''The Search'' is the fourth studio album by American rapper
NF. It was released on July 26, 2019, through NF Real Music and
Caroline,
and was preceded by the singles "Why", "
The Search
''The Search'' is a 1948 American film directed by Fred Zinnemann that tells the story of a young Auschwitz survivor and his mother who search for each other across post-World War II Europe. It stars Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Jarmila Novotn ...
", "
When I Grow Up" and "
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
". It features a sole collaboration with
Sasha Sloan
Alexandra Artourovna Yatchenko (russian: Александра Артуровна Ятченко; born March 11, 1995), known professionally as Sasha Alex Sloan (previously Sasha Sloan), is an American singer-songwriter. Her debut album, ''Only ...
. NF embarked on a North American tour in September and October 2019 in support of the album.
It debuted atop the
''Billboard'' 200, becoming NF's second US No. 1 album, and received generally mixed reviews from critics.
Promotion
The album was announced along with the second single and
title track
A title track is a song that has the same name as the album or film in which it appears. In the Korean music industry, the term is used to describe a promoted song on an album, akin to a single, regardless of the song's title.
Title track may a ...
, which "express
sthe hard quest
F hasbeen on lately in his life with the help of rapid fire rap verses".
Critical reception
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 58 based on 6 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Writing for ''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...
'', Evan Rytlewski described the album as inducing a feeling of powerlessness and questioned how listeners "are supposed to respond to an album that often reads like a suicide note". Rytlewski wrote that NF "spends much of ''The Search'' darting in and out of an overbearing rappity-rap snarl-yell" and called his "struggles with mental illness
..life-threatening", concluding that the album is an "unpleasant ride".
Jon Caramanica
Jon Caramanica (born 1975) is an American journalist and pop music critic who writes for ''The New York Times''. He is also known for writing about hip hop music.
Biography
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Caramanica received his bachelor's degree ...
was more sympathetic in his assessment for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', considering NF an "objectively strong rapper". However, he described the record as "alternately thrilling and draining" as well as "sometimes vigorous, sometimes exhausting", likening the listening experience to "living inside a snare drum during a marching band's halftime performance", and was critical of the lack of musical and lyrical variation on it. Chris DeVille of ''
Stereogum
''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine.
''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several award ...
'' wrote that while "the album's gothic heaviness sometimes suffocates its considerable pop acumen", its theme of struggle against mental health makes it "easy to see why legions of hurting kids gravitate to this music, especially those who reject the
nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
and hopelessness that defines many similar alternatives".
Commercial performance
''The Search'' was initially predicted to debut at No. 2 on the US
''Billboard'' 200 with 95,000
album-equivalent unit
The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditi ...
s, 15,000 units behind
Chance the Rapper's debut studio album ''
The Big Day''. ''The Search'' instead debuted at No. 1 with a larger-than-expected 130,000 units, 22,000 more than Chance the Rapper's album despite its extensive promotion and advantage in the area of
streaming. 84,000 of these came from album sales. Its commercial success was aided by strong sales through the
iTunes Store
The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
, merchandise and bundles through the rapper's web store as well as concert ticket/album sale redemption offers.
Track listing
The digital edition of the album features an edit of "Time" as the 20th track. Credits adapted from
Tidal
Tidal is the adjectival form of tide.
Tidal may also refer to:
* ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple
* Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim
* TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music
* Tidal (servic ...
.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Search, The
2019 albums
NF (rapper) albums