As someone who places XXX in his top three albums of all time, it pains me to say that I did not enjoy Atrocity Exhibition. I can recognize the artistry present in the music, and Danny is still one of the best at conveying his thoughts and feelings, but the album is just too jarring to listen to. It's not a pleasant sound, and I found almost all of the songs grating. It's hard to appreciate lyricism and storytelling when the product as a whole is aggravating. It's like the "cocktail party effect" when you're trying to pay attention to someone in a loud and crowded room; there is all this extraneous noise that you find frustrating and distracting. That specific feeling is what I experience while listening to Atrocity Exhibition.
I feel that this is a product of how Danny approached both records. With XXX, he set out to make music that he wanted to make, an album about Danny Brown. The weirdness and darkness found throughout the album was epiphenomenal to the music. Those properties arose naturally from Danny's exuberant personality over wacky beats (unlike the invasive and jarring beats found on AE). He set out to make an honest and vulnerable record, and people naturally picked up on the dark nature of that vulnerability. I feel as if Danny made Atrocity Exhibition in response to that praise. Instead of just making another honest album about Danny Brown, and letting those feelings and vibes be expressed naturally, he instead made a record where he tried to recapture that feeling and tried to give the listeners a Danny Brown that they wanted. This inherently made the music less honest to me because he was trying to be as wacky, wild, and dark as he could (which made the album feel manufactured). There is still honesty and vulnerability there, I won't deny that, but it "feels" different compared to XXX. It feels like somebody is being wacky and wild because they're expected and pressured to be.
