Months after causing a generational feud between two of the biggest artists in the hip-hop industry, Future returns to the rap game and releases his new project “MIXTAPE PLUTO.” This project follows up two other releases from Future in 2024, “WE DON’T TRUST YOU” and “WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU,” which were both collaboration albums with Metro Boomin.

Going into “MIXTAPE PLUTO” I had really high expectations because I have really enjoyed Future’s other two albums from this year. As of now even, “WE DON’T TRUST YOU” is my favorite album of the year. And to be honest, “MIXTAPE PLUTO” did not meet my expectations whatsoever. I was disappointed.

I really liked the energy leading up to this project. The album cover is the house home to many icons in the hip-hop industry such as OutKast, Goodie Mob, and Future himself. A lot of people got excited seeing the cover of the album. I also liked the way that Future promoted this project. All of his posts surrounding it were cocky and very high energy, giving me and other fans lots of hype that this was going to be a very good and high-energy project.

On “MIXTAPE PLUTO,” Future gave an average performance. Nothing too bad and I enjoyed that he did not try too hard to hit high notes like he has been doing recently because he cannot hit those more often than he can. I really liked how a lot of this project felt like it had the vibes and aesthetic to it that Future’s “DS2” had, which is one of my favorite albums from the rapper. A lot of the songs on “MIXTAPE PLUTO” felt like one endless song, which can be good. But, in this case, it was not. You could not tell when a song changed and that was not because it had a seamless transition, but because it all sounded the same. Future sounded the same on all tracks, making this a very forgettable project.

When it comes to the production on this album this is where things fall off, heavily. I listened to all 17 songs on “MIXTAPE PLUTO,” but I cannot tell you what even one of the beats sounded like after listening. They all sound way too similar, none of them are unique. Just a bunch of synth and 808s with drums clicking, your typical trap beat. Honestly, this is where a lot of Future’s projects fall. Part of why I liked “WE DON’T TRUST YOU” so much is because the beats were really different. There are a lot of different samples, such as an Eazy-E song, and there is a sample of a literal church bell that is a beat as well. You do not get that on a project like “MIXTAPE PLUTO.” The production on this album was bad.

Very surprisingly, this project had no features. I was surprised by this because both Travis Scott and Playboi Carti were teasing features on their social media. I think that not including features honestly was a bad choice because nothing on this album feels unique. The inclusion of a Scott feature or a Carti feature would have been a heavy standout and made this project feel like it has an outlier that would be talked about. But because the project is featureless, I think the hype for it will die down within two or three weeks. 

The length of this project has sort of a neutral effect on me. The project consists of 17 songs but has a runtime of about 45 minutes. To average that out, that is two and a half minutes per song. Some songs on here are longer than that, but I am sad to say some are shorter than that, at least one of them even being shorter than two minutes. I think rap songs need to be longer than two minutes. When they are shorter there is no substance to them, and sometimes they almost seem like a glorified skit or interlude. Short rap songs do not have time to develop and get their message across, which I do not like. But honestly, the short runtime is okay on this project because it keeps the project going so I do not click off because like how the beats and flows do not feel unique, the short runtime keeps me engaged to listen to the next song.

Overall, “MIXTAPE PLUTO” seems like it is full of throwaway songs that sometimes have a vibe, but most of the time do not, scoring 2/5 stars from me.