Astroworld is released

Why it matters

Astroworld came out August 3, 2018, on Cactus Jack/Grand Hustle/Epic. It is Travis Scott's third solo album. The title refers to the AstroWorld theme park that operated in Houston from 1968 to 2005 (Travis is from Houston). The album sold 537,000 copies in its first week and would go on to be one of the best-selling rap albums of the late 2010s. The album is one of the high-water marks for the trap-influenced, atmospheric, melodic-and-rapping hybrid register that dominated commercial rap in the late 2010s. The roster of producers and features is enormous (Frank Ocean, Drake, Tame Impala, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, Kid Cudi, Quavo, Don Toliver). "SICKO MODE" with Drake (the three-part beat-switch single that hit #1 on the Hot 100 and became one of the most-played rap songs of 2018-2019). "Stargazing." "Yosemite." "Coffee Bean." Astroworld is the album that made Travis Scott a major commercial-rap star, and it preceded the 2019 Fortnite concert, the 2020 McDonald's partnership, the 2021 Astroworld Festival tragedy in Houston that killed ten people. You can hear the ambition on the album. The arc of his career after has been the consequences of the ambition. Both are real.