High Off Life is Future's 8th studio album which was released on May 15, 2020 by Freebandz and Epic Records.
Album Background[]
During an interview with XXL, published on April 7, 2020, Future shared the album's title, "Life Is Good" (titled after the third single).
Alongside the announcement, Future described the album by stating; "This album right here defines me at a creative level. Going to the next level where you just going to the next level and always going outside the box, but still remaining true to my core fans and my core audience. It's me trying new things. I want to remain true to self, but also true to my fans and just giving them a good project, a great project to be able to listen to, but also for different artists to be able to feed off of, create off of, come up with different ideas and just being at the forefront of just making a solid album, a solid, complete album. It's just very important to me."
On May 12, 2020, the album was retitled to "High Off Life" as the previous title, "Life Is Good" was considered to not play well during a global pandemic (COVID-19).
American basketball player Lonzo Ball, a known fan of Future, posted an Instagram story of the album's tracklist, whereafter Epic Records officially announced the album's release on May 15, 2020.
Tracklisting[]
- Trapped In The Sun
- Hitek Tek
- Touch the Sky
- Solitaires (featuring Travis Scott)
- Ridin Strikers
- One of My
- Posted With Demons
- Hard To Choose One
- Trillionaires (featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again)
- Harlem Shake (featuring Young Thug)
- Up The Rivers
- Pray For A Key
- Too Comfortable
- All Bad (featuring Lil Uzi Vert)
- Outer Space Bih
- Accepting My Flaws
- Life Is Good (featuring Drake)
- Last Name (featuring Lil Durk)
- Tycoon
- 100 Shooters (featuring Doe Boy & Meek Mill)
- Life Is Good (Remix) (featuring Dababy, Drake & Lil Baby)
Chart Performance[]
On its first day of release, "High Off Life" occupied the top six positions (and 10 of the top 11) on the US Apple Music Streaming Songs chart, and the top three positions (and 11 of the top 12) on the global listing, with the tracks "Trapped in the Sun" and "Solitaires" leading the respective charts.
The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 with 153,000 album-equivalent units (including 16,000 pure album sales), becoming Future's seventh album to top the chart.
The album als debuted at number five on the UK Albums Chart, moving 4,000 units, making it Future's highest charting album to date in the United Kingdom.
Critical Reception[]
"High Off Life" was met with generally positive reviews from critics.
At Metacritic, the album received an average score of 68, based on five reviews. Album of the Year assessed the critical consensus as 60 out of 100, based on nine reviews.
Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone gave the album a positive review, stating that "High Off Life is Future at his most optimistic, as the man from Pluto decides to send out a positive message. But it's still got the spaced-out melancholy that always fills his sound, as he clocks some serious demon hours in the late-night druggy strip-club haze of his soul."
Addison Herron-Wheeler of Exclaim! said, "Pretty much the only complaint is that, similar to all of his releases since the infamous Evol, it delivers and lives up to the hype, but it doesn't build and surpass his previous work. It remains to be seen whether he will ever create an album that is better than everything he's done so far, but this is still an extremely solid release."
Entertainment Weekly critic Gary Suarez said, "While the commercial prospects for High Off Life remain high, Future seems, at least creatively, in a state of arrested development here. ... Still, when High Off Life succeeds, it does so extraordinarily."
NME's Luke Morgan Britton wrote in a lukewarm review of High Off Life that "[the] trap outlier exerts flashes of greatness... but doesn't quite fulfil his sales pitch," adding: "Future described his last album, 2019's The Wizrd, as the closing of a chapter, meaning that High Off Life seemed primed to signal a fresh start. Despite its glimpses of greatness, though, this album revisits too many of the rapper's trademark themes to truly make good on his jubilant pre-release promises."
In a mixed review, Beats Per Minute's Chase McMullen stated: "For the man who elevated devastated depravity into his own art form, it can't help but feel a bit disappointing to watch him continue to coast."