On Dec. 8, 2019, Juice WRLD, real name Jared Anthoney Higgins, died from an overdose of codeine and oxycodone. He was only 21. At that point, he was an up-and-coming rap artist with some good songs, working with rappers like Eminem on his song “Godzilla,” and making the commercially successful “Legends Never Die.” His final album “The Party Never Dies,” is supposed to be a final send-off for the rapper with how it was marketed using techniques like having a whole Fortnite live event before the album’s release. But, because of how inexperienced he was at the beginning of his career and how it ended so shortly, this album was heavily dependent on producers and guest features to make this project come to life. But this album fell short.
As the album continued, I found myself getting bored as the songs started to bleed together so much that I didn’t even realize that there were only five songs left when I checked my Spotify. I wanted to do a song-by-song review, but all the songs felt the same and boring, with some tracks having notable things here and there.
The best track is the intro track with the same title as the album. It simply sets up the story and theme of the album and has the best song of the album. The only thing I didn’t like about the song was how short it was and made me wanting more from this song.
On the fourth track, “Lace It,” the aspect that makes it stand out the most is the feature from Eminem. Eminem had been a well-known calibrator with Juice WRLD, working with him on the aforementioned, “Godzilla.” But with this feature, Eminem wasn’t at his greatest. His rapping was slow, and boring and made me think of his albums from the 2000s that weren’t that great. I agree with the popular opinion that Eminem hasn’t had a good album in years and this song doesn’t help him. Besides Eminem’s mediocrity, I think this is one of the better performances of Juice WRLD on this album with the chorus being catchy and fun.
The only other notable track was the 15th track, “Best Friend,” featuring, of all people, the band Fall Out Boy. This was weird for me but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Fall Out Boy did a single with Macklemore just a couple of years ago and more and more rock bands like Blink-184 have been doing songs with pop and hip-hop artists to gain relevancy points. The song itself is ok. I did like how a hip-hop beat was placed over the rock melody that already had drumming in it. But, for the most part, it was all right. I liked the part when Fall Out Boy took over the song at the end but, just like the other songs, it was way too short and left me wanting more.
Overall, this project was not very great and was harmful to Juice WRLD; this isn’t what a final album should be. It should be “Blackstar,” it should be “Let It Be.” Instead, it is a poor song and put together with features that fall flat, making me feel bored and wanting it to be over. The album is 18 songs long for a total of 54 minutes and 23 seconds. I would give this album a 3 out of 10.
