Cootchill – Epiphanies & Tiffanies (Album Review)

R&B artist Cootchill released his fourth album Epiphanies & Tiffanies. Hailing from New Jersey, Cootchill has been in the R&B scene since 2019, promoting his story-telling approach to the genre, along with his perspective as a Haitian-American. How will this translate into music? Guess we’ll find out.

Right from the beginning, we can tell what direction this album is going to go in. “Tiffanies (Intro)” pretty much sums up the entire package, giving the impression that I’m listening to an album that came out in the 2000’s, with the production being a bit more modern. Can’t say that the rest of the album gets out of this one sound, which is unfortunate, but one song stands out. “Bizarre”, I could confidently say, is the best song on here.

Production is at its best here, sounding pretty crisp, and the song is quite catchy. That being said, I can’t say much else about it, except that it’s a bit derivative, with the song’s chorus feeling ripped out of the main melody of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”, but that could be my ears just doing overtime.

I wish there was more I could say about this album, but there really isn’t. There are quite a few problems with this record, but they also happen to be prevalent in almost every song that comes after “Bizarre”, and I will go over them.

As I alluded to earlier, the production on this album is reminiscent of what I’ve heard from the 2000’s and through some of the 2010’s. Epiphanies & Tiffanies sounds outdated, and it’s quite unfortunate. Cootchill’s flow is much the same, as it can be heard in “She Needs Me” and “Not Girls”.

There is a common trend I’ve sensed throughout the album, and that is many of the instrumentals are based off of guitar arpeggios, kind of like what you would hear from Polo G and other third-rate rappers like him. You can hear this in songs like “Mamacita”, “Dangerous”, “Not Girls”, and “Diamond”. Things like this may seem inconsequential, but when you’ve reviewed thousands of albums, many of which have this exact same sound, it starts to get just a little irritating.

I also want to comment on the poor lyricism that is prevalent. I’ll show you a couple of bars that are Illogical.

From “Not Girls”: “You can take it to the top top – You take pride in your work and make that thang drop – But when the curtains close and the party fades I could tell you’re a not not.”

From “Mamacita”: “She peeped me like it’s Easter (Easter) – I peeped game like a teacher (teacher) (????) – I’m doing donuts in this parking lot – She’s running circles, guess my name is Urkel.” I also want to make the point that as a Latino, our women are already over-sexualized, so I don’t particularly appreciate the message of this song, especially from someone who wants to start “making love cool again.”

From “Latte”: Just play the entire song, you’ll understand.

From “I Would Never”: “Our friendship is a glass house but he’s throwing stones.” Easily my favorite one of the bunch. Who’s going to tell Cootchill that this isn’t how the “glass house” saying works?

Speaking of Cootchill himself, I would say that he’s not a bad singer. Granted, he’s not anything out of this world, but I’d say pretty decent. I sense that some auto-tune was used for “Bizarre”, but it seems more for effect, kind of the way Kanye would use it throughout 808s. Sadly though, that’s perhaps the best thing I can say about this artist.

Here are my ratings for each song on a scale of 0-4:

1. Tiffanies (Intro) – 2
2. Bizarre – 2
3. Mamacita – 0
4. She Needs Me – 1
5. Dangerous – 1
6. Can’t Say More Than God – 0
7. Epiphanies (Interlude) – N/A
8. Not Girls – 0
9. Latte – 0
10. Diamond – 1
11. I Would Never – 1
12. Wrong Places – 1

SCORE/Poor: Now, what can I say after a scathing review, especially to Cootchill? I’ll say the one thing that I’ve said to many independent artists on this website:

Get more creative.

Now, I should’ve said this earlier, but I’m not a big fan of R&B. Wait, let me clarify…I’m not a big fan of MODERN R&B. If you go back a couple of decades, the genre was doing fantastic, but that was due to many R&B artists trying different sounds and expanding the genre. This is especially true after hip-hop became dominant, with artists like Tyler the Creator, who just released a fantastic record that pushed both genres even further. Hell, we don’t even go back too far to see artists like Usher making great songs that are more creative than anything we’ve heard.

However, in the case of Cootchill, it’s not that there wasn’t anything original on this album, but there was nothing to really grab onto. This album, and many others like it, are the reason why I do not enjoy listening to R&B in 2024. This is the Buzz Lightyear meme where he’s surrounded by other copies on the shelf. So, for Cootchill, if you do continue to make music, make something that will give people a reason to go back. I wish you well in your endeavours.

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]

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