The album features West himself, alongside the label's then-signees Pusha T, Big Sean, Teyana Taylor, Kid Cudi, John Legend, Common, D'banj and Malik Yusef, as well as affiliates Jay-Z, 2 Chainz, Travis Scott, and Cyhi the Prynce, among others.
Cruel Summer received "a fairly lukewarm response" from critics,[6] who commended its hubristic style and the tracks featuring West, but found it uneven as an album.
[12] Pusha T said that he recorded over 20 verses for the album, and a song with Big Sean and Common called "Trash Bags" that was ultimately scrapped.
[17] "Mercy", a collaboration between Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz, was released as the album's lead single on April 3, 2012.
The track was premiered by Funkmaster Flex's Hot 97 radio show and was released onto the Internet the following day onto West's official website.
[18] The release of the track continued West's GOOD Fridays, a music giveaway that provided free MP3 downloads every week, which had been on hiatus since December 2010.
[27] Christopher R. Weingarten of Spin felt that it is "not a cohesive crew album" and called it "a runway show of small, costly, uncomfortable missteps.
Club, said that it "feels like an unusually crowded solo album, but West’s affiliates don’t share his gift for fusing self-aggrandizement with soul-searching reflection.
"[38] Jon Caramanica of The New York Times complimented the album's four singles for "show[ing] [West] at or near his best", but found GOOD Music's other rappers to be "a mixed bag".
[39] Jonah Weiner of Rolling Stone called the album "occasionally exhilarating, ultimately underwhelming", and observed "no grand statements, but plenty of hot lines", with West as "the star ... who bum-rushes every song he's on like it's someone else's acceptance speech".
[41] Andy Gill of The Independent viewed it as less "ambitious" than West's own albums and said the songs "may lack grandeur, but they bring a sinister, stalking ambience that matches the blend of money, mystery and menace in the contributions of collaborators".