Album Review: Common- The Dreamer, The Believer

Average Rating: 9.2/10

Overall Rating:8.4/10 

1. The Dreamer Ft. Maya Anjelou (7/10)

2. Ghetto Dreams Ft. Nas (9/10)

3. Blue Sky (10/10)

4, Sweet (10/10)

5. Gold  (9/10)

6. Love I Lost (9/10)

7. Raw (10/10)

8. Cloth (9/10)

9. Celebrate(9/10)

10, Windows (9/10)

11. The Believer Ft. John Legend (10/10)

12. Pop’s Belief (Skit)

      2011 had a big catalog of albums, particularly in the 4th Quarter. We saw many great releases from Tech N9ne’s Welcome To Stangeland to Drake’s Take Care in just those three months, however we also saw some generally bad to completely awful albums like Wale’s Ambition, which was generally a poor album and Gucci Mane & V Nasty’s BYTLE, which was easily the worst album of the year, so the 4th quarter of 2011 was pretty mixed, however, how would the year end? Well, given that Common is ending the year with his solo project, the highly anticipated album ”The Dreamer, The Believer” I think I have high expectations on how the year will end.

     Common tried something very different with this album, other than making it one of his usual story-filled albums or making what every other rapper is putting on there albums, which is mainly 95% filled with money, cars and women, and the other 5% about the negative aspect of life, Common decided to focus on the positive aspect of life, I think it was a great turn, and it showed with the album’s greatly built, structured and designed music.

     The music on “The Dreamer, The Believer” was more than just positive hip-hop. The main concept of the album was mainly divided into two central points. The first point was about Common’s dreams, the dreams he fulfilled and he also opened up about the dreams he did not fulfill yet, and the second part of the album was about Common’s beliefs, and it mainly gives his views on stuff like death of close relatives, religion and simply his belief on just living life. “The Dreamer, The Believer” was heavy on concept, and it was also heavy on music.

    “The Dreamer” made up half of the album. It took six out of twelve tracks and each of them had almost the same concept, which was mainly about dreaming and fulfilling those dreams. Some of my favorite tracks on The Dreamer side of the album where “The Dreamer” which talked about dreaming about fame and success, “Ghetto Dreams” which was about Common’s dreams as a teenager in the ghetto, Nas also had a verse in that song, which was probably his best feature in a while, “Raw” was basically about the dream of eternal success, it was one of the strongest on the album, and “Sweet” was basically about dreaming about the taste of success, it was a strong, enthusiastic track, and it was one of the many standouts of the album.

   “The Believer” made up another the other half of the album, it took the other six tracks and it mainly was much wider and diverse than “The Dreamer” side of the album, it was a lot more spread out, and it basically talked about Common’s beliefs of so many things. “Blue Sky” talked about believing in yourself, it was the most uplifting track on the album, “Love I Lost” mainly talked about losing people to many casualties, but once moving on life would actually get better, “Cloth” basically talked about race, and how race doesn’t matter in real life and that everyone is the same, and “The Believer” basically opened up about Common’s daughter’s death, and how he managed to move on it however not being able to feel the same because of it.

    As a whole, “The Dreamer, The Believer” did have an excellent concept. It had the right music to match it, however, the album was short on quantity and substance, especially on The Dreamer side, which had almost every track almost talked about the same thing more or less, and the Believer side had the opposite as a problem, it felt too broad, especially given that it was only six tracks. The album’s issue was that it was too short for its large concept, still though, the strongly thought out individual tracks made up for it.

    “The Dreamer, The Believer” was overall an excellent album. It was full of excellent tracks, great moments and some really positive and uplifting songs. This album wasn’t Common’s best, but it was surly up there as one of the top on his list. “The Dreamer, The Believer” did have its share of flaws, bugs and downfalls, however, even with those flaws it excelled as a great album with a large group of memorable tracks, making “The Dreamer, The Believer” one of the most memorable albums of the year.