Travis Scott: "Let's get this Rodeo started"

Travis Scott didn't just want to make an album. He wanted to build a world. Rodeo (2015) is that world: dark, sprawling, drenched in neon and smoke. It's a place where late nights stretch into infinity, where excess and emptiness exist side by side. If Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak cracked open the emotional floodgates for hip hop's next decade, Rodeo took that blueprint, submerged it in auto-tune, and cranked the bass past any reasonable limit.

But here's the thing - this album isn't for everyone. It's indulgent. It's scattered. At times, it feels more like an experience than a collection of songs. And yet, a decade later, it still sounds like the future.

The highs: Euphoric and dizzying

Right from the jump, Rodeo feels cinematic. Pornography opens with an almost religious intensity - T.I. narrating as if this is a legend in the making - before launching into a woozy, codeine-drenched soundscape. Then there's Oh My Dis Side, one of the most ambitious tracks here. It starts as a frantic banger before morphing into a reflective, hazy meditation on Scott's come-up. It's this unpredictability that makes Rodeo so immersive; you never quite know where the music is taking you, but you're locked in for the ride.

Then, of course, there's Antidote. The song that officially launched Travis into the stratosphere. It's hypnotic, sinister, and absurdly catchy - exactly the kind of song that makes you feel untouchable at 3 AM. Even now, its energy is untamed, like a wildfire that never burns out.

Tracks like Nightcrawler (featuring Swae Lee and Chief Keef) take that energy and push it further, leaning fully into the hedonistic side of Rodeo. It's excessive in the best way possible - blaring, reckless, yet perfectly calculated.

The lows: When the trip starts to drag

Here's where Rodeo stumbles: it occasionally loses itself in its own atmosphere. Some tracks, like 90210, while ambitious, can feel like it stretches a little too long, as if Scott got so wrapped up in his own world that he forgot to bring the listener with him.

Then there's Flying High, which feels oddly out of place - less like a bold experiment and more like an idea that never fully materialized. And while Rodeo thrives on its grand, genre-blurring approach, there are moments when it drifts a little too far into excess. The production is always rich, but some tracks feel less essential in the grand scope of the album.

The legacy: A blueprint for the next era

Here's what's undeniable: Rodeo changed hip hop. It blurred the lines between rap and psychedelic soundscapes, laying the groundwork for artists like Playboi Carti, Don Toliver, and even elements of modern Kanye. Scott's use of auto-tune wasn't just a stylistic choice - it was an instrument, bending and distorting reality in ways that made emotions feel otherworldly.

And let's be real: Travis Scott wasn't the first to do this. Kanye, Kid Cudi, and Future had all been experimenting with these sounds. But Rodeo took those influences, amplified them, and turned them into a new kind of mainstream sound - one that would define an entire era of hip hop.

Final Thoughts

So, does Rodeo hold up? Absolutely. It's not perfect - some moments drag, and some experiments don't quite land - but when it's great, it's untouchable. This is an album meant to be felt as much as it's meant to be heard. It's the sound of a generation losing gravity, floating between euphoria and emptiness, between dreams and reality. And even now, ten years later, it still sounds like a place we haven't quite reached yet.

FINAL SCORE: 8.5/10