Love Sick was supported by four singles: "Do It Right", "4 Me", "Leave the Club", and "Private Landing". The album received generally favorable reviews from music critics and was a commercial success. It debuted at number eight on the US Billboard 200 chart, earning 40,500 album-equivalent units in its first week.[1]
Background and promotion
In April 2022, Toliver cryptically revealed the album's title through a tweet.[2] In an interview with GQ in September 2022, he described the genres of the album as "futuristic R&B and soul" and confirmed that his girlfriend, Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis would make a guest appearance on it.[3] He released its lead single, "Do It Right", on November 18, 2022.[4] In February 2023, Toliver continued teasing the album by posting an Instagram story of a whiteboard with the album's title.[5] On February 15, he released its second single, "4 Me", which features his girlfriend, Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis, as a one-day-late Valentine's Day special.[6] Two days later, he released its third single, "Leave the Club", which features fellow American rappers Lil Durk and GloRilla, and also revealed its release date and cover art.[7] Six days later, he revealed the tracklist of the standard edition of the album and confirmed all the featured artists that would make an appearance on it.[8] On February 24, 2023, the same day that it was released, Toliver confirmed that a deluxe edition of the album would be released soon and posted a video with a snippet of the song "Embarrassed", which features his Cactus Jack Records label boss, fellow American rapper and singer Travis Scott. The fourth and final single of the album, "Private Landing", which features Canadian singer Justin Bieber and fellow American rapper Future, was sent to rhythmic contemporary radio on March 14, 2023.[9]
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Love Sick received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 from 5 critic scores.
Clash's Robin Murray felt that Love Sick "often thrills when Don is left on his own" and that Don uses "flows that blur the lines between rap and R&B", concluding that "amid the glitz, the hype, the online intrusion, Don Toliver still locates a space to call his own – and that's what makes 'Love Sick' so thrilling."[10] Clayton Purdon of Rolling Stone wrote that the album felt superficial, stating: "it's worth considering his superficiality more of a feature than a bug. He's developed a reputation as a sort of Diet Travis [Scott] due to the artists’ close association, but there are worse things to be than reliable."[12] Writing for HipHopDX, Precious Fondren concluded that "the Houston native takes a stab at what most other rap acts are avoiding right now: sing- rapping about love and all the emotions that come with it – trust, betrayal, and letting go. Unlike past work, Toliver attempts to expand his repertoire of content by diving a little deeper beneath the surface. Even with help from his in real life girlfriend [Kali] Uchis, Justin Bieber, Future, and Wilson, the LP comes up short in delivering songs that standout amongst his peers".[13]
Commercial performance
Love Sick debuted at number eight on the US Billboard 200 chart, earning 40,500 album-equivalent units (including 1,000 copies in pure album sales) in its first week.[1] The album also accumulated a total of 51.23 million on-demand streams of the album's songs.[1]
"Go Down" contains samples from "Backseat", written by Domonic Patten, as performed by TisaKorean.
"Leather Coat" contains an interpolation from "All Around the World", written by Lisa Stansfield, Andrew Morris, and Ian Devaney, as performed by Stansfield.
