The Blueprint 3 Review

Empire State of Mind is a permanent record, a piano figure and a vocal from Alicia Keys that turned into a civic anthem, and it is the only thing here anyone will still play in fifty years. Run This Town has an enormous drum and two guests who each outshine the host. D.O.A. is a good idea, a middle aged man declaring war on a vocal effect, executed with a horn sample and real conviction, and it aged into a joke almost immediately.

Everything else is expensive and generic, synths and stadium drums chasing the pop rap of the moment rather than setting it. The writing has settled into positions rather than stories, a man defending his standing against rappers half his age and mostly listing his own achievements. Calling it a Blueprint invited a comparison it cannot survive. On its own terms it is a competent commercial album and nothing more than that.