Come Home The Kids Miss You: A “First Class” Ticket to Mediocrity
Suave, goofy, and confident, Jack Harlow has been the eye of many for his easy to listen to beats and hilariously flirty demeanor. Harlow’s come up to fame has been a long process, however, as he first began making music with recordings on a Guitar Hero microphone and then pedaling CDs to his middle school classmates at age 12. Harlow’s public releases began in 2015, and he created a variety of mixtapes and EPs before signing to Atlantic and Generation Now in 2018. 2020 saw the rise of “What’s Poppin’”, which exploded on TikTok and landed him at second on the US Billboard Hot 100 with a grammy nomination. Jack then released his debut studio album That’s What They All Say in 2020, and cemented himself as a breakout star. More recently, Harlow landed a collaboration on Lil Nas X’s “INDUSTRY BABY”, which topped charts and emphasized his growing influence. Following a sudden rise of the ages and a quiet 2021 outside of “INDUSTRY BABY”, Jack Harlow has officially dropped his sophomore album, titled Come Home The Kids Miss You. With so much hype surrounding rap’s hottest new player, did Jack Harlow rise to the occasion and demands of his newfound fame? (Spoiler alert: not quite.)
“Talk Of The Town” is a quick intro to this new era of success for Harlow and reference to his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. In this short minute and twenty-two second blast, Jack references his high school, jokes about how you have to go through his manager to contact him, and pulls an uncredited Destiny’s Child sample. Leading into the album with “Talk Of The Town” cements how aware Harlow is of his rise to fame, and track two, titled “Young Harleezy”, finds Jack further discussing this idea. Harlow drops into a verse explaining that he’s been working for success since he was young, including a comment that he was selling hard CDs in seventh grade before continuing onto discuss how busy he is, that he can handle the pressure, and how smooth he is. Snoop Dogg then arrives with a quick interlude where in just a few short lines he compares Harlow to Mack from Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack”, leading into a beat change for Harlow to jump back onto. Verse two feels more shallow than the first, almost entirely being a lean into his awareness of how attractive he is and how well his flirty nature works, and this pattern stays constant with the third verse later on. The chorus seems to be almost taunting the listener as he asks if he is fancy enough, if he’s dancing enough, and if he is handsome enough. The flow of “Young Harleezy” is smooth as honey to listen to, but the lyrics find Jack bouncing between boastful pride in success and shallow comments on his own sex appeal without much substance.
The subsequent tracks continue Jack Harlow’s emphasis on his magnetism and charm. He hits a comfortable pocket on “I’d Do Anything to Make You Smile”; the beat production is fantastic and drops in and out in perfect moments to enhance Harlow’s sex-laced serenade. The smash -hit single “First Class” clocks in at track four, and while the song easily went viral pre-release and floored to the top of the charts when it dropped, it loses its lustre as the third song in a row about his sex appeal. While I don’t love the placement within the album, the sampling of “Glamorous” is a fun revamp of a cult classic that I will give Harlow kudos for. “Dua Lipa” follows and clocks in… *sigh*.... yet another song about his success and attractiveness, but this track goes even farther and shoots his shot directly with the British singer herself. The lyrics leave little to the imagination as Harlow begins with, “Dua Lipa, I’m tryna do more with her than just a feature”. While Dua Lipa hasn’t spoken about the track herself, Jack went onto The Breakfast Club podcast and stated that he Facetimed her to play the song for her approval. This sounds great in theory, but Harlow continued on to quote her saying, “She was like, "Oh, I mean it’s not my song. I suppose it’s OK.' She was just kinda thrown off and she just kinda let it go". Jack did say the pair have spoken since and that things are less awkward, but this feels uncomfortably close to what caused the Kanye vs. Taylor Swift “Famous” controversy.
Unsurprisingly, this trend of relying on his sex appeal continues, and “Side Piece”, “Movie Star”, “Lil Secret”, and “I Got A Shot” all fall flat due to this. “Side Piece” finds Harlow referencing a variety of artists, including lyrics nodding to both MAVI and Bobby Shmurda, as well as a chorus that drops DeJ Loaf’s name before saying he wants to introduce his side piece to the family, pronouncing “family” in the same way as DeJ Loaf did in her 2014 hit “Try Me”. The track has some interesting moments, split into two distinct parts that are cut by a pause and a beat shift. Part two has Harlow talking directly to his side piece, once again just talking to her about his fame and the sex they’ll have. It’s interesting to listen to production wise, but the arrogance of saying “I already got a song for my main chick/ so let me do a record for my side piece” leaves a sour taste at best. Track seven gives us a Pharrell feature titled “Movie Star” where the two sing about women, money, and designer brands. In verse one, Jack drops the bar “I'm done fakin' humble, actin' like I ain't conceited/ 'cause, bitch, I am conceited”, which is almost laughable at this point in the album given the lyrical content so far. Pharrell’s production influence is definitely visible on this track and gives it a nice change up sonically, but lyrically, this is the exact same thing we’ve already heard on the previous five tracks.
“Lil Secret” changes the narrative slightly to sing to one lover directly about his care for her and that she is the right fit for him. While the sentiment is nice, Harlow still ends up utilizing the song to remind everyone that he is famous and that he is with other women often, covering it with a wish that the aforementioned women were instead the one he is singing to here. He was incredibly close to a more substantial story on “Lil Secret”, but his need to boast knocks the track back down. With “I Got A Shot”, Harlow shifts the main bulk of the song to his fame and wealth, but all under the direction of speaking to former lovers and peers that remember who he used to be. He once again talks about how he is a kid from Kentucky who grew past the circumstances of his youth. The callback to his early EP Confetti is a nice moment with some catchy beats behind it, but given the fact that “I Got A Shot” clocks in as the ninth track in a row to discuss nothing except his sex appeal and fame, nothing stands out.
Track ten lands us at the much hyped-up “Churchill Downs” featuring Drake, which was leaked online pre-release. It’s very public knowledge that Drake is one of Jack’s biggest inspirations, and this song finds him asking Drake for advice on handling fame and reaching the level Drake has attained. Unfortunately, putting Drake actually on the track just points out in glittering marquee letters that Harlow still has a lot to learn before he can fully step into the big shoes he’s set out for himself. Drake’s verse finds the rapper exploring deeper topics including therapy for his abandonment issues, the difficulty to find genuine connection with others, and having to deal with others trying to tear him down. Sure, Drake also has some one hitters in this verse like “I’m over delivering to the point it’s belittling”, but the bag Drake sits in within “Churchill Downs” is undeniable and leaves Harlow in the dust on his own song. Jack’s verse isn’t awful by any metric, but his arrogance in saying “All that time in the kitchen finally panned out/ I put some flavor in a pot and took the bland out” to then be completely shown up by Drake in the next verse leaves Harlow in an awkward spot next to his idol. After the release of the album, Jack and Drake were well documented having fun at Churchill Downs together for the Kentucky Derby, but the most notable moment for Harlow ended up being the pitiful optics of having two Black bodyguards carry him across the dirt so his shoes stayed clean, which sparked discomfort and outrage at his lack of awareness.
“Like A Blade Of Grass” takes us back into Jack’s awareness of his sex appeal, this time with Harlow voicing both sides of a flirty conversation with a girl. The flow is fun and light, but this track is so generically bland that it could be an interlude on just about any artist’s album. This lead’s into track twelve, titled “Parent Trap”. With a Justin Timberlake feature on the chorus, this song finds a suave pocket to sit in to once again talk about money, fame, and women. The beat change up on the album is nice, but yet again, the track isn’t memorable. “Poison” features Lil Wayne, whose verse has a wholly more interesting flow than the rest of the track. The lyric “I might have to jack your bitch ‘cause I be on my Harlow shit” is a hilarious bar to both use Harlow’s name and comment on how much of a charmer he is, and Lil Wayne’s verse rings out on the woman’s talents in bed. Jack’s verses are semi-complimentary to the woman he is referring to but overwhelmingly still just a flaunt of his status and how he can’t believe that he’s fixating on one woman when he could have anyone. For a man with so much flirty charm that has garnered him copious amounts of fame, it’s pretty jarring that lyrically the nicest thing he has to say about any of the women referred to on this album is “and you the type of girl I wanna bring to Thanksgiving”.
Lead single and penultimate track “Nail Tech” topped out on at its debut ranking of #18 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it Jack’s third top 20 placement. The track holds a different flow scheme than the majority of this album, making it stand out for this fact alone. Laden with nods to his hometown such as “I don’t take Ls, I give ‘em out and chuck ‘em up” in reference to the University of Louisville L hand sign, Jack makes sure he finds the opportunity to boast that he is the king of his town. It’s been obvious in this entire album that Harlow is proud of both his fame and where he’s from, but he also knocks himself down slightly out of the insane star mindset with bars like “Fam’ over “Gram, that’s my MO/ fuck a close friends, I got friends that I keep close”, ringing out how important his family and friends are to him. The pocket Jack sits in on this track is comfortable and smooth, and it definitely reads why this was selected as the lead single, but it still rings lackluster on an album that has discussed money, fame, and women on every single track.
“State Fair” closes out Come Home The Kids Miss You with more of Jack’s free flowing meter that oozes out with ease. It’s an easy listen to filler track to close out an album of easy to listen to filler tracks, with little notable story past the same themes Harlow has ran through in this entire album. It’s impossible to not bop your head along as Jack spits out bars about his adjustment to fame, but it leaves the album on the exact same note it started with - mellow and well produced but lacking in any lyrical substance.
Come Home The Kids Miss You isn’t an album that is going to change minds about Jack Harlow. Superfans will continue to love Jack, cruising through his easy beats and smooth bars. Haters will continue to tear down the Louisville native’s career, demanding more out of his work and annoyed by his charm. I will absolutely claim myself a fan of Jack Harlow’s, and due to that, I think that I sit firmly in the middle of the views of this album. It is a good showing of Harlow’s growth of connections as an artist, given the slate of features and samples in this album alone draw wide eyes and even wider pockets. The tracks of this album are absolutely easy to listen to and fun to sing along with, but I think Jack barely scraped the surface of what he has to offer.
The curation of this album does hit a specific strategic plan as the heavy lean into sexy pop-rap allows for the fans to fall in love further and defend each track to the finish line, expanding Harlow’s reach into the phones of every person on earth with a TikTok, even if it may cost some hardcore rap fans who expect better. His approach of charm in the public eye is certainly calculated to bolster his image and make him even more vital than he was yesterday, and this same principle applies to the creation of this album, but it would benefit from bars that offer more of the magnetism and charisma Jack is so keen to give in person and in interviews. Without that lyrical substance, Come Home The Kids Miss You feels like Harlow’s story is just fame for the sake of being famous, and a wide variety of these tracks could easily be someone else’s song and I wouldn’t bat an eye due to the lack of personal story in them. While many of the artists featured on this album have tracks that are solely meant to top charts, most notably Drake, they also have records of revelations and epiphanies that allow listeners to connect on a deeper level, witnessing their growth and evolution as an artist and human. Unfortunately, Harlow’s album is full of mostly empty bars that certainly hit the charts running but will not leave the legacy of some of his inspirations also listed here. He is clearly a competent rapper that has great flow and meter, and I’ll personally keep the album on standby for whenever I need a solid flow of background music without caring to listen to the actual content of lyrics. If he wants to rise to the level of legend that he claims, however, he has to dig deeper to find longevity and lasting impact. He already has a loyal fanbase and receives millions of views for every breath he takes, so ultimately, the only thing holding Jack Harlow back from greatness is himself.
All in all, this album is not nearly as terrible as some critics say (see: Pitchfork's scathing 2.9/10 review), but Come Home The Kids Miss You features Jack Harlow saying a lot about everything and simultaneously saying nothing about himself, resulting in a classic case of sophomore syndrome for an artist that got so comfortable in what worked that they didn’t dig deep enough within themselves to tell the audience who they actually are.