Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine


Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine is the sixth studio album by American hip-hop boy band Brockhampton. The album was released on April 9, 2021, through RCA and Question Everything, and received generally positive reviews from music critics. In a departure from the groups previous albums, Roadrunner features a number of guest appearances, from Danny Brown, JPEGMafia, A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg, SoGone SoFlexy, Charlie Wilson, Baird, and SSGKobe, along with uncredited appearances by Shawn Mendes and Ryan Beatty.
Promoted as the groups penultimate record, Roadrunner was the first album Brockhampton album to feature producer Jabari Manwa as a performing member, following his debut on Technical Difficulties Radio. It was also the final Brockhampton album to be executive produced by Kevin Abstract, and the last album to feature performances by every member of the group.

Background

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brockhampton released songs on their YouTube channel every weekend, and would sometimes livestream on Twitch and Instagram. During these streams, known as Technical Difficulties Radio, Brockhampton would play unreleased music, with some songs releasing shortly after the end of some streams. The series was abruptly cancelled, and in September 2020, Brockhampton producer Romil Hemnani revealed in an interview that the album's initials were RR, leaving fans to believe that the album was titled Roadrunner. The title was later confirmed, and the album's full title, Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine, was announced shortly after the release of the lead single "Buzzcut". Brockhampton recorded three different versions of Roadrunner and chose one for the final cut of the album. Kevin Abstract revealed on Twitter that Roadrunner was the first of " Brockhampton albums in 2021", later clarifying that the upcoming albums will be Brockhampton's final releases. The second album was later delayed to 2022, though on January 14, 2022, Brockhampton announced an indefinite hiatus following their Coachella performance in April 2022. That album, The Family, was announced October 27, 2022, set for a November 17 release.
After the album was released, Abstract announced via TikTok that a deluxe edition of the album was to be released soon. The Plus Pack edition of the album was released on June 4, 2021, including four new songs.

Critical reception

Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine was met with generally favorable reviews upon release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the release received an average score of 79, based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave the album a 7.0 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
Amongst the positive reviews from critics, AllMusic's Neil Z. Yeung said that the album served as a "masterful group therapy session, picking up the broken pieces of life and uplifting with cautious optimism."
In June 2021, Billboard ranked the album among the best 15 albums released by LGBTQ artists in 2021 so far.

Lyrics

Prior to the album's release, one member of Brockhampton, Joba, commented that the lyrics of Roadrunner contains themes that are very personal to the members, including the suicide of Joba's father. Kevin Abstract noted that there would be lyrics about his sexuality on the record.

Track listing

Credits adapted from official website.

Samples

Credits adapted from Tidal.
Brockhampton
Additional musicians
  • Johan Lenox – background vocals, programming, strings
  • Imondre Goss – background vocals
  • Versus – flute, saxophone
  • Shawn Mendes – vocals
  • Ryan Beatty – vocals, background vocals
  • Baird – background vocals, guitar, programming, additional vocals
  • Christian Alexander – background vocals
  • Abhi Raju – guitar
  • Lando – background vocals
  • Odunayo Ekunboyejo – background vocals
  • Nick Velez – drums
  • Goldwash – keyboards, organ, background vocals, piano, synthesizer
  • Alex O'Connor – background vocals
  • Zuri Marley – background vocals
Technical