Review of 'Stardust' by Danny Brown

Danny Brown throws a party to celebrate his sobriety and invites all the weird kids.

Back in 2011, Danny Brown was binging on every substance known to man and delivering lines like ‘i’ma die like a rockstar’. There seemed as much chance of him going straight edge as Iggy Pop permanently wearing a shirt. But here we are 14 years later: Danny Brown has quit the drugs and booze. And it’s most certainly for the best considering how bleak some of the lyrics were on his last album, Quaranta. He’s sounding so much more upbeat on Stardust: ‘Dance on the stars, I’ma walk on the moon/ Got my head in the clouds, I ain’t coming back soon’. It’s a joy to witness.

Becoming sober thankfully hasn’t made Danny shy away from parties. Instead, he’s invited a bunch of guests to help celebrate his reinvention. And, in usual Danny Brown style, he’s keeping the party weird. He’s decided to ditch hip hop beats and hip hop guests entirely, and embrace the freaky world of hyperpop.

I am very much familiar with hyperpop. In fact, I even wrote a guide to hyperpop here back in 2020. Judging from this album, it’s a genre that I still have a love-hate relationship with. There's a vast spectrum of sounds within hyperpop as some of these guests prove - there’s the likes of JOHNNASCUS delivering distorted screamo over noise/glitch beats, and then there are artists like Frost Children doing breathy Enrique-Iglesias-like singing over twinkly synths. Personally, while I don’t love either extremes, I do think I can tolerate the former more than the latter. In other words, I prefer the hyper side of hyperpop, to the pop side of hyperpop.

As it turns out, much of the songs on Stardust thankfully sit somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. The two tracks featuring Underscores, 'Copycats' and 'Baby', are both bangers that are just the right amount of poppy and experimental. The production courtesy of Nnamdi in ‘Right From Wrong’ is very otherworldly. And even though I can't understand a word of the Polish rapping on 'The End', I do like the playful delivery and woozy synths.

I think what makes up for some of the more iffy guests is Danny’s rapping. He’s sounding so energetic here, and he’s playing around with so many cadences beyond his trademark squawk. As much as I loved Scaring The Hoes, his rapping was a little one-dimensional on that album, and it didn’t help that it was also buried in the mix. On Stardust, his voice sounds so much clearer and his delivery is so much more versatile. 

Some artists start making boring music when they get sober, but for Danny it feel like an exciting new chapter.

★★★★☆

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