When he blew up in 2019 with his bubbly breakthrough hit “Ransom,” Lil Tecca was a 16-year-old from Long Island by way of Queens who drew his catchy melodies from Speaker Knockerz, Chief Keef, and A Boogie wit da Hoodie. Six years and five albums later, Tecca is a bona fide star with his own established sound—glossy, hyper-melodic, and decidedly more grown up than the kid who still wore braces in the “Ransom” video. “My life changed so fast that I don’t even recognize myself from last year,” he singsongs on “Dark Thoughts,” the lead single from his fifth album DOPAMINE, over a beat that channels The Neptunes circa Snoop Dogg’s “Beautiful.” Beyond a Ken Carson cameo on the glitchy “Tic Tac Toe,” Tecca holds his own throughout its 17 tracks, from chirpy love songs (“Favorite Lie”) to starry-eyed sonic experiments (“One Night”) to the addictive “OWA OWA,” which slows and chops a sample of The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.”