Kanye West’s announcement of new music from Pusha-T, Kid Cudi, Nas, Teyana Taylor, and of course, himself set the table to redefine the Event Release. It was a feat far more ambitious than The Life of Pablo’s Madison Square Garden album-party-meets-fashion-show of two years ago: a sequence of five seven-track albums by G.O.O.D. Music vets (and Nas), produced by West during his retreat to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, released on consecutive Fridays beginning Memorial Day weekend, and debuted via live-streamed release parties intended to induce major FOMO.

Before any new music was heard, the Wyoming campaign was stained by West’s support of Donald Trump and suggestion that remaining enslaved for 400 years “sounded” like a choice, as well as Kelis’ unaddressed accusations of physical and mental abuse during her marriage to Nas. There was an expectation that some of these matters would be clarified on record (perhaps because Pusha-T suggested they would be), but instead the music talked around the controversy and ranged mostly from inconsistent to infuriating in its slap-dashed quality. To make matters worse, the albums’ jumbled rollout relied just as heavily on the G.O.O.D. faith of fans as the prelude did.

How did someone who once nailed the serialized release strategy miss the mark this much? West’s G.O.O.D. Fridays series, the runway to 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, brimmed with vigor and purpose. But perhaps because West felt he had something to prove after his post-VMAs-Swiftgate exile, the strategy around one of the decade’s landmark albums was tighter from top to bottom. G.O.O.D. Fridays produced new music on a weekly basis for months leading up to (and even beyond) My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s release, generating excitement through previews of the album and stellar loosies. That was “dragon energy.” By comparison, the Wyoming rollout felt random and rushed. There was also zero consistency as to when the albums were uploaded to streaming services during release weekend, leading some to believe they were finished that last minute. While Kanye’s great Western oeuvre certainly won’t register as a commercial failure, it’s evidence that no one is too big to fail creatively.

Pusha-T’s Daytona, the first release, remains the strongest of the Wyoming albums. At a breezy 21 minutes, it’s also the shortest—a brevity that works to Pusha-T’s advantage. His calm arrogance, razor sharp drug-dealer insights, and West’s sinister production never have a chance to grow stale, resulting in the most thematically cohesive album of the bunch. Daytona also received a dramatic boost after Drake took the bait dangled before him on “Infrared,” ultimately resulting in Pusha’s ruthless assault, “The Story of Adidon.” This was the most striking moment in the G.O.O.D. albums rollout, and, even inadvertently, it had Drake to thank for it. Kanye’s album ye soon followed, revealing the kinks in the experiment’s creative process.

In an interview with Big Boy, West explained that he overhauled the album following the TMZ incident that birthed the slavery soundbite. That was early May, and the resulting haste around ye is painfully evident. Much of the subject matter is acutely recent because, as West claimed in a New York Times interview, none of the lyrics were written more than eight days prior to release. The fact that Kanye saw Deadpool 2 twice with a deadline looming speaks volumes about his focus—as does the album’s cover, which he shot using his iPhone on the way to the listening party. West’s newfound clarity is supposed to be the album’s through-line, but everything between the red-flag bookends of “I Thought About Killing You” and “Violent Crimes” is mostly scrambled.