Be sure to tell your friends. And leave comments. Your feedback helps determine the shape and future of all this.
Okay, the other day's clipping. review will be the last one for a while (by "a while", I mean, like, a little over a week). I've essentially covered all the recent releases that I feel are noteworthy enough, so I thought now is as good a time as any to start up the second installation of Classics Week. I should probably state, though, that these are albums that I see as flawless and deserve a perfect rating. There are tons of albums that I consider to be classics that aren't perfect. The reason the reviews won't be published immediately is that I need a little time to clear my head. I've been going strong for over a year straight now of constant post, and no offense to other blogs, but these write-ups take a bit longer to write than, say, posting a link to an album stream. And I'd like to get a little bit of a head start. Be sure to tell your friends. And leave comments. Your feedback helps determine the shape and future of all this.
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Something that has really set back hip hop in recent years is a lack of willingness to do something new and daring. As much as I love the genre at it's foundation, it was a creation based on creativity and innovation. Too many emcees in today's music industry are fixated not only on doing more of the same, but going as far as to revive an old sound. Rappers like Troy Ave and the Beast Coast movement are striving to rekindle a spirit that was once the driving spirit of the streets of New York. This constant obsession with bringing back the old sounds of hip hop is robbing today's audience of new ideas and new avenues in which this beloved art form may find itself. Despite the constant desire to dwell in past glories, there are people out there who still wish to push boundaries, and challenge what has now been accepted as the formula to follow. These acts exist both in the mainstream, but much more prominently in the underground. The three names that define this movement that I will simply dub, "experimental noise-hop" are Kanye West, Death Grips, and our hosts, clipping. All three are very different in their approach, but the basic idea is doing something that no one has ever heard before. These are the sounds pushing the agenda of innovation, and new forms and sub genres of hip hop. Sure, not all experimental albums are awesome, but I'd rather hear a sub-par left-field album, than another mediocre Troy Ave mixtape. Sigh...
Because its a holiday (happy Fathers Day!), I figured that this post should be about a hip hop album that poses absolutely zero challenge to the listener. So before you get your panties in a bunch about the fact that this write-up is about Riff Raff, a white guy with cornrows that also goes under the moniker Jody Highroller (and whatever other reason you have for not liking the guy), be sure to read through the entire thing first. I hope the writing is at least entertaining, even if you have preconceived notions about the guy posing with a husky and baby on the album cover.
Here's what I've learned about this guy in doing my research for these introductory paragraphs. Although, for all intents and purposes, he's making his debut in 2014 with Neon Icon, he's apparently been around for quite a while. Born Horst Simco, he first got his start in his early twenties, after being influenced by the likes of local Texas rappers Devin the Dude and Paul Wall (seriously?). After starting to record over other artists' beats and passing along his mixtapes as ignorantly as possible, he found the music industry to be a huge bitch: none of the labels wanted to sign him. So Horst did the smart thing: he took advantage of the ever-growing Internet music community to showcase his music. With the summer in full swing, the hip hop release calendar will inevitably start to pick up a little steam, as most of the year's high profile releases tend to appear during the back half of the 365 days In most years, though, there's not a more important release than Death Grips. I say that for two reasons. One, all of my posts related to this group tend to get insanely high page views, which is hilarious considering most of you all can't stand Death Grips, and secondly, they are one of my favorite current groups and I'm always interested to see what kind of shenanigans they're pulling. I'm just hoping that listening to this won't cause me to rethink my position.
Last year, the trio made up of MC Ride, Flatlander, and Zach Hill "pulled a Beyoncé" before "pulling a Beyoncé" was a thing. Out of nowhere, they released an eleven track album entitled Government Plates, which already had videos for each song. I'm still mad at myself for not giving that a track-by-track review (though I did write more than a few paragraphs about it if you'd like to see my thoughts), but long story short, it was a different direction that was looked fondly upon, although most fans were upset with the alarming lack of vocals, which are kind of what made Death Grips blow up in the first place. About a week ago, 50 Cent threw a shitty opening pitch at the Mets game. There, now I don't have to make a corny ass reference later in the write-up. Now we can get to business: In 2009, shorty after the release of his fourth full-length album Before I Self Destruct, 50 Cent found his career in a state of disarray. After a horrible reception to said album, he decided he needed a new approach to making music. That new approach would initially come in the form of Black Magic, an album inspired by European nightclubs. Curtis would then realize how horrible of an idea that was and shift his focus on crafting an album with the same aggression of Get Rich or Die Tryin'. This would eventually lead to 50 completing 80% of the album before receiving the news that his label, Interscope Records, would be having none of it. For whatever reason, they decided to push the album back until 2011, in favor of changing the title to Before I Self Destruct II.
Most people, myself included, forget that Hip-Hopinionated was created so I could look back on the discographies of my favorite artists and see if my money was well spent. Now obviously that goal has nearly gone to shit, as there's no possible way I could ever cover each album from every artist in the side bar and my contemporary reviews seem to generate ten times more clicks, but every once in a while I like to get back on track. For that reason, I'll pick up where I left off in the Kanye West cannon because people click on things when they see "Kanye", and honestly, he's a pretty fun dude to write about.
I'm not going to bore you with the Kanye West biographical rundown, but I have to mention the circumstances this album is most widely associated with: the sales battle with 50 Cent. (The reason I chose to even write about Graduation today is because I was listening to Animal Ambition this morning and thought about how funny this situation was) I can't even remember how this little scuffle started, but at some point in 2007, Curtis Jackson had enough of Kanye West's antics and decided to do something about it. Instead of any physical confrontation, he promised that he would retire from rapping if Kanye's upcoming project outsold his own album entitled Curtis, which would be released on the same day as Graduation. Obviously, this wouldn't be much of a competition today, but seven years ago, 50 was still holding on to musical relevance, so people seemed to care about this piffle. Hell, I even remember myself heading out to Target in hope of contributing to the impending retirement of Curtis Jackson. First and foremost I would like to begin this review by admitting to you readers that I am absolutely an Atmosphere fan. I will like just about anything this group puts out to a fault. That makes it very difficult for me to give an objective review on any of their work, but at the same time, I am usually realistic. Not all of the music they put out is for everyone. If you are a fan of gritty rhymes and traditional hip hop instrumentals, then it's time to either leave, or start broadening your horizons immediately. I'm not going to ever tell you that Slug and Ant have pumped out classics, I'm not an idiot. However, Atmosphere has consistently put out music that I find relatable, and that I flat out enjoy listening to. Just don't get that confused with a complete bias. If the album sounds like shit, I won't like it. I'm a reasonable person, but the odds of me thinking this album sounds like complete shit are slim to none. Now with that established I guess we can move on to the actual review.
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