Juice WRLD’s swan song is a decent send-off

After a three-year wait, The Party Never Ends has finally dropped. This was my most anticipated album of 2024 and one I had been continuously searching for updates. The Party Never Ends is Juice WRLD’s final, third posthumous, and fifth overall album. If you are unfamiliar with Juice WRLD, he was a leading figure of the SoundCloud and emo-rap era led by other leading figures such as Lil Peep and XXXTentacion from the mid to late 2010s.

To recap the history, Juice released his debut album, Goodbye & Good Riddance, in May 2018, and it became commercially successful with songs such as “Lucid Dreams” and “Lean Wit Me.” This album popularized him due to his creative bars, home-produced beats, and relatable heartbreak content for his listeners. This later became the identified pinpoint sound of the new genre, “SoundCloud rap.” He released his second album, Death Race For Love in March 2019, which continued his streak of producing hit songs with “Empty” and “Robbery.” Juice then passed away from a drug overdose in December of that year at age 21. It was later reported he died with about 2,000 unreleased songs, making posthumous releases evident. In July 2020, his label, Grade A, released Legends Never Die, a colorful, stellar tribute album, which I think is the best album in his catalog, containing songs like “Wishing Well” and “Come & Go.” In December 2021, Grade A released Fighting Demons, which I thought was a considerable decrease in quality from the previous record. Still, I enjoyed songs like “Cigarettes” and “Already Dead.”

This leads us to the present with his final studio album, according to Lil Bibby, who founded Grade A. With it now being three years since Fighting Demons and five years since he died, the hype and expectations for The Party Never Ends were mixed. About half are fans who hoped for leaked songs and would be disappointed regardless of what songs were chosen to be released. The other half were genuinely optimistic listeners of what Grade A would select to be on a final album, which is the side I leaned toward since I haven’t heard any leaks in their entirety. Also, if the cover art of The Party Never Ends looks familiar, it was designed by Takashi Murakami, who also designed covers such as Graduation by Kanye West, and Kids See Ghosts by Kanye West and Kid Cudi.

“The party never ends” is a phrase Juice initially said on a leaked unreleased song that’s well-known by his fans, and it gained more recognition when he said it in Travis Scott's “NO BYSTANDERS.” Lil Bibby declared on his Instagram that this album was intended to celebrate Juice’s life and be more uplifting than previous records, like a “party.” So the question is, did the album live up to that promise? My blunt answer is not quite, but I admire them for trying.

The Party Never Ends is an enjoyable record for fans of his Goodbye & Good Riddance-era sound from the start of his career. If you are like me and prefer Legends Never Die the most, this could be seen as a letdown for an ultimate conclusion to his discography. The Party Never Ends was first promoted with the lead single “Lace It (with Eminem & benny blanco)” in December 2023, which has grown on me the more I hear it and is undoubtedly a highlight. There was another single, “AGATS2 (Insecure) [with Nicki Minaj],” which I did not like as much. I believe this record could have benefited if they used the non-album singles released before these songs, such as “The Light,” “Face 2 Face,” and “In My Head,” all of which I put ahead of any song on this record.

Don’t get me wrong though, there are a lot of enjoyable songs on this 19-track project. “Love Letter” is a poppy, catchy tune that stood out to me. I have also always liked Juice’s guitar beats the most, and there are several on this record, like “Party By Myself,” “Floor It,” and “Misfit,” even though that one sounds like it came out of a speaker on a first-generation iPod Touch. Seven tracks contain recordings from live performances, with the album opening and ending on one, which is supposed to simulate listening to an actual concert set. At the halfway point of this record, there is a mourning song sung by The Kid LAROI that I didn’t care much about. There is also a Fall Out Boy feature on the song “Best Friend,” which feels planted in forcefully, as the feature starts abruptly at the end with no transitional flow, which I thought was an odd choice.

As I said, I have not fully listened to any leaked songs, so I cannot say if this was the best selection of songs. However, I am grateful for what we received and I liked most of them. I also appreciate how there are only six artists featured in this. With this small amount of features, it showed they cared about releasing completed songs, and not half-finished ones that features fill in for, which some posthumous albums lean towards. Overall, I enjoyed this record, but I do not think it lived up to the hype Grade A was building around the marketing of this release. Juice WRLD’s ability to capture raw emotions in catchy melodies throughout his short, 2-year career proves that he—as his third album title suggests—is indeed a legend whose legacy will never die.