The Life of Pablo is ambitious. That much is hard to deny: 20 tracks of stylistic fluidity released in an innovative rollout that Mr. West intends to deconstruct the very concept of “album,” all in the service of a personal, messy statement about the convergence of celebrity, artistry, and commerce. It’s arguably Kanye’s most ambitious project ever, and certainly the most since 2010’s career-defining My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Whether or not this ambition adds up to something “good” has been a matter of contention. Kanye’s definitely doing something interesting here, and there’s a vivacity and of-the-moment-ness to the culture surrounding the album release that few artists but Kanye seem capable of. But, like, what about the actual music? It doesn’t matter how cool the car is if it doesn’t have any gas.

I’d call the tank half-full at best. The album fluctuates between work that’s among the best Kanye’s ever released (“No More Parties in LA,” “Feedback,” the late-addition closer “Saint Pablo”) and among the worst (“Facts”), sometimes even within the same song (“Famous”). Most of all, though, the album seems to represent the album-length manifestation of Kanye’s habit to release first-draft-esque material, with face-palmingly bad lyrics and fragments of ideas galore, along with the overriding feeling that Kanye just needed to go through this with a red pen. Perhaps that’s by design, but whether or not you intended your album to be inconsistent and sloppy doesn’t change the fact that it’s still pretty inconsistent and damn sloppy. Mission accomplished?

But what does everyone else think?