Thraed of 🔥 Fireboy DML 🔥 and his new album Apollo

after the Ed Sheeran magic worked wonders for him, Fireboy now wants some of that Asake mojo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxOuB-H-9hY
Fireboy DML ft. Asake • Bandana

my expectations for this album were a bit muted honestly, i didn't really lock in with the post-"peru" singles but damn this is pretty great imo, feels like a bit of a bounce back to me. "ashawo," "timoti" and especially "sofri" immediately feel like some of his best ever songs. "sofri" in particular is a knockout to me... instant classic. (i think it's a stripper anthem which makes it even better?) "diana" and "compromise" are also really nice & i like "havin fun" too... something about it almost reminds me of like... sugar ray. that real kinda MOR-ish side of him coming out but he is almost always able to pull it off.

lol why did he put both the solo and ed sheeran versions of "peru" on this, is this the new way to game the charts or something

my guess is that he wanted the original on there (better song) and his team/label insisted on the remix being included (reasonable) which usually results in the song being tacked on at the end, but that fireboy — who is a real album artist — insisted that “glory” be the final song. so we end up with this bizarre ordering of having the same song on the album twice.

but there should be more posts about this very good album

strong album. very nice mix of sweet and snappy afropop tunes. agree with “Sofri” and “Timoti” as the highlights. the highlife track is a nice surprise too. I like how clean his vocal lines are.

as for the two “Peru”s: the Ed Sheeran version was never tagged separately on Spotify et al (as opposed to the 21 Savage/Blxst one, which is labelled as a ‘remix’), so it has always counted towards the grand “Peru” total. perhaps this was done because the original version was still growing its streams when the Sheeran version dropped, especially in the UK, where it had actually just made its chart debut (way down in the 90s iirc). maybe they were hoping the combined streams could carry it all the way to number one straight away. it didn’t quite get there, but it spent about 20 weeks in the top 10, peaking at 2.

I think the Sheeran version is great, not as good as the original perhaps, but totally enjoyable in its own right. It’s the best I’ve ever heard Sheeran.

it’s several notches above the Bieber version of “Essence”, on which it’s modelled: not that Bieber’s part is bad, it’s quite alright really, but sacrificing most of the whole Tems buildup for it, which is the heart and soul of the song, is way too high a price to pay.

"timoti" is absolutely a highlight. kel-p is one of my favorite producers working right now, any genre.

embarrassingly enough i heard the sheeran version of "peru" before the original and enjoyed it all including his part. i didn't realize it was him at first but eventually i was like 'hmmm this guy sounds familiar... oh.'

bieber version of "essence" was unforgivable

yeah "timoti" is so good

album is very good except doubling up "peru" is so weird to actually listen to in sequence but sheeran's presence is totally fine for the first time in his career

the original peru is still pretty good tho, it’s a little awkward but i don’t really mind

this strikes me of a case of critics coming late to an artist, overhyping the post-breakthrough album and then downgrading the album that is actually much better than the album the critics overhyped to compensate for their lateness

who overhyped which album tho? don’t remember Apollo getting much traction

apollo got bnm at p4k!

compared to apollo though this one is even chiller & more streamlined, less kinda corny stadium moments

had forgotten how much good stuff there is on this album. meant to re-listen to it in full for the Naija albums poll, and then I got distracted twice over after the first few tracks, which are either not all that great or overly familiar. it only really ignites from track 6 (“Sofri”) imo. god, I forgot how fantastic “Timoti” is.

agreed on all counts. those two are amazing. def takes a minute to get into gear but this is a clear top 10 album of the year to me