A retrospective on The Big Day: was it really that bad?
The Big Day is actually kind of gas.
Following the resounding success of The Coloring Book (2016) and Acid Rap (2013), Chance the Rapper released The Big Day. Chance was on a hot streak—everything he touched turned to gold. He even touted, “I met Kanye West, I’m never going to fail.” However, Chance’s Midas touch finally caught up with him. The release of his 2017 album was, in fact, a “Big Day,” but for all the wrong reasons. The public reception of the album was about as bad as it gets: American music critic Anthony Fantano summed it up with “we have the song ‘Hot Shower’, more like hot garbage. This song features some of the worst bars Chance has ever recorded. Point-blank. Period.” And unlike albums like Whole Lotta Red, it has continued to be vehemently hated. The public has undoubtedly entered The Big Day into the awful albums hall of fame, but its position might not be entirely justified.
I am here to argue that, while not perfect, this project has a lot of value if you change how you examine it. Typically, when we consider an album with a critical eye, we look closer at the details: we dissect lyrics, examine production, and analyze rhyme schemes. However, the way you must approach The Big Day is different.
If we approach a fairytale like we approach Crime and Punishment, we might find the fable to be less than a masterpiece. So, do children’s stories have no value? Obviously not. But why? Because of the audience. Everyone expected the album to tackle the same themes or at least maintain the same vibe as his previous work, so the change in pace with The Big Day caught listeners off guard. It is true that if The Big Day were trying to do the same thing as Acid Rap, it would be undeniably horrible. However, this begs the question: what is Chance’s goal?
In Acid Rap, Chance uses a psychedelic lens to tackle heavy themes such as the loss of innocence and gang violence, while Coloring Book leans into a gospel-inspired style to showcase his positive transformation through faith and finding God. The Big Day is supposed to continue this progression by reflecting on his marriage; it is an ode to his wife. He is trying to express how great his life is by celebrating all the different aspects of his identity. His appreciation for his wife shines through on the track “The Big Day,” but the song also features vulgar language and drug references, hinting that this aspect of his persona hasn't completely disappeared. His intention was to create something fun and happy that positions his new married life as a beautiful culmination of his love for God and his Southside upbringing. Listening to The Big Day is like watching your parents make out. It feels wrong and uncomfortable, but to them, it’s beautiful.
Now that I have provided an overview of my interpretation of The Big Day, let us move into some specifics. For my own credibility, I will begin with the negatives: length, formatting, and lyrics. Length is the biggest problem. With 20 songs and two skits, the album is simply too long. Its playfulness can be exhausting, and the overwhelming production can be a lot to listen to for 80 minutes. The issue of length is not helped by the second issue: formatting.
There does not seem to be much thought put into the order of the songs. Given that the album is based on his wedding day, I would have loved to see Chance structure the album in such a way that it chronologically takes the listener through all the emotions of his “Big Day.” Instead, he seems to randomly throw songs in places where they really don’t belong. For example, “Town on the Hill” is very slow and soft, so putting it at the beginning might help ease the listener into such an intense album. Instead, Chance places it near the end, where it just brings the energy down. This would be fine if the final track was more of a melodramatic retrospective, but “Zanies and Fools” opts for a maximalist approach, attempting to encapsulate all the craziness of the album. After the calming “Town on the Hill,” your mood is subdued and relaxed–only to be disturbed by a skit and the frenetic final track. This abrupt shift on top of the album's choppy sequencing throughout creates an album that feels like a rollercoaster in the least satisfying way.
The lyrics, on the other hand, aren’t simply bad. In fact, the album’s most bafflingly terrible lines create some of its most intriguing moments. However, the overall lack of cohesion across the album largely stems from its inconsistent lyricism. One of Chance’s strong points in his previous work was his storytelling ability, but The Big Day really misses that. Everyone was expecting Chance’s lyrical talent to culminate in an ambitious concept album, but instead we got a silly, often nonsensical pop album.
Though I acknowledge the album has a lot of flaws, there is also a lot about it that I really like. Its most evident strength is Chance’s sheer creativity. Many of the “worst” lines on the album are things I would have never thought of had you given me a thousand years to freestyle. Some of my favorites include, “Big fine, Rotisserie (Muah yeah)/My big tongue make it slippery” off “Handsome,” “Life is short as a midget but mine’s a little Lebron” on the intro track “All Day Long,” “Birdman handrub/This shit fit me like a damn glove” on “Big Fish,” and “Peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat” on “Ballin Flossin.” I could list 20 more of the most outrageous bars you have ever heard, but, for the sake of time, I will limit myself. Now, are these lyrics particularly meaningful? No. Do they help create a story? No. Are they complex? No. However, are they funny? Yes. Are they memorable? Absolutely. Are they creative beyond your wildest imagination? 100%. The juxtaposition of “Rotisserie” and oral sex is not something I ever thought I would hear. The bars also leave the listeners with a list of questions. What is a “birdman handrub”? What does it mean to “Peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat”? And does “mines a little Lebron” mean his life is long or just right?
If we just appreciate Chance’s lyrics as wacky, zany bursts of creativity rather than dissecting them for hidden meaning, we can find a lot of value in them. How can you not laugh listening to The Big Day? How can you not reference the ridiculous lyrics to your friends? How can you not be caught off guard by the unpredictable production? Are these not metrics of a great album? If you think the album is awful (which most who have listened to it do), I want you to go and listen to the second half of “5 Year Plan” and try not to crack a smile when Randy Newman comes in with one of the strangest vocal performances I have ever heard.
The second positive is a defense against a common issue people have with the album: cohesion. You can listen to Acid Rap or The Coloring Book from start to finish without noticing many of the transitions in between songs. This is not the case for The Big Day. The transitions between songs are really sharp and seem to be done without much care. However, how often do you really listen to an album front to back? For me, the majority of the time I am listening to one of my own playlist. And more often than not, that playlist is on shuffle. So, for the large portion of the time I spend listening to music, the transitions are not good. Does the lack of cohesion make the album worse as a whole? Perhaps. But does it make the individual songs any worse? I would argue no.
The features are worth a mention: John Legend delivers an exceptional chorus on the intro track that is frustratingly catchy, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie provides a wonderful feature that blends genres in a nuanced way, and Nicki Minaj is excellent wherever she appears. As with the rest of the album, the praise is not without criticism: Shawn Mendes, Knox Fortune, and Lil Durk have some dispassionate, subpar performances that are most aptly described as boring.
I am not saying The Big Day is a well-constructed album or even that it is good; I am arguing that the way in which it is bad makes it infinitely more entertaining than an album that takes no creative risks and is just bleh. Instead of listening to the album with a scorecard in your hand, sit back and enjoy it. Think about the fact that Chance thinks “Hot Shower” is a song that belongs on an album that is meant to be an ode to his wife. The album is truly a character study of Chance as a person. The Big Day is an excellent example of someone trying to be someone they aren’t and failing miserably. Much like how reading an author we disagree with is important to improve our understanding of a topic, seeing how and why an artist fails to achieve their goal tells us a lot about them as a person. Chance may have failed to create a heartfelt homage to his wedding, but in doing so, he made one of the most entertaining, hilariously awful albums of all time.
edited by Greta Irvine.
album artwork believed to belong to either the publisher of the work or the artist.