Azealia Banks’ ‘Broke With Expensive Taste’: Review Revue

Yesterday, oft-controversial femcee Azealia Banks caused Hell to briefly freeze over by delivering one of the year’s biggest surprises: Her seemingly eternally delayed debut studio album, Broke With Expensive Taste, which arrived on iTunes without any fanfare whatsoever, Beyoncé style.

Today, critics across the globe are just beginning to react to the “212” rapper’s sudden debut album drop. Here at Idolator, we gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, and found ourselves refreshed by the “much-needed kick in the ass.” But what did other critics across the web have to say? Check out the reviews after the jump.

:: SPIN found plenty to praise on the “tardy but brash and confident” long-awaited record: “Broke With Expensive Taste is a project dripping in confidence, class, bursts of brilliance, and personality.”

:: NME agreed, saying it was “just about” worth the wait and giving the album a 7 out of 10 and praising the seamless mixture of old and new tunes: “‘Broke…’ is the motherlode, Banks’ own ‘Chinese Democracy’. It’s laced with familiarity – you don’t omit a thrilling, feral beast like ‘212’, even if it is three years old.”

:: TIME noted that Banks doesn’t quite surpass the greatness of her breakout hit, but stresses that the album is about more than that: “The album lives in a familiar shadow — is anything as good as ‘212’? — but while the answer to that inevitable question is, well, no, not really, that’s also not exactly the point. On Broke With Expensive Taste, Azealia Banks isn’t trying to finish writing the chapter she started — she’s trying to begin a new one altogether.”

:: The New York Post also found the album was worth the wait, giving the album three out of four stars: “Her debut is not just an album by the latest hip-hop wannabe, it’s a stylistically schizophrenic collection by an artist who is tuned into almost every genre of music you can imagine. It’s no wonder Banks’ record deal with Interscope (which was originally meant to release the album) fell through, because there’s no telling what she’s likely to do next.”

:: Billboard gave the album 3-1/2 stars out of 5, finding the record adventurous — and occasionally confusing: “The missteps are few, but grave: on ‘Gimme a Chance,’ she transitions from bouncy rap to full-blown salsa, complete with Spanish singing, while the retro surf-pop of the Ariel Pink-produced ‘Nude Beach a Go-Go’ confounds. And yet, both merely amplify how creatively combative Banks can be — especially when she focuses that energy into her music.”

What do you think of Broke With Expensive Taste? Sound off in the comments below.