Outer space is often thought to be a location reserved for astronauts, aliens and stoners. To us ordinary people, we are even lucky to witness someone else travel outside of the Earth’s orbit. Travis Scott is not an ordinary person, however, and with the combined power of an astronaut, alien and a stoner (mostly the last one), he brings outer space to us through “The Scotts.” In conjunction with the online astronomical concert event in the popular game Fortnite, Scott teamed up with his contemporary Kid Cudi to release the song on Apr. 24. 

The song gets rid of traditional instrumentation in favor of multiple synth tones that take the song to an extraterrestrial level. It starts with a dark sounding build-up that emphasizes the vastness of space. This is complemented by the accompanying Fortnite concert, which takes the player into an asteroid field with Scott sitting on a planet. The song continues with trance-like visuals and vocal lines from both Cudi and Scott. It ends with a synth-heavy postlude that finalizes your transportation into space and makes you feel like you are being transported into another dimension. 

While the concert and song combination feels like a legal acid trip, you shouldn’t listen to the song expecting any meaningful bars. Travis Scott has always been known for his production, and that aspect seems to be the only thing that was focused on in this song. Instead of trying to match the vibe that the synths and autotuned voices brought, Scott and Cudi regressed to cliché rap bars about girls, gangs and money that weren’t even that clever, like “She in there makin’ panini / She know I got all the bread, she know me, got it.” This one disappointing aspect downgraded the song from main playlist material to vibe playlist material for me. 

Despite this lack of lyrical variety, however, the song still managed to break two records in 2020 with the largest Spotify debut, topping Billie Eilish’s “No time to die” at 7.45 million streams, and the largest number of concurrent players in Fortnite with 12.3 million players.

During this time it is easy to feel trapped in the house or town that you live in, and it is nice to know that music like this will transport you to a place that you wouldn’t be able to go usually.