To understand this album, I think you have to first understand that the word “blueprint” isn’t referring to a “back to basics” approach. It’s also not a callback to the last two Blueprint albums; a lot of the hate directed at The Blueprint 3 centers around how it sounds nothing like Blueprints 1 and 2. Jay-Z is attempting to move forward, to evolve, to innovate. “Blueprint” refers to Jay creating something new, a template that lesser artists will invariably follow.

So what does “innovation” look like to one of the greatest emcees of all time?

Pretty much the same ol’ shit, except with more synthesizers.

In hip hop, “that next level shit” is almost always based around how the music sounds—crazy flow patterns, weird time signatures, funny voices/accents, new instruments or samples, etc. Very rarely do artists try to innovate by actually saying something new, by digging deeper into themselves or telling new stories or trying new approaches to writing or whatever.

Jay is a prime example of this. Yes, The Blueprint 3 has some unique production, some wild rhyme patterns and an overall futuristic vibe. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still just Jay-Z rapping about how great Jay-Z is… like he’s been doing for thirteen years. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if you enjoy listening to Jay-Z be Jay-Z (I generally do). But for an album completely based around the idea that it’s something mind-blowingly new and innovative, the whole experience is rather hollow.

That being said, The Blueprint 3 is still a Jay-Z album and Jay is still a brilliant technical emcee. He sounds hungry here, especially on the album’s opener, “What We Talkin’ About.” Throughout the album, his flow is hypnotic; where some good rappers have air-tight flows you can just zone out to, Jay commands your attention using his words, the negative space between them and even his ad libs. The hooks, unfortunately, are all pretty terrible (especially on “Thank You,” “Venus vs. Mars” and “Reminder,” which is probably the album’s worst track), but the verses more or less make up for that. Jay might not be saying anything new, but the new ways in which he says everything is always compelling.

The production will definitely be controversial. This isn’t Kanye’s old chipmunk soul or traditional East Coast boom-bap or even the old Neptunes stuff Jay sounded so great over. This is the kind of glossy, vaguely-European club music that Beyoncé sing/raps over, and most of it is produced by Kanye West. It’s heavy on bombastic synths and orchestras, light on those hard drums hip hop heads usually prefer and overall just kind of weird. The No I.D.-produced “D.O.A.” made waves as the “oh snap Jay is back” song, but it’s really just a fluke; it’s the most traditional sounding rap song on the album. While No I.D., Swizz Beats and the Neptunes make appearances, the album is really driven by Kanye and Timbaland in full-on futurist mode.

And the production works, for the most part. It’s definitely not DJ Premier, but it meshes well with Jay’s style and really does, on some level, capture what hip hop is probably going to sound like for the next few years (for better or worse). Coupled with appearances by flavors-of-the-moment Drake, J.Cole, Kid Cudi and Mr. Hudson, it’s easy to see how Jay is positioning himself to be anything but an old man going quietly into the night, trying to recapture previous glories. He’s got a legacy in mind, and it’s more about pushing forward than remaking Reasonable Doubt.

But when you’re one of the best ever, you get held to higher standards. Jedi Mind Tricks can rap about the same stuff for a thousand albums, but Jay-Z should be able to do better than that. The Blueprint 3 is a perfectly solid album (well, a perfectly solid album with lots of bad hooks). It does some interesting things sonically, and Jay-Z is still a great emcee, but all the synthesizers in the world can’t mask the fact that the album is decidedly retro in its subject matter and approach. And when you’ve put in as much work as Jay has, “decidedly retro” can become “boring as hell” pretty quickly.

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