Executive-produced by Metro Boomin, Monster is dominated by infernal blips and synths over punishing trap drums. Metro’s joined by a tight-knit group of Future’s best and most trusted producers (except Mike Will, who was likely running off with Rae Sremmurd at this point): Southside, TM88, Nard & B, Will A Fool, and DJ Spinz. Monster wouldn’t be what it is without the beats sounding as feverish and disheveled as the emotions Future poured over them. The head-spinning fervor of “Fetti,” chest-caving gloom of “Hardly,” and eerie dysfunction of “Wesley Presley” shouldn’t even make sense next to each other. Past the money showers and sex binges, listening to Future claim pyrrhic victories over these beats feels like watching the demise and rebirth of a monarch happen at the same time. He’s in the best form of his life and is just barely keeping it together.
The tone takes a sharp turn with “Throw Away,” the first real acknowledgement of the breakup that brought him here. The Nard & B two-parter starts off as business-as-usual: Future saunters across chilling, suspenseful tones, throwing money at, and having unemotional sex with more women than he can count. Without warning, the beat falls out and is replaced by harsh synths on the verge of malfunctioning, prompting Future to say some shit I’d never think to ask of anyone in my life: “Go ‘n’ fuck that nigga, get it over with,” looking Ciara straight in the eye as the synths dissolve into soup. After months of hardly addressing the cheating rumors, he finally owns up to them with a ridiculous level of audacity: “The sexing on the late night mean that much to you?/My love don’t mean that much to you/Fuckin’ these hoes meant too damn much to you.”
If you’ve ever dedicated this song to a love interest, I hope someone is out there praying for them. Breakup songs don’t get more cynical than this. As the production grows woozier and muddier, Future only gets more twisted, hoping and pleading that whoever his ex has sex with next somehow brings her back to him. Each passing bar seesaws between petty vengefulness and a forlorn yearning for reconciliation. “If loving me in public ain’t safe, you can take my love and hide it,” he coos softly. That a song this goofily brazen can genuinely convey the anguish it intends to is a miracle, even coming from Future.
If there was ever an album that needed to be named Honest, it’s funny that it ended up being the one right before this one. With “My Savages,” a bluesy ode to the friends that have held him up through the years, Future ponders his role in the fragmenting of their relationships. Throughout “Hardly,” Future jumps around from near-overdoses to violent flashbacks to impulsive shopping sprees, no longer able to distract himself from the price he’s paying for his hedonism.
Album closer “Codeine Crazy,” a TM88-produced instant classic, delves into that reality even further. It’s heartbreaking and stomach-turning and and strangely uplifting the way Future runs his hands over the chinks in his armor: his insecurity over his public perception, his use of drugs as a crutch, his inability to feel the true weight of his problems. The beat—which was originally made for Nicki Minaj—flips a remix of “Summertime Sadness” and adds in these supple, playful synth flourishes that compound the melancholy. Everything he wants to bury under his vices, he can and he does. “Let’s pour up a pint, I’ma fuck around faint like I’m Kid Cudi, prob’ly,” he spits, almost numb at the possibility of losing consciousness. “Codeine Crazy” is less of a cry for help than it is an embrace of the man that he is, flaws intact. “Celebrate like the championship,” he repeats on the bridge, sounding unsure of what he’s actually won in the end.
