Ventura
by Anderson .Paak

One of the most promising artists of the decade finally comes through with the album we’ve been waiting for. This thing is soulful, funky, gritty, sexy, and even funny.

Fun, funky record, smooth from beginning to end.

From mdbaxter TOP 100 COMMENTER 05/21/2019 18:38 | #236509 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This album is a great combination of smooth melodies and realness. It concerns itself mostly with love but it doesn't share the sentiment of a lot of .Paak's previous work which has been mostly playboy-ish. Instead of moving "onto the next one", he asks "do you wanna make it better?" and "what can we do?". This type of thinking comes off as much more compelling to me because of its relatability. Real people don't have women falling all over them and they don't always have the option to move on from a relationship at the drop of a hat. They work through things and fix them.
The features have been significantly dialed back in comparison to his previous work. The total number is probably similar but he doesn't let anyone steal the song from him (except maybe Andre 3K). Most of them work seamlessly with .Paak.
I enjoyed the album throughout but found the middle tracks to be less great than the others. "Come Home", "Reachin' 2 Much", "Make It Better", "Chosen One" and "What Can We Do?" are the tracks that I thought were special with the Smokey Robinson-featured song being my favorite. I was seriously impressed with "What Can We Do?". I think it's one of the best posthumous features I've ever heard. It had to have been a challenge to make it sound so smooth.

From LebowskiRams TOP 100 COMMENTER 04/12/2019 23:27 | #234861 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This is waaaayyyyy better than Oxnard

From poppmusic TOP 100 COMMENTER 04/29/2019 00:37 | #235625 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

While he stayed true to his gangster origins on "Oxnard", Paak lets himself have a lot more fun on "Ventura", sharing songs that really pinpoint those moments when you're at a concert and you just think to yourself, "wow, isn't music beautiful?" In practice, this is through songs with tons of jazz, soul, energetic rap, funky grooves, and sincere lyrics. This is very easy to listen to, very consistent and really enjoyable. Only two slight criticisms: the lack on one song that is clearly a classic or better than the others, and a little loss of inventiveness compared to earlier in Paak's career. More Songs in the Key of Life than Innervisions, so to speak.