How a Youtube Rapper Made Album of the Year - I Didn't Mean to Haunt You (Quadeca) - A Video Essay

That's right we Fantano now. On a real whilst most of this channel's focus has been on movies so far, and don't worry, it will continue to be, I'm actually working on a huge project involving 100 movies at the moment. That being said, I would like to expand the channel slightly to involve other forms of media, primarily music, but maybe a swath of literature here and there, just because it's a lot easier for me to make videos about stuff I'm really passionate about, and I don't think I care about many things as much as I do music for example.

This is my first video on such a topic however so any feedback would be very much appreciated :)

(also sorry that there's no HD. I tried. I really tried. It just didn't work for whatever reason so that's really annoying)

INTRO -

Quadeca just released album of the year. That's right, the guy who was making KSI diss tracks 4 years ago, the guy who made Wii Music Fire, That guy in my opinion, has just released the best bunch of songs this year. Just to reiterate, Quadeca has outdone Kendrick Lamar, Drake, 21 Savage, Kid Cudi, Flo Milli, and every other rapper that's dropped in 2022 you get the idea. And obviously Joji but that one kinda goes without saying I mean I don't know what to tell you Smithereens was pretty wack.

Now I actually enjoyed From Me to You, Quadeca's last project quite a bit, much to the detriment and surprise of my close friends who still see Quad as a lyrical myrical youtube rapper, a presupposition I don't think anybody in their right minds would insist upon now. From Me to You had some great moments, some good rap, and a lot of atmosphere. A lot of the verses were pretty cold, and the concept was fairly novel and interesting. Unfortunately however none of the tracks quite lived up to the grandiose and triumphant nature of Sisyphus, and despite some great tracks like People Please and Burning Bridges, the album was rather inconsistent and corny at points, webbed by the trappings of relative internet fame, as well as some tracks like Where'd you go just being bad. I think what this album did most prominently however, was display that Quadeca is an incredibly impressive self-producer, which is something that is not only easier to see in his latest album, but also something that has improved tenfold. I'm talking Tyler the Creator levels of self-production here at many points.

On top of the production, suffice it to say the man's singing has also improved drastically on this project, which adds so much power and quality in songs like Fantasyworld, which is a contender quite frankly for one of the best indie/folk tracks in years.

I am so shocked by how much better this is than everything Quadeca had worked on previously, and it's a shock that was only strengthened by the admittedly somewhat slow start to I didn't mean to Haunt you. Whilst I don't think there is a single bad or underwhelming track on this thing, I do believe that the first four songs or so are significantly weaker than the second half.

Let's have a quick look at this hunk of art track by track, and discuss both the quality of the music, as well as the myopic and introspective, downright intelligent concept the album insists on.

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0:00 - intro
2:24 - sorry4dying
3:16 - tell me a joke
4:03 - don't mind me + picking up hands
5:55 - born yesterday
6:30 - the memories we lost in translation
7:00 - house settling
8:12 - knots
9:22 - fantasyworld
10:57 - fractions of infinity
11:48 - cassini's division
12:40 - outro

[Dankyjabo]

Guys the support on this video has been overwhelming, and I never could've expected it to do this well. This was purely a video I made out of passion, not one where I hoped for views. That being said, I'd like to clarify some things.

1. In regards to those first 4 tracks, I had some critiques, but I need to stress that I still enjoy them, and that they've actually grown on me massively, so much so that I might end up giving the album a 10 by the end of the year. I always thought 'tell me a joke' was one of the better songs on the album. 'Sorry4dying, ' and 'don't mind me' have grown on me the most, and whilst I still believe 'picking up hands' is the weakest track, it's the weakest track on a near perfect album, so that's still pretty great :)


2. So a lot of people think I've nabbed aspects of this from Brad Taste's video, and to put it simply, this is mostly wrong. Other than our similar opinions on SOME of the earlier tracks, our opinions are actually rather different. I thought Brad didn't give 'tell me a joke' nearly enough credit, and gave a song like 'Cassini's Division' a little too much credit. Admittedly I did tack on a line about picking up hands' from him, not because I was stealing an opinion, but because he worded it in a way that was more eloquent than what I had originally, that being that by trying so hard to make you feel something, it does the opposite.

Not to mention we focus on very different things. I'm a lot more focussed on the lyrical content, and deriving meaning from this record, whilst he focussed almost strictly on the sound.

Sorry if this explanation seems a little beggy, I just take plagiarism rather seriously, it's such a shitty thing to do on YouTube and I never want to be labelled as one, so I thought I'd clear that up.

3. A detail that bad been pointed out that I wish had been included in this video, is that House Settling definetely connotes that the character attempted to posion his family with carbon monoxide so that they could join him, hence his emphasis on loneliness at the start of the song. I think it's brilliant that with every re-listen, you learn something new about this project. Pretty brilliant

4. My bad I pronounced sisyphus wrong...

[itmealice]

it's really interesting to me that so many people seem to prefer the latter half since the first 2 tracks are easily my favorites, whole album is fantastic though

[nomeca]

As an OG quadeca fan, I feel so honored to be a part of his journey. The pay off was so perfect.

[lnussss]

This was a good ass year for music. I genuinely didnt think there was competition for aoty when AFUT came out early into the year but JID and Quadeca made this year so good

[musicarchives]

i think the reason its so good is because everything is about the music not the audience it feels like he made it for himself alone

[devilish]

Personally it’s probably in my Top 5 albums of this year.
1. JID - The Forever Story
2. Black Thought & Danger Mouse - Cheat Codes
3. Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
4. Quadeca - I Didn’t Mean to Haunt You
5. Denzel Curry - Melt My Eyez See Your Future

[rednebula]

i think the overproduction is the point because instead of the words sitting on top of the music, they’re supposed to sort of hold hands. the sounds are supposed to put what you’re supposed to feel into music yk

[george_gjokaj]

I honestly really like every single song on this project. There is not a single song I’d skip when listening and honestly I find it hard to listen through without replaying all the songs at least once. The production and the mixing and engineering is absolutely top notch. I’ve been listening to quadeca since voice memos and I really loved that album. I loved how such a young guy such as myself could make such fun music. Then as every other album came out I’ve loved them more and more. Definitely my favorite artist, and definitely my favorite album.

[bash]

This album is easily one of the best albums of the year.
The production the lyrics the story everything is basically perfect.
ill give it a light to decent 3

[penguen]

I haven’t noticed anyone saying this but he said in knots that he doesn’t fade to black he cuts to static and at the end of cassinis division it cuts to static, kinda neat

[mrfluffsr]

Beautiful editing, commentary and analysis. Love to see it 👍

[aquawrld]

legendary explanation <3 I know for a fact Ben will see this so yo. This album tops even the top albums this year like Kid Cudi’s & Drakes 2 albums by a landslide when it comes to mileage & listenability, the message, the production, the effort put into every second of every song. Genuinely a 10/10 album for me. I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. The length is also just perfect 😫

[LaMuertedelEspiritu]

i've been listening to him since insecure. the evolution of his music is incredible.

my favorite tracks are sorry4dying and the memories we lost in translation.

[nbriggy]

Please do not stop being a “pretentious english teacher”. That’s how I feel when I try to explain just how beautiful this album is to my friends. It’s a work of art and I feel like its a disservice to it if we don’t go into all the little intricacies of it.

[shazzyrv]

first listen i was like "i really enjoyed this album!!" then i watched this video and now i want to relisten to this whole album because you enhanced it so much

[FadeOfficialMusic]

Great review man, I love how you interpreted it differently than I did and it gave me an extra viewpoint

[quadecamashups]

Brief explanation of idmthy:

The character of the album is a version of Quadeca who follows through on taking his own life. He was stuck in a life he felt was not worth living and he became fascinated by the idea of not existing so he took his own life. To his surprise he ascends into a ghostly form of himself and quickly begins to regret his decision. He watches over his family as they move on from his death and he becomes desperate to communicate with them as he feels like he is being forgotten. In a moment of weakness and selfishness, he sets off a carbon monoxide leak with the hopes of his mother being able to see him in the hallucinations. This attempt to communicate failed and he almost ended up killing his mother. He is overwhelmed with guilt, loneliness, and the idea of being forgotten causing him to have a panic attack. After calming down, he reflects on the moments leading up to his suicide with a newfound perspective gaining some amount of closure. “let me go but don’t let go of me”. He is then able to enter the void and become consumed by static as he achieves his original goal of not existing. Only this time he wishes he could be alive with his loved ones.

[ol_iv_ei_ra]

Wow. This is truly a masterpiece of a video! It’s not only a great review, but at the same time kinda the “FMTY explained” of IDMTHY. Incredibly done, thank you so much, I really feel like a video like this NEEDED to be made for an album as incredible as this (I also never thought I’d say a Quadeca album is better than IGOR, but like 😭), and you delivered. This video goes down in Quadeca history I feel like

[hard_yakka]

Quadeca showed hints of this incredible talent in his previous albums,
The man on my left shoulder, A dream i cant remember, Sisyphus (of course), the feeling of drifting apart.

But IDMTHY really brought it all together into easily my favourite album of the year.

[ImNWCR]

wii music still fire.









damn...it's been so long already since the album released, still is amazing even now.