Dennis Hopper film Easy Rider. After premiering the song on January 7, 2015, Bronson officially released "Actin Crazy", via digital distribution, as the album's second single on January 20, 2015. On February 16, 2015, "Terry" was released as the third single alongside the pre-order for the album. On March 3, 2015, "Baby Blue" was released as the album's fourth single. The song features Chicago-bred recording artist Chance the Rapper. Bronson confirmed on Twitter that they were pushing this single to radio stations and that they were filming a music video for the song.
User Album Review
In rap music, the album has become a hurdle. You can count on one hand the rappers who can accomplish the following two feats: getting a label to release an album, and having that album be good enough that fans aren’t imagining the ways in which it could have been more like the artist’s previous—usually more unfettered and pure—work. In the increasingly fraught journey from underground to mainstream, no time is more uncertain than when mixtapes and EPs must finally become an album. You get one or maybe two shots to prove your staying—and earning—power before your resources get shifted to the next dude with a few radio hits or a small but growing fanbase. It is a grim and unfair reality, and on his major label debut album Mr. Wonderful, Queens jester Action Bronson more or less flips his middle finger at it—an admirable response, though ultimately unsuccessful.
Consider that the first time we hear Bronson’s voice, he is singing in an exaggerated off-key warble. The song falls apart twice, with Bronson cursing that he can't get his vocals right. The moment feels like a rejection of the idea that a major-label debut needs to be a no-nonsense statement to be remembered for decades. In theory, this approach would be refreshing, and if any rapper could let the attendant album pressure roll right off his back, it’s Bronson, who inhabits a character whose reality bares little resemblance to his—or our—own. Yet those atonal vocals end up feeling like a warning sign that Bronson is not going to upend the way rappers make their debut albums. Instead, it turns out, he’s just going to derail his own.
Those nagging vocals—the kind of singing you do to momentarily piss off your significant other—not only embody the spirit of the album, but they conveniently highlight exactly when and where Mr. Wonderful falls apart. After an opening handful of tracks that sound reliably like Action Bronson songs—with a few noticeably ritzy, retro-soul productions—the album shifts into a suite introduced by "THUG LOVE STORY 2017 THE MUSICAL (Interlude)", a sketch in which an older man sings to Bronson about a lost love who disappeared from the streets.
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What follows is a musical of sorts wedged into the gut of the album, with Bronson continuing the story of a runaway girl who has left the protagonist brokenhearted. On "City Boy Blues", Bronson fashions himself as a bluesman, singing and mumbling over a jazz-bar instrumental. Next is "A Light in the Addict", a maudlin and forgettable song made with longtime collaborator Party Supplies that features an unnecessary multiple-minute piano outro. It’s all wrapped up by "Baby Blue", in which Bronson kisses the woman off with those same whining vocals, over a Mark Ronson production that could have fit on an Amy Winehouse album.
This digression is conceptually ambitious, but the execution seems to purposefully undercut the exercise, as if the suite was the result of an argument between a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other about what the album should accomplish that was won by neither. When Chance the Rapper shows up at the end of "Baby Blue" with a verse of playfully inconsequential insults—"I hope every soda you drink already shaken up," "I hope the zipper on your jacket get stuck"—before admitting he hopes his heartbreaker is still happy, he pulls off in half a minute what Bronson couldn’t in fifteen: using an imagined story to reveal humanity through humor.
Bronson, it should be noted, has hit that note before. "THUG LOVE STORY 2017 THE MUSICAL (Interlude)" is a callback to "Thug Love Story 2012", a standout from his still-excellent mixtape Blue Chips. That song was connected to the multi-character track "Hookers at the Point", inspired by the HBO documentary of the same name, in which Bronson rapped in different voices from the points of view of a pimp, prostitute and john, in the process showing that he could consider and illuminate the world outside of his own head. Those two songs felt almost effortless in their construction, while the suite inside Mr. Wonderful feels at once belabored and half-assed.
From there, the album closes with a whimper. Party Supplies, Bronson’s most reliable partner, is brought back again on "Only in America", a track with a classic-rock guitar riff that feels like an inadequate sequel to the duo’s fantastic jukebox rap trifle "Contemporary Man". A few tracks later, there is a live recording of a meandering new song called "The Passage"—if you can figure out the purpose of its inclusion you will have gotten further than me.
Amidst all this are a few tracks—"Terry", "Actin Crazy", "Galactic Love"—featuring Bronson spitting fantastical bullshit over laidback beats. This is where he is at his most natural, approachable, and likeable, dotting his world-traveling fantasies with the names of gourmet foods. Instead of slicing at convention, Bronson accepts it—bringing himself back to square one, which Mr. Wonderful argues, was a pretty fine place after all.
SOURCE: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20404-mr-wonderful/
External Album Reviews
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User Comments
Available in:
Mr. Wonderful is the second studio album by American hip hop recording artist Action Bronson, released on March 23, 2015, by Atlantic Records and Vice Records. The album is Bronson's first for a major label, after signing to Atlantic and Vice, in August 2012. It was preceded by several mixtapes and EPs, including the Blue Chips series and Saaab Stories (2013).
The album, recorded throughout 2014, was produced by several high-profile record producers, such as The Alchemist, Mark Ronson and Noah "40" Shebib. The album has guest appearances by Chance the Rapper, Meyhem Lauren, Chauncy Sherod, Party Supplies and Big Body Bes. Upon its release, Mr. Wonderful received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised Bronson's lyricism and production choices. The album debuted at number seven on the US Billboard 200 and was supported by four singles: "Easy Rider", "Actin Crazy", "Terry" and "Baby Blue".
Background
Bronson began attracting major attention after collaborations with American music producers, Statik Selektah (Well-Done) and The Alchemist (Rare Chandeliers). In August 2012, Bronson signed a recording contract with the Warner Bros. Records and Atlantic Records' imprint Vice Records. His first release for Vice was an extended play (EP) titled Saaab Stories, released on June 11, 2013. After announcing the title of his first studio album for Vice, in May 2014, Bronson spoke with New Musical Express about the album, "The album is sounding incredible. The whole album is a standout. I don't care about individual songs, I'm trying to make a complete, classic project. I just do my music uninfluenced by anybody else, or current trends, and it comes together at the end. Nothing needs to have a fucking theme all the time. This is just rap. I'm not trying to make people think I'm some sort of scientific wizard or inspirational poet. Fuck that! It's just happy, funny, rugged, rough rap." On November 24, 2014, Bronson revealed he had finished recording the album.
Release and promotion
On May 16, 2014, Bronson announced the title of the album in a Twitter update, when he tweeted: "MY ALBUM BEEN NAMED. THE ONLY THING TO DESCRIBE ME.. MR. WONDERFUL. THATS BEEN ME SINCE I STEPPED IN THIS BULLSHIT.." On November 28, 2014, Bronson revealed there would be a worldwide concert tour upon the album's release. On December 24, 2014, he took to Twitter to reveal the album would have guest appearances by Meyhem Lauren, Big Body Bes, Party Supplies, Chauncy Sherod and Chance the Rapper. Later that day, after exposing several fake track lists, Bronson tweeted 13 song titles, unveiling the album's official track listing. On January 7, 2015, Bronson revealed the album would be released on March 24. The following day, after releasing a song from the album titled "Actin Crazy", Bronson posted which artists would be featured on which song. On January 14, 2015, Bronson made an appearance on the New York City radio station Hot 97's Funkmaster Flex show, to promote Mr. Wonderful and performed a freestyle, which prompted Flex to declare Bronson the "nicest in the game right now". On March 11, 2015, Bronson announced on Twitter that his album would be released one day sooner than originally scheduled.
Singles
On August 5, 2014, Bronson released "Easy Rider" as the album's first single. The song was produced by Bronson's long time producer Party Supplies. On August 20, 2014, the music video for "Easy Rider", directed by Tom Gould, was released. The video pays homage to the 1969 Peter Fonda/Dennis Hopper film Easy Rider. After premiering the song on January 7, 2015, Bronson officially released "Actin Crazy", via digital distribution, as the album's second single on January 20, 2015. On February 16, 2015, "Terry" was released as the third single alongside the pre-order for the album. On March 3, 2015, "Baby Blue" was released as the album's fourth single. The song features Chicago-bred recording artist Chance the Rapper. Bronson confirmed on Twitter that they were pushing this single to radio stations and that they were filming a music video for the song.
User Album Review
In rap music, the album has become a hurdle. You can count on one hand the rappers who can accomplish the following two feats: getting a label to release an album, and having that album be good enough that fans aren’t imagining the ways in which it could have been more like the artist’s previous—usually more unfettered and pure—work. In the increasingly fraught journey from underground to mainstream, no time is more uncertain than when mixtapes and EPs must finally become an album. You get one or maybe two shots to prove your staying—and earning—power before your resources get shifted to the next dude with a few radio hits or a small but growing fanbase. It is a grim and unfair reality, and on his major label debut album Mr. Wonderful, Queens jester Action Bronson more or less flips his middle finger at it—an admirable response, though ultimately unsuccessful.
Consider that the first time we hear Bronson’s voice, he is singing in an exaggerated off-key warble. The song falls apart twice, with Bronson cursing that he can't get his vocals right. The moment feels like a rejection of the idea that a major-label debut needs to be a no-nonsense statement to be remembered for decades. In theory, this approach would be refreshing, and if any rapper could let the attendant album pressure roll right off his back, it’s Bronson, who inhabits a character whose reality bares little resemblance to his—or our—own. Yet those atonal vocals end up feeling like a warning sign that Bronson is not going to upend the way rappers make their debut albums. Instead, it turns out, he’s just going to derail his own.
Those nagging vocals—the kind of singing you do to momentarily piss off your significant other—not only embody the spirit of the album, but they conveniently highlight exactly when and where Mr. Wonderful falls apart. After an opening handful of tracks that sound reliably like Action Bronson songs—with a few noticeably ritzy, retro-soul productions—the album shifts into a suite introduced by "THUG LOVE STORY 2017 THE MUSICAL (Interlude)", a sketch in which an older man sings to Bronson about a lost love who disappeared from the streets.
TRENDING NOW
Was MySpace Music’s Best Social Media Platform?
What follows is a musical of sorts wedged into the gut of the album, with Bronson continuing the story of a runaway girl who has left the protagonist brokenhearted. On "City Boy Blues", Bronson fashions himself as a bluesman, singing and mumbling over a jazz-bar instrumental. Next is "A Light in the Addict", a maudlin and forgettable song made with longtime collaborator Party Supplies that features an unnecessary multiple-minute piano outro. It’s all wrapped up by "Baby Blue", in which Bronson kisses the woman off with those same whining vocals, over a Mark Ronson production that could have fit on an Amy Winehouse album.
This digression is conceptually ambitious, but the execution seems to purposefully undercut the exercise, as if the suite was the result of an argument between a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other about what the album should accomplish that was won by neither. When Chance the Rapper shows up at the end of "Baby Blue" with a verse of playfully inconsequential insults—"I hope every soda you drink already shaken up," "I hope the zipper on your jacket get stuck"—before admitting he hopes his heartbreaker is still happy, he pulls off in half a minute what Bronson couldn’t in fifteen: using an imagined story to reveal humanity through humor.
Bronson, it should be noted, has hit that note before. "THUG LOVE STORY 2017 THE MUSICAL (Interlude)" is a callback to "Thug Love Story 2012", a standout from his still-excellent mixtape Blue Chips. That song was connected to the multi-character track "Hookers at the Point", inspired by the HBO documentary of the same name, in which Bronson rapped in different voices from the points of view of a pimp, prostitute and john, in the process showing that he could consider and illuminate the world outside of his own head. Those two songs felt almost effortless in their construction, while the suite inside Mr. Wonderful feels at once belabored and half-assed.
From there, the album closes with a whimper. Party Supplies, Bronson’s most reliable partner, is brought back again on "Only in America", a track with a classic-rock guitar riff that feels like an inadequate sequel to the duo’s fantastic jukebox rap trifle "Contemporary Man". A few tracks later, there is a live recording of a meandering new song called "The Passage"—if you can figure out the purpose of its inclusion you will have gotten further than me.
Amidst all this are a few tracks—"Terry", "Actin Crazy", "Galactic Love"—featuring Bronson spitting fantastical bullshit over laidback beats. This is where he is at his most natural, approachable, and likeable, dotting his world-traveling fantasies with the names of gourmet foods. Instead of slicing at convention, Bronson accepts it—bringing himself back to square one, which Mr. Wonderful argues, was a pretty fine place after all.
SOURCE: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20404-mr-wonderful/
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