On Jan. 26, Lyrical Lemonade, a company that develops music content but specializes in music videos, released its debut album, “All Is Yellow,” under the supervision of its founder, Cole Bennett. Although this is the company’s first true studio album, this is not their musical debut. Originally founded as an internet blog in 2013, it didn’t take long before Bennett started recording and directing music videos for local rappers in the Chicago area. The company has been on the up-and-up ever since, producing videos for artists like Lil Pump, Ski Mask the Slump God, and mainstream names like J. Cole. With all that experience in the music industry, let’s see if this serving of Lyrical Lemonade is sweet or sour.

First, let’s have a look at all the artists involved in this project…and there are a lot. The LP features JID, Lil Durk, Kid Cudi, Chief Keef, Lil Yachty, Denzel Curry, Eminem, and Jack Harlow. It has so many performers that a short list can’t even be considered “short.” In total, 34 artists provided their voices for this album. On one hand, this grandiose meshing of artists can create a wondrous blend of sounds that could make for a unique sound for the album. However, it could also lead to a tremendous amount of creative stress, with each artist pulling in a different direction so their vision of the song can be realized. So which way does the album tend to lean? Well…

When it comes to the lyrical content, this album is not great. A lot of the tracks on it have verses that feel like they would be better suited to be a feature on a Taylor Swift or Maroon 5 song. Track 10, called “Fallout,” is a particularly egregious example of this phenomenon. Despite the title’s implication of some kind of dark story ahead, the song just comes off as some generic love ballad. The song “Hello There,” on top of being a boring rendition of Blink-182’s “I miss you,” suffers from the same issue when it comes to Black Kray’s solo verse at the end of the song. Thankfully, the whole album is saved from revolving around this uninspired trope by both parts of “Doomsday,” featuring solid verses from Juice WRLD and Cordae on part one, and a ruthless teeth-bearing diss by Eminem towards long-time rival Benzino. Both Jack Harlow and British rapper Dave’s verses on the closing track, “Stop Giving Me Advice,” are also very strong, but not quite as vivacious as either part of “Doomsday.”

Given Lyrical Lemonade’s past endeavors in videography, one would probably expect the production of the album to be the highlight of the project. Sadly, this isn’t the case. The opening track, “Fly Away,” definitely has a cinematic sound to it, with its great dramatic shifts between instruments and the almost ambient, echoey sound of the sample. The production here is spot-on for what you would expect from a company that does music videos, and it’s very good. Unfortunately, that vibe is quickly abandoned in favor of more generic rap beats, but not without one last hurrah in the form of “Guitar In My Room.” While it features a lovely melodic acoustic guitar sample, and great efforts to tie the sample in with a more traditional rap drum beat, it still falls short of the first track. From here on, the production is not bad or even unoriginal, per se, but it is definitely uninteresting.

There is one track that I feel epitomizes this album’s big overarching issue to a T, that being the fifth track, ironically titled “First Night.” The song is just over three and a half minutes long but has two beat switches. To put that anomaly into perspective, the opener on Drake and 21 Savage’s collaborative project “Her Loss” is four minutes long and has only one particularly notorious beat switch. There are only two sets of instrumentals. The inconsistencies of “First Night” don’t stop there, though. The lyrics describe and gloat about the great speed of a romantic relationship in the first segment of the song, but there is a great and completely unprompted tone shift after the second beat switch, describing how it is okay to take things slower. Of course, this isn’t a bad message, but it is, as previously mentioned, entirely unprompted and unwarranted, deviating from its origin seemingly for no reason or reward. That is exactly what the big problem is with this project, and with compilation albums in general: there is a lack of any real revolving idea or theme.

This isn’t to say that every album that is ever published should be a concept album about a greater issue, but it does mean that there should be one little thread connecting each song in the album. Take a look at Danny Brown’s “Quaranta,” which was released in Nov.  2023. The album revolves around the issues surrounding Danny Brown being 40 years old and still an avid part of the music industry. It has a consistent theme and idea behind it, and is a better album as a whole because of it. Granted, this is a concept album that has a deeper message hiding within, so let’s have a look at an album that is more of the “All Is Yellow” nature, which also happens to be one of Danny Brown’s: “SCARING THE H**S,” a collaborative album with fellow rapper and producer JPEGMAFIA, which was released March 2023. The album revolves around a highly experimental and rambunctious sound, creating a unified idea to build around, and the project is better because of it. “All Is Yellow” doesn’t have this. Each track seems to be developed completely independently from one another, which might not even be the worst thing if all the tracks were on the same level as “Fly Away” or “Doomsday.” 

In short, this album had quite a bit of interest garnering around it up until its release, but the 43-minute project falls short of the hype and ends up being a mediocre compilation of star-studded tracks. Though it’s certainly not good, it’s not exactly bad either. Even so, the negatives outweigh the positives a good portion of the time. That is why this album receives a 4.5/10 score — a bit more Minute Maid than homemade.