One Liner: New Nashville sound that leans hard on rock to make country music. Wikipedia Genre: Country Spotify Says Similar To:Dan + Shay and Maddie & Tae (I can't make that shit up, those two rhyming names are literally the #1 and #2 Related Artists on Spotify). Home: Nashville (not a shocker, but born and raised in Maryland) Poster Position: 11 Slot: ?
Thoughts: Popular new country act from Nashville, winners of Vocal Duo of the Year at both the CMAs and the ACMs. Just one album, 2016's Pawn Shop, which I reviewed a year or so ago. After listening to it a few more times, I agree with myself. "Loving Me Back," with Lee Ann Womack, is the best song on here.
Only 1.4 million streams for that one, so I must be in a minority here. More like Chris Stapleton than the otherwise mostly modern Nashville stuff. Do you remember Big and Rich? That is kind of what this album reminds me of, but without that terrible rapper guy who contributed to B&R's songs. 1 part southern rock, 2 parts cheese country styles, 1 part well-done harmonies and tunes. And a shocker here, they've got the now obligatory weed smoking country song ("Greener Pastures"). The top song ("Stay a Little Longer"), which had only 19 million streams back when I first reviewed it, is now up to 70.8 million, which is pretty impressive. I'm not going to link you back to that one, go to my old review if you want it, because I don't care for it. The second most popular track is "21 Summer," a love song based in a long ago summer.
This sounds just like something that I can't place my finger on. Like Jackson Browne or something. Or is that Toby Keith in my mind? Might be Toby Keith. No, its someone else who won't come to me. Some person that makes me think of Austin. But I like that track quite a bit. I'm a sucker for old love nostalgia songs, and being reminded of a time or relationship through a song that you sang all summer. Pretty song, avoids all of the rawkin' guitar action that tries to carry so much of the rest of the album. At 31.9 million streams, it is still pretty popular. And the other one I feel like I should showcase is the Jimmy Buffett-style tune, "Rum," which clocks in at 4th place for streams at 7.6 million.
"Dippin' our tooooooooooooes in the water! I don't care if it gets any hotter, its you, me, remembering how to have fun!" and "mix it with rum - mmm - mmm - mmmmmmmmm." Sure, maybe a little cheesy, but suck it, I enjoy the tune. Silly and fun and probably fantastic to sing along with after a bunch of cocktails. Will I Go See Them in the Fall? Likely not.
One Liner: Mount Rushmore of Rap guy. Beyonce's man. Not a businessman he's a business, man. Wikipedia Genre: Hip Hop Spotify Says Similar To: Kanye West and Drake (really? Drake?) Home: NYC Poster Position: 1 Slot: Friday, ?
Thoughts: So this post got a little into the wilderness below, but know that, when it comes down to the bottom line, I'm excited to see Jay-Z for the first time. He is, without any realistic counter-argument, one of the best rappers of all time and has enough hits to absolutely destroy a set like this. I'll give you a general synopsis for the post below, if you'd rather skip the whole thing: Jay-Z wasn't that great at first, but people act like he was immediately amazing even though they only found him later. After that, he actually got great, then he got terrible, and now he's just a brand to sell many millions in product and fame.
When do you actually remember Jay-Z for the first time? He was just Shawn Carter, born in Brooklyn and raised in Bed-Stuy. He claims in his lyrics to have sold crack and shot his brother when he was a kid. In one track from the Black Album, "December 4th," his mom talks about how he was always banging on the kitchen table and making rhythms, until he started free-styling and making a name for himself around the neighborhood. But in the mid-90's, he was featured on a Big Daddy Kane track, and then with a few other rappers who I've never heard of (Big L and Mic Geronimo), before he finally created his own label (the now huge Roc-A-Fella Records) and released his debut, Reasonable Doubt. This was in June 1996. The album did OK, reaching up to #23 on the Billboard 200, and has since been lauded as a great album. But if you recall, he was not that big at the time. The album took six years to get to platinum status (and that was after all the later albums made him popular). Wikipedia says it remains the lowest charting album of Jay's career. I act like I'm crapping on it, and I'm not, it is a solid disc with some great tracks like "22 Twos" or "Can I Live" or "Dead Presidents II" or "Brooklyn's Finest (feat. BIG)." All I'm saying is that despite all the critical love now, it wasn't that big back in the day. Hell, Jay even raps about it on "Hard Knock Life," saying “I gave you prophecy on my first joint, and y'all lamed out/Didn't really appreciate it 'til the second one came out.” (although I'd argue that no one appreciated it until even later than the second one...)
However, not long after that, 2Pac was killed (Sept. 1996) and then Biggie was killed (Mar. 1997), and a vacuum opened up at the apex of hip hop. Let's look at some historical data from Billboard from this period.
Top rap song artists in 1995 - 69 Boyz (hahaha! Tha Tootsie Roll!), Notorious BIG, 2Pac (and those two traded the crown back and forth for several weeks, with "Big Poppa" and "Dear Momma"), Dr. Dre, Method Man, Notorious BIG (different song), Shaggy, Coolio, Goodie Mob, LL Cool J.
Top rap song artists in 1996 - LL Cool J, Kris Kross, Junior Mafia (featuring Biggie), Busta Rhymes, something called Nonchalant, Bone Thugs, 2Pac, Outkast, LL Cool J (different track), Westside Connection (which included Cube), Do or Die, Nas, and Lil' Kim (feat. Puff Daddy).
Top rap song artists in 1997 - Lil Kim, MC Lyte, Puff Daddy, Notorious BIG (posthumous), Puff Daddy (different song), Notorious BIG (different song), Magoo and Timbaland, Mase, Puff Daddy (again, different song).
I won't list out 1998, but just know that Jay-Z also did not make the top songs list in 1998, but someone named Sylk-E. Fyne did.
So none of Jay's tracks from either Reasonable Doubt nor his second album, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 (1997) were winning any popularity contests. Biggie, Tupac, and then Puff Daddy continued to rule the waves, with a couple of other folks sprinkled in. Most of those folks on that above hit list were one hit wonders (69 Boyz, Do or Die, Shaggy, Coolio, Kris Kross), were on the downhill slide of their careers (LL Cool J, Nas), were hot for a minute and then disappeared (Lil Kim, Mase, Puff Daddy), were soon dead (Biggie and 2Pac), or have continued in medium-sized careers (Method Man, Bone Thugs, Busta Rhymes). The only ones on that list who had staying power to get or stay huge were Dr. Dre, Outkast, and Nas.
Solo Dre was weird, as he made a classic, then a good album, and then just stepped away from the mic. Outkast were fantastic, but they were and are oddballs. Nobody was mistaking them for the gangster rap kings ready to take over for Biggie and Pac. Nas was critically adored, and people still talk about how great of a rapper he is, but something about him just never broke big in the popular culture. He had Illmatic and another hit song or two, but nothing huge - I think he was too smart lyrically for people to follow. So, we've got this vacuum there, waiting to be filled by someone bombastic enough to fill the collective shoes of Pac and BIG. Look, even Future kind of agrees with me!
So, my first real memory of Jay-Z was his absolutely solid turn as a guest on Jermaine Dupri's 1998 single "Money Ain't a Thing."
A few things: (a) great beat and track anyway; (b) Jay's verses were solid; and (c) this video, and the moron Dukes of Hazzard police in the car scenes, is funny stuff. But, recognize that this was in 1998, and Jay was doing guest verses on a songs for total no names like Dupri, M.O.P., Rell, and Another Level. Yes, those are all really the artists that he guested for in 1998. Some rapper or singer called "Rell." But now, into this vacuum, he releases Vol. 2 ... Hard Knock Life (1998) and it has his first real hit - so all of a sudden, he's the man that fills that the void. "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" has a ridiculous beat and funny turns of rhyme - total classic.
Instantly recognizable, and shows more of his deft ability to take brags and turn them into gold. That single went Platinum in the US and Gold in the UK, reaching up to #2 on the Billboard rap charts. The other tracks on that album aren't nearly so good, the other three singles were "N**ga What, N**ga Who," "Can I get A ..." and "Jigga My N**ga." And I think the best was that second one, "Can I Get A..."
Rush Hour ruled. But this one is good stuff, questioning whether his lady friend would even be around if he wasn't big time, and telling them off if they won't hang around. The rest of that album was OK. Of course, I can't go back and listen to this album without hunting down my CD collection or mp3s, because Jay-Z doesn't allow any of his music to be streamed via Spotify (which is so very annoying). I get it, he owns part of Tidal, and has to try to make that garbage idea work for the 47 subscribing members, but the fractured landscape of music streaming is an annoying (minor) problem of modern society. And this album starts a trend that I've noticed as I write this post, that Jay-Z could have a freaking AMAZING greatest hits album, taking the good track or two from each album, but a lot of his albums really aren't that good from start to finish. But by now, he's big. Like top three rappers in the world big, no contest. (more on that in a bit). And in 1999 he releases Vol. 3...Life and Times of S. Carter, which was the first of his albums I ever bought. That was the crossover moment, when he put out the fantastic single for "Big Pimpin," and everyone on the planet bought the album.
First, he's got UGK on there, which is already tight. But on top of that, you realize that he's here to drop ridiculously bad ass beats on you and then rule the brag rap game like no other. I also remember, after getting this disc, that I was listening to the disc at work when a co-worker came in and was bumping it with me. I didn't understand "Do It Again," because the beat is super off-kilter. The opening is very ominous, but then once it kicks in, its hard to find the right groove, just really weird.
He helped me understand how cool it was to try something so different at the time, and I get that, but I've never really enjoyed the track. So, again, you've got one incontrovertible bad ass song on the album, and then some other stuff that is OK. Next, you have 2001's The Blueprint, which is the album that most critics just creamed over. Produced by Kanye, it has some great sounds, and spawned his first top ten single (according to Wikipedia), which was Izzo (H.O.V.A.).
Terrible version of the video (annoyingly not available in its good version on YouTube, and that isn't even a complete version, dammit), but that beat! So freaking good! But the other singles from this album ("Girls, Girls, Girls," and "Jigga That N**ga") are again, just OK. I dislike Jay stealing Ice T's ideas, since T's 1993 song "99 Problems" was all about all of the different girls that he was hooking up with and their weird issues, which is copied by Girls. This is a really good album overall, probably Jay's second best to me. The next year (2002) brought the Blueprint 2: The Gift and the Curse, which included a guest sighting from Beyonce on the biggest single ("03 Bonnie & Clyde"), which went Gold in the US and Platinum in Australia.
They apparently started dating before this video, or at least talked on the phone a lot, but between this video and Jay's appearance on "Crazy in Love" things kicked off. Nothing else on this album to remember, the only other singles were "Hovi Baby" and "Excuse Me Miss" (which was alright). Then, the true classic. The realest album of all of his albums. The one that he called his final album (which would have been a very good idea), the Black Album from 2003. This one had three legit hit songs in "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," "99 Problems," and "Change Clothes," but was good even beyond those big hits. "99 Problems" is Jay's best song, hands down, no contest. AND the video I found of that track a week ago when I wrote most of this post has now been deleted, because JAY-Z HATES FOR YOU TO LISTEN TO HIS MUSIC! Here is a kind of cool live version with Pearl Jam (that will likely be taken down in 30 minutes).
THAT BEAT IS SO FUCKING SALTY! (well, the real beat, on the real song, if you can find it) "You crazy for this one, Rick." And on top of that, after some bragging, he rests that for a bit to tell a great little vignette about getting stopped by the cops that is freaking classic. Let's go with some of the best lines from this thing:
"You know the type, loud as a motorbike, but wouldn't crush a grape in a fruit fight."
"If you grew up with holes in your zapatos, you'd celebrate the minute you was having dough"
"I got two choices y'all, pull over the car or, hmm, bounce on the devil, put the pedal to the floor."
"I heard "Son, do you know why I'm stopping you for?" Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low, do I look like a mind reader, sir? I don't know, Am I under arrest or should I guess some mo?"
"Well my glove compartment is locked, so is the trunk in the back, And I know my rights so you goin' need a warrant for that, "Aren't you sharp as a tack? You some type of lawyer or something? Somebody important or something?" Child, I ain't passed the bar, but I know a little bit, Enough that you won't illegally search my shit."
So good! And that beat! If you don't feel tough and want to jam out when you hear that, then check your head. And after those three hits, there are other great tracks on this album, like "Encore," or "What More Can I Say," hell, "Public Service Announcement" is good stuff. That beat on that last one just makes me want to bang it as loud as possible once it kicks in with the organ and drum. Watch this little short video about how the track was made, I love the back story.
Also, video of him and Rick Rubin making 99 Problems. I could watch this shit all day.
Freaking crazy to watch how that happens in real time without all the effects and stuff that you see in the movies. So quiet when they are on the mic!
So, anyway, The Black Album was supposed to be his retirement. He had announced it before the album and everyone freaked out and then it was amazing and so everyone freaked out some more. But then, sadly, he decided to un-retire and release the truly awful 2006 album Kingdom Come. Nothing on that album is memorable. "Show Me What You Got" went gold, and "Lost One," "30 Something" and "Hollywood" (feat. Beyonce) all charted, but none of the songs were any good, none of them had anything cool or original about them, it was a terrible album.
Now you ruined the sax from a classic Public Enemy track and featured Dale Jr. and Danica in your video. By this time, Jay has officially changed from a rap icon to a brand that must be packaged up so that he can say shit raps like this: "I'm ballin' the same, nigga, I am the Mike Jordan of recording, Nigga, you might want to fall back from recording, Shit that you write; it's not important, So it forced him to go for the hype." Yes, the true show of excellence, when you rhyme a word with that same word to show your lyrical prowess.
And you know what happened in the interim between Black and Kingdom? Jay's own protege passed him up, as Kanye released the amazing College Dropout in 2004, right there in the void created by Jay's dumb retirement. And when this shit Kingdom Come album came out, I remember just thinking that Jay was done and Kanye was in his place. And also, Jay expanded his world from rapping and co-owning a label to being a huge, real deal businessman. Wikipedia does a shitty job of listing all of the businesses he was involved in (at least if you want a timeline), but by this time in his career he was focusing on the music label and clothing label and the mogul part of his image. Point being, he doesn't even need to make music anymore, he could just coast on all the fame. But now he can advertise for his own brands by continuing to rap, so get get stuff like "At the 40/40 Club, ESPN on the screen" in "Dirt Off Your Shoulders," to advertise for the club that he is part owner of. Anyway, back to the music.
I actually liked the next album, which was the 2007 soundtrack to the movie American Gangster, and the soundtrack matched the movie well and I thought tied together well. Only one of the tracks from that album ever made any noise, but it is a pretty good brag track.
And who the hell doesn't enjoy a great beat mixed with a rags to riches story that makes it seem like even you could be a skinny kid in an old track suit and then turn into the dapper bad ass buying drinks for everyone in the joint? With a fun horn sample? Most of the other tracks for this album that were on YouTube are blocked from being available, so I'll need to go dig them up in my CD cases.
The next album was his biggest hit, even more so than The Black Album, although its bad as far as I'm concerned. 2009's The Blueprint 3 had the massive smash pop/rap hit of "Empire State of Mind," featuring Alicia Keys, which after old Frankie Sinatra is now probably the most New York anthem anyone has (despite a lot of attempts). And it's solid, don't get me wrong. The beat is good and Keys kills it and it went 5 times platinum in the US, which is his biggest hit for sure. You gotta respect the fact that Jay figured out that a NYC anthem would kill it that way. This album also had "Young Forever," which chomps down on the 80's hit "Forever Young" to make something new and kind of interesting, and also "Run this Town," with Rihanna and Kanye, which is the best track on the album.
Stupid YouTube. Why the shit can't the real videos be loaded up to YouTube? There are literally bad covers, a silent version of the video, weird remixes, and a bunch of other garbage, but no easy-to-find version of the real video for this song. I'm sure it's some garbage where Nestle paid Jay-Z $50 million for the rights to use this in a Keebler elves ad, but then Kanye sold the rights to the NBA for $80 million for pre-game commercial breaks, but then Rihanna gave the rights to her dealer for a free bag of kush, and now 80 lawyers are fighting over the rights to post the video to YouTube so that people can watch it all for free. I bet that is totally the reason. Gotta say, that live video makes the song sound like dogshit.
In 2011, we got apex Jay-Z and Kanye, with the absolutely brilliant Watch the Throne. I don't consider this one a Jay-Z album for some reason, I've always thought of it as a Kanye album with Jay-Z on it, but it is totally billed as a joint album between the two of them. "Otis" kills it, "HAM" is bad ass, "Gotta Have It" bangs, "No Church in the Wild" is even ominously good, but its the ridiculously over-the-top "N**gas in Paris" that takes the cake.
Annoying that this version changes things from the album version, and yet is billed as the "Official" video, but you get the idea. That bouncing synth riff, that deep bass thump, the brags that are completely real and undisputed because these two guys really are at the top of the game, and the ability to yell that "shit cray." Despite my love for this album, I'm curious if he can even perform any of these tunes without Kanye there to do his portions. We'll study some setlists later...
Next comes the second worst album of the canon, the truly terrible 2013 album Magna Carta Hold Grail. The first single from this one featured Justin Timberlake and went four times platinum, so he is still getting playtime and is popular, but the quality of his lyrics is just in the crapper. The one on here that killed me was "Tom Ford," where he lyrically just shits the bed and doesn't care that everyone noticed. Here is the first half of the tune:
"Clap for a nigga with his rapping ass, Blow a stack for your niggas with your trapping ass Clap for a nigga with his rapping ass, Blow a stack for your niggas with your trapping ass. Tom Ford Tom Ford Tom Ford Coming up, Coming down, Riding clean fix your head, in my crown, Bad bitch, H town, Keep it trill, Y'all know y'all can't fuck around, Paris where we been, Part my Parisian, It's Hov time, in no time it's fuck all y'all season, Piss out Bordeaux and Burgundies, Flush out a Riesling, when's Hov's out, them hoes out, Y'all put y'all weaves in and (back to the chorus above)"
I count that he says "Tom Ford" 16 times in the song. It's like a nervous damn tic or something. He likewise has the same problem on the track he assists with Drake, called "Pound Cake," where he just says the word "cake" like 30 times in a row. Those lyrics are awful, and nothing on this album is worth holding on to.
But, this album went platinum immediately upon release, because being the savvy brand mastermind that he is, Jay sold a million copies of the album to Samsung, who then gave all of those copies away to users. So the second that the album was available, he had already sold a million copies and therefore was in platinum status. Which is annoying. But you know what? Can't knock the hustle - he figured out how to make that happen and Samsung was willing to pay for it, so go get 'em. Not surprisingly, now that he figured this move out, he just recently did the same with his most recent album, selling a million copies to Sprint before it was even released.
That brings us to that final album, 2017's 4:44. I just recently went ahead and bought the stupid thing, via iTunes, because otherwise I have no way to hear it because I am not one of the 47 people who subscribe to Tidal and I don't have Sprint service, so my brand allegiances don't line up with getting free access to the album. And I wasn't too worried about it, because after the last few duds, who cares if I don't hear the new dud. But honestly, I needed to hear the damn thing. After a few times through (which is easy because the whole album is like 10 minutes long), the beats behind these tunes are, for the most part, really solid. Check the one that has a video available, "The Story of O.J.," which will never be a radio hit but has a pretty chilled, laid-back beat.
I've watched that video like 8 times today alone. Makes me want to just lay the seat back in my ride and cruuuuuuuuise. But two things in there stick out as problematic. First, of course, the repeated use of the N word, which means this won't ever be on the radio. Second, the anti-Semitic bit about Jews owning all of the property in America. Really? I'm not even Jewish and that lyric bugged me. It bugged others as well. But he's also rapping about his own foibles in real estate investments, so I don't get the sense that he is actually trying to be anti-Semitic, but he's still enforcing crap stereotypes (both about his own race and others). But the track is gold, and the lyrics are otherwise solidly interesting. "I'm not black, I'm OJ. ... *sarcastic voice* OK." I like that track. If you read about the album on the Internet, everyone is freaking out about how confessional and open he is on the album. His mom comes out as gay ("Smile"). He confesses cheating on Beyonce (which also came out because of Bey's Lemonade) and apologizes to her and the kids. He calls out new rappers for sounding like everyone else (which I appreciate, even if that is kind of a shitty thing to do). Short ass album, only 36 minutes, and nothing on here is really a club song or an exciting banger, they are more like chill tracks of a couple of good lyrical bends, but nothing special. This feels like he decided to make his big confession, and then slapped some songs together to go with the confession, and tossed it out there despite only being a half hour long. But, I'll say that the samples/beats on "4:44" and "O.J." and "Caught Their Eye" are freaking good stuff. I dig this NoID shit. But if you haven't bought this album, I wouldn't drop the $10 on iTunes. Also, I had forgotten to mention this above, but I have to say that I really like the Linkin Park mashup that they did where Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory and Jay's Black Album (and a few other tracks) got mashed together into new performances. The "Numb/Encore" one is freaking bad ass, and the "Points of Authority/ 99 Problems" one is tight as hell too. But I'm a sucker for both of those old albums, so it works really well for me (and is great for running). I'll say that the "Izzo" mix with "In The End" doesn't work as well, because that Linkin song is so depressing but the Jay song is so happy sounding. Holy shit. That was a huge information dump right there. A few other things to talk about before I let this one go. First, who is the greatest rapper of all time? I know, just a small, easy thing to write about here in the middle of this post. There are people who would choose Jay-Z. And I'm not one of them. I think he has some freaking amazing, untouchable bars. But I also think that he has some absolute clunkers. Whole albums of garbage. No one is going to have all fire all the time, but despite that I still feel like Jay leaves a lot on the table because he is so very intensely concentrating on bragging. And instead of just spending the time to craft better bars, he goes with lazy recitations of his wealth. But anything you read on the Internet is going to have him in the top five of just about any list (although not the user lists on Genius, which are full of people trying to establish their bonafides by naming only deep cut people you haven't heard of - "oh, you don't love Durrschniget? His 1997 mixtape was the dopest album ever, yo."). This Billboard list goes with top five of B.I.G., Jay Z, Eminem, Rakim, Nas. Lin Manuel Miranda goes B.I.G., Big Pun (?!?), Eminem, Lauryn Hill, and Andre 3000, with Jay Z just outside the top 5. Ex-President Obama goes with (in no order) Jay Z, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, and Drake (although it looks like that is a listing of currently best rappers, not all timers). Some website called The Top Tens says it is Eminem, 2Pac, B.I.G., Nas, and Jay-Z. Remember the Chris Rock movie "Top Five"? I liked that flick. As part of it, Rock would ask people who their top five were, and there was this good scene where his whole family responded and I loved it. Rock's were Jay Z, Nas, Scarface, Rakim, and Biggie. That feels like a well-thought-out list by someone who tried to really put it together.
That scene of argument over who would be better, and people disagreeing about it all, is super fun. I love when everyone jumps his ass for including LL Cool J as his sixth man. My friend Joseph says his, in no particular order, are Eminem, Jay-Z, Biggie, 2Pac, Beasties, and Ice Cube. That is respectable (although I don't think you get to choose a whole group of three people and inject them into the conversation as though they are one person, but I'll let it slide for now). How can we measure it, other than pure feeling? I'll give you my gut feeling in a bit, but let's try for some measurables. Album sales? If you count Rihanna as a rapper, she is #1 by a mile with 220 million units sold. If not (and I don't), then it is:
Eminem - 155 million
Kanye West - 121 million
Jay-Z - 100 million
Lil Wayne - 100 million
Flo Rida - 80 million.
I can't tell you how happy it makes me that crappy ass Flo Rida is #5 on that list. So, there is your real top five, as voted by the American people's hard earned cash. I can't tell by streams on Spotify because some people aren't on there (jerk face Jay-Z for one), but I expect that Drake would be #1 by billions. He literally, no shit, has a song with more than a billion streams (One Dance has 1.266 billion streams, for now). And yet he sucks at rap. How about most nominations for a BET award? That would be Chris Brown (kill me now), followed by Drake, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Nicki Minaj. Most Grammy nominations? Kanye then Jay-Z on the Wikipedia page I found. I don't know how you do this with data. The other issue that comes up when you read about this is this - how are you measuring greatness? Longevity of people listening to the music? Social impact of the lyrics? Clever crafting of rhymes? Fun awesomeness of the tunes? No one guy is going to top all four of those measures, I don't think. For example, I think Eminem's craft is amazing, making words rhyme left right and center throughout his bars. But he's rapping about farts and murders and drugs. He's not going Chuck D or Kendrick to try to change your worldview through the rhymes. But which is "best" or "better?" I think no matter how you slice the modern conscious about it, you're going to have B.I.G., 2Pac, and Jay-Z in just about everyone's conversation for best rapper of all time. Of those, I'd pick Biggie any day. 2Pac was visceral and exciting, and was killed before he could really cement his place on the Mount Rushmore of rap, but if I'm being honest he isn't someone I go back to and listen to again all the time. When I do, I usually love it and am into it again, but I definitely go back to Biggie and Cube (and Ghostface Killah) more often than either Pac or Jay. Yeah, I still love Cube and would probably pick him as my own personal top rapper, and I also believe in Eminem who could be the best when he was at his best. He definitely dropped some clunkers but some of the Eminem things, the way he could technically weave words and ideas and emotions, was amazing. And I think Kendrick Lamar, while still young, is up there in that top five conversation. His three real albums are all classic and full of real deal informative lyrics and clever wordplay. In fact, let's look at Metacritic (which is crowd-sourced and so it may not be perfect, but still, I think it is an interesting data point), which has the following critically top ranked rap albums:
Kendrick - To Pimp a Butterfly (96 rating)
Kendrick - DAMN (95 rating)
Outkast - Stankonia (95 rating)
Kanye - My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy (94 rating)
Madvillian - Madvilliany (93)
Kendrick's Good Kid is at 91 rating (which is BS, its his best one). Jay's Blueprint comes in a 88 rating. Nas' Illmatic is at an 89. Run the Jewels 3 is at 88. Ghostface's Fishscale is at 88 (which is a bad ass album of grimy stories and great rhymes). But, no Pac or Biggie albums make the top 4 pages of results, and Hot Sauce Committee is the top rated Beasties album, so this list is likely made of garbage. If you look at it by User Score, instead of critic's scores, you get the following top 5:
Nas' Illmatic (9.2)
Kendrick's To Pimp A Butterfly (9.1)
Kendrick's Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (9.1)
Common's Be (9.1)
Nas and Damian Marley's Distant Relatives (9.1)
I was pretty good until that last one. Now you have no right to comment on the goodness of albums, Metacritic users. GTFOH with Damian Marley.
I also love me some Kanye West. I know Kanye is a douche in real life, but when he was crafting those first few albums, he was freaking ridiculously talented and clever. However, from what I have read today, it looks like a lot of his music was written with collaborators, so maybe he isn't as clever as I thought. T.I. had some good stuff. LL Cool J had some classics. Scarface, both with the Geto Boys and then on his own, is excellent. Q-Tip has some great bars. Nas' debut was fantastic, but nothing since then has been that great. I don't honestly know Rakim that well. Pusha T kills it at times. Dre and Snoop, or Lil Wayne, or the guys from Outkast, or Killer Mike, there are a bunch of other guys who might get votes, but I think my personal preference of people I go back to to hear again and again would be Cube, B.I.G., Eminem, Kendrick, and Ghostface. And Outkast and the Beasties would get my honorable mentions. Jay-Z is right up there with them, definitely top ten, but not top five for me, personally. Finally, what does Jay-Z play these days? He's not touring, really, and so his most recent set-lists have nothing from the new album, which will likely, unfortunately, not be the case in the fall. The most recent setlist I found shows a kind of weird set:
Made In America (one of the weaker tracks from Watch the Throne)
Clique (pretty solid posse cut he did with Kanye and Big Sean)
Public Service Announcement (Black Album)
Niggas in Paris (Watch the Throne)
Beach Is Better (MCHG)
Beach Is Better (yes, it really is listed twice?)
I Got the Keys (a DJ Khaled track)
Holy Grail (the Justin Timberlake track from MCHG)
Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) (Vol. 2)
Uh, wait. No "99 Problems"? NO FREAKING "Big Pimpin'"? No "Izzo," no "Encore," no "Empire State of Mind"? This will be even worse than the Radiohead debacle last year if he just ignores "Big Pimpin" and "99 Problems." I would have been pissed at this show in Ohio. You have to imagine that we'll be getting prime greatest hits Jay, not the guy who is going to try to go deep cut on us. He's got a show in late August at a Fest in England, then his Made in American Fest in early Sept., so we can get a better idea of what he's going to do after those two shows.
One Liner: Jazzy Kiddie Limits singer with some fun songs Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but I'll go with jazz. Spotify Says Similar To:Lucas Miller and Tim and the Space Cadets. Home: Portland, OR Poster Position: 26 Slot: ?
Thoughts: Only one song available on Spotify, called "Heisenberg's Aha!" which is a piano jaunt about the beauty of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Kind of funny.
I think that we are talking about an Austin Kiddie Limits artist here, educating the children about quantum mechanics. Because the stoned people at the regular stages are never going to comprehend any of this. In addition to Heisenberg, she also pays homage to Fred Rogers and Jane Goodall in other songs. Her voice is great, and she's got a jazzy number as the title song for her Grammy nominated album, "How Great Can This Day Be?"
I like it. Here's one more, just in case. If the comments to this video are to be believed, the lyrics to this are something that Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote?
Ah, no, her quote with the video just says that this is inspired by a Neil deGrasse Tyson quote. Pretty piano for sure, and her voice is still nice as well. This isn't music that I'd listen to every day, but it really is lovely.
One Liner: Kids playing cover tunes after learning at the School of Rock Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia entry, but going with Rock Spotify Says Similar To: No Spotify, but it is similar to a middling to good bar cover band. Home: Austin Poster Position: 27 Slot: ?
Thoughts: I considered just skipping posts for this, being that it is generally the same each year, but figured why not search YouTube for some new videos to consider. Here is 2015's entry. Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker.
The band does a pretty solid job of cranking out the classic rock jam right there, including a pretty passable (if a little muddy) guitar solo in the middle. The singer (and the crap echo-effects thing she is using) could dial it back by a bit. Also love the kid psyching himself up, down to the right of the stage, getting ready for his big star turn next on stage. Elton John's Bennie & the Jets.
So freaking cool, man. I wish I could have had something like School of Rock when I was an awkward 13 year old. Screw playing french horn in the school band, I COULD HAVE BEEN AMERICAN BONO, MOM!!! WHY DID YOU HOLD ME BACK!!! WITH ONLY A FEW YEARS OF INSTRUCTION IN AN AUSTIN STRIP MALL I EASILY COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER THAN ERIC CLAPTON!!! Although the sound sucks on these videos, you get the idea, these kids are doing some pretty solid cover tunes.
One more, "Valerie" by Amy Winehouse.
Hold on a damn minute, that is freaking good. The sound is good enough on the video to tell, but the singer is great and the rest of the band is actually really solid too. I'm actually impressed. Well done, kids. One more bonus, just because YouTube served it up while I was writing. Chicago's School of Rock throwing down some Metallica action.
I wonder if dudes are allowed to sing at the School of Rock? Pretty awesome cover.
One Liner: Marimba world music action Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia entry Spotify Says Similar To: Line Upon Line Percussion and Aviateur Home: Austin Poster Position: 27 Slot: Saturday, ?
Thoughts: Aw yeah! Xylophone action, bitches! The website says that "Rattletree is a must-see multi-sensory live show experience of towering marimbas triggering ethereal synth sounds, bursts of color, and ecstatic dance." So I guess these aren't xylophones, but are marimbas. Got it. Sorry. Their most popular track on Spotify is an instrumental called "Joy," with 1,365 streams (of which about 10 are mine), but that one doesn't have a snappy video shot at the KUTX studios, so you get "Blood Red" instead, which sounds like an instrumental version of some rock song. Less than a thousand streams.
These dudes are freaking serious about their percussions, bro. Out of curiosity, was that a cover song? Google tells me about three other songs called "Blood Red." I just listened to the terrible DMX rap by that name, and this is definitely not a cover of that one. I don't see similarities with the Slayer track either (although Slayer sure does have a lot of songs with "blood" in the title). But wait, it really might be a cover of the last one, a "dubstep classic" by Feed Me.
OK, now I'm actually laughing out loud in my office. That fits. And means that the marimba band is seriously covering a 2010 dubstep EDM track from an English dude named Jon Gooch who is signed to Deadmau5's label. That is weird stuff. (but I actually kind of like the original tune). They also do a cover of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" that I could do without - they do better with the instrumental thunder than the singing. Here is some live action from the Central Market patio over on North Lamar.
My favorite part of the video are the little toddlers either drunkenly learning how to walk or dancing to the jams, down in the bottom left hand corner of the video next to the drum kit. These guys are obviously, or at least I find it obvious since I probably couldn't play Three Blind Mice on those things without 5 hours of practice, very talented at what they do, but I doubt I'd go see them play at the Fest.
One Liner: Like John Mayer told people his music was country Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia entry Spotify Says Similar To: Seth Ennis and Sammy Arriaga Home: Orangeville, CA (now in Nashville) Poster Position: 24 Slot: Sunday at 11:45
Thoughts: Smooth sounding soft-rock (that calls itself country in his bio) that owes a debt to R&B more so than the traditional country sound. I only really call it country because that is what his bio says, it sounds more like the soft-rock R&B that guys like John Mayer have done for years. Good example of that is his second-most listened-to track, "I Don't Care Who Sees," with 2.2 million streams.
Not the album version, but you can hear those hand-claps and smooth guitar work under a slick set of lyrics about making out in front of people. But then he also has a significantly more popular track, pretty huge for a guy with no album, at 14.8 million streams, this is "All On Me."
Because I'm an unapologetic nerd for John Mayer's music, I'm not going to clown on these tunes. I actually like them. But the fact that this guy is, in any way, trying to pass this off as country music shows you how far off the mark the world of "Country" has spiraled in the past two decades. I doubt I'd go see this guy play, but its actually catchy little soft-rock pop nuggets. I'mma play that "I Don't Care Who Sees" track for the wife this weekend and see if we end up in a puddle of clothes on the floor.
One Liner: Bluegrass boy band from New Jersey (for real) Wikipedia Genre: Bluegrass, country, Roots music Spotify Says Similar To: Steep Canyon Rangers and Cadillac Sky Home: Lebanon Township, New Jersey Poster Position: 26 Slot: Saturday, ?
Thoughts: Their Wikipedia page speaks of several albums in their history, but none are available on Spotify. All you get on Spotify is a 2014 EP and then two 2016 singles. Their website has a non-bio that looks like they just kept the place-holder page in their web-publishing software. But the photos on that website show that these guys look like they are about 13. It's like a bluegrass boy band! And the lead singer sounds like some emo singer I know. Or is it the Yellowcard guy? It's a very high pitched voice that sounds a little odd over the top of the rip-roaring banjo attack. The most popular track on Spotify for them right now is one of those two new singles, "Your Smile," which has 126k streams.
Someone has noticed that using "wooooaoooohh, woooooaaaooooohhh" in pop songs is a key ingredient to success. This sounds, other than the underlying banjo plucking, like some pop song that I'd hear on the radio right about now, a pop track from the newest boy band, that just happens to include banjo. Their other recent single, "Feeling I'm Awake" sounds more like a purposeful homage to Mumford. And several of the songs on the EP sound like a young lady singing them, but I assume it is the same dude. For the next song, while it isn't their most listened to, I think the breakdown action on "By My Side" is worth giving this one to you to hear. 221k streams.
Live version that involves a weird emotionless girl from Finland, but you get the idea. I find it fascinating to watch the eight year old (probably eight, I'm not looking it up) pick the shit out of that banjo while appearing to barely move. The acoustics of that video are garbage, but their tune is great and they seem pretty rad. And then there is this shit.
Holy hannah. Banjo baby breaks it down, the pretty one with the guitar tears it up, then violin guy fires up that bow. I'm a big fat sucker for the bluegrass breakdown freakout. I'd be the guy in the aisle screaming WHOOWEEEE! and slapping myself in multiple places while kicking those around me. OK, dammit, now I want to look up their ages. How can they do that shit with their hands?
Here is a TED talk video from 2012 where the banjo player really does look 8. Hold on... they just said he was 10. Wikipedia says they were born in 2002, 1998, and 1997, so by now these guys are actually super crazy old, like between 15 and 20. Ha! At 15 I could probably strum, very slowly, a G, D, and C on the guitar. These kids jam. Don't know if I'll actually go see it in person, but they really can jam out. Oooh, look, they play Saturday. I'll make my kids go watch this and then tell them how disappointed I am in their lack of ability.
One Liner: Austin alt. country./Americana band that sounds fantastic Wikipedia Genre: Americana, folk rock, country, blues, jam rock, roots rock, blue-eyed soul Spotify Says Similar To: Chris Knight and Ray Wylie Hubbard (pretty damn good company right there) Home: Austin, Texas Poster Position: 16 Slot: ?
Thoughts: What the hell is "blue-eyed soul?" Wikipedia calls it R&B and soul music performed by white artists. What the hell is that about? Is it really necessary to worry about the race of the performer when talking about a genre? Do we have a Afro-American Rock section in the record store? Is there a Asian Jazz genre? Can a white guy with brown eyes play blue-eyed soul music, or is that a different section? Such a weird thing. Anyway, sorry for the detour into a short race discussion, but this band is awesome. The most recent album, Duende is really very good. I've been just going back to it over and over all day and its hard to find any reason to move on. These guys are from Austin, and their Spotify bio says that they formed just by sitting in on each other's sets at a place called Momo's (R.I.P.) and then just started playing together more often. After a few albums, they've revamped and added a friend of mine from childhood to the lineup (bassist Scott Davis, who also rules on guitar, and used to jam with Hayes Carll) and made this 2017 disc that I think is so good. I promise I'm not just saying its good because of Scotty. Go check it out. First, I'm going to give you the most listened to track from that album, called "Trouble Came Early," with 198k streams.
Live version, with a little bit of an intro, but still a good one. After this new album, they've got a bunch of other albums. They start back in 2006 with Live from Momo's, then a Live at Antone's one, then they get going with the studio work on 2008's Band of Heathens, 2009's One Foot in the Ether, 2013's Sunday Morning Record (which is also one of their best), and 2016's Top Hat Crown & the Clapmaster's Son. Of particularly strange note, that 2013 album has a song called "Caroline Williams." Which is only notable to me because that was the maiden name of the wife of my good buddy who comes to ACL with me every year. I texted him, and they had no clue (OR SO SHE CLAIMS!) about the song, and now she's saying that she never dated either of the main two guys in the band. LIKELY STORY!
Anyway, pretty good song. More than likely, Caroline is telling the truth and Jason isn't a Eskimo Brother to any of these guys. MAYBE! Their most popular track, by about a million streams, is "Hurricane," from that 2016 album, and boasting about 1.8 million streams.
Those harmonies are gold-plated, baby. Not their original song, but they still put a hurtin' on it. Although the crowd kind of looked like mannequins in cool hats, how was no one cutting loose to that when the jam took hold? The rest of that album sticks with a New Orleans flavor. Better though is the album just before that, the Sunday Morning Record, which evokes the Beatles ("Since I've Been Home") and The Jayhawks ("Texas") and that soft-hued, golden sound from California in the 70's. Their live disc shows more of a jam band side than that chilled Dawes vibe. I'm enjoying it, I'd go see these guys for sure.
You've heard people talk about Red Rocks. I mean, at the very least, you've heard Bono intone - "HEY! This is Red Rocks!" - on Under a Blood Red Sky. Super cool venue up in the mountains out on the west side of Denver. As we drove up to it, the inner nerds in me were fighting over the thought that it looked just like old concert videos I'd seen, or that it looked like something from Radiator Springs (Cars movie), or that it looked like some crashed Imperial ship on Tatooine. We had run up to Denver for a week vacation without kids, and the one thing on my list that I felt we must do was to go see a show at Red Rocks. Any show really, I just wanted to experience the venue. So, it ended up that String Cheese Incident, a local-ish Colorado jam band, was doing a three night set of shows while we were in town, so we were all set for the show. Beforehand, the anticipation built for me, as multiple people we ran into around town - Lyft drivers, waitresses, random dudes at breweries - were all excited about both the venue and the band. In fact, two of those random dudes at a brewery had flown into town from Texas just to see all three nights at Red Rocks, with VIP passes, and said that each had seen the band more than 20 times. So, I'm thinking that this kind of devotion means that the band is going to be pretty sweet, even if I don't really know their music.
We took a Lyft out there (significantly more expensive than expected, because of traffic in getting from downtown Denver to way out in Morrison, so beware if you are in the same position), and the driver had to drop us off at the bottom of the mountain, right by the crowd tailgating before the show. The view from there is beautiful. It is literally these huge red rocks, they look like the giant fins of an old car, jutting out of the mountainside. Very dramatic and cool, especially when you realize that the amphitheater is tucked in the middle of those fins. As we begin the trek, here is the first hint of the problem that we are going to have at this show. As we are climbing the million stairs up to the gate, we realize that the girl up in front of us, being led by the hand by a dude she doesn't know, is so terrifically stoned/tripping/drunk/all the above that she can barely walk. She had black mascara/tear streaks down both cheeks, and literally looked like she was about to over-correct and topple backwards down the stairs about 8 times per set of stairs. She had apparently lost both her friends and her ticket, and this dude was trying to be nice and help her. Once she got to the crowd in front of the gate, she plowed right through them and, when not allowed to enter without a ticket, started crying again as she was trying to figure out how to dial an ancient looking flip phone and leaning precariously against a railing. Oy. And my wife, the fantastic mother (and general worrier) that she is, was now good and fully uncomfortable about this show. We got to our seats, which were awesome. Row 34 is about half way up the bowl, and seats 81 and 82 are directly in the center of it all. But, more and more random people with general admission tickets kept creeping into our space and hanging out. See, the "seat" at Red Rocks entitles you to about 18 inches of width on an unlined wooden bench, and about 3 feet of length of concrete riser going up to the bench of the guy in front of you. So there is plenty of room for the people around you to invite their buddies over to stand in or around their chunk of space, and it seemed like everyone there knew everyone else around them, so there was a lot of folks crowding in to share a smoke or three and hang out before wandering off again. Although, once the show started, most of those folks respected our space pretty well. Opening band the Jyemo Club were an odd brand of mashing together Latin rhythms with soft rock sounds, rap with singing, and English with Spanish. I would not say they did much for me, but some of the people around us were fired up for the music and doing some sweet dancing. Oh, and there were loads of people dressed up in all sorts of weird stuff. One young lady was dressed as a jelly fish, which is apparently one of the symbols for the SCI. She got a lot of compliments. Lots of capes, a guy in a sequined leprechaun jacket, loads of fanny packs and vests and Mexican blanket pancho thingys. The wife and I stuck out like sore thumbs in our normal clothes.
After a short break, String Cheese took the stage to the literal roar of a full crowd. Everyone around us was crazy excited for this show. Each person I talked to was a huge fan, no one seemed to be just checking them out like we were. And I'll admit that I enjoyed the tunes. The lyrics though... my wife turned to me about two songs in and asked "is this really cheesy, or is that just me?" And I started to really parse the lyrics to the song ("These Waves," the first video I posted up above), and had to agree. Here is the chorus: "These waves, Between pleasure and pain, These waves, Come and rock me once again, These waves, Will I ever stop riding these waves?" Woah, bro, deep man. Each song was crazy long, and that was actually the part I liked the most, the jamming portion of each tune. The players in this band are freaking good. Especially the old dude on the guitar, who could freaking burn that sucker up. And the lead singer was money on the guitar as well. So after some cheeseball lyrics about Shining ooooooooon!, they'd kick into jam session mode and that part was awesome. They had some legitimately excellent bluegrass stuff going on at one point, and I was into it for sure. However, this entire time, people around us are dancing and tripping and falling and appearing to be so damn high that they can't handle their own business. A dude in front of us was literally unable to stand still to use his phone to text, and kept stumbling back and forth on his seat riser, just about to step off the edge, then stumbling back into the people around him, until the guy next to him literally helped him sit down. He then proceeded to put his head on his arms and zone out in his seat for the rest of the show. Others around just kept bumping each other and accidentally stepping down off the seat risers as they jammed out or twirled their capes. I know I'm old, and I can readily admit I've gotten trashed at shows before, but when 75% of the crowd is so far gone that they are totally distracting to my enjoyment of the show, it is a problem. And definitely so for my wife, who again wanted to make sure these people were safe. So that part of the show was a big bummer. After about an hour to hour and a half, the band took a break to try to raise some money for charity and then take a breather backstage, so we took that as a good cue to head out and beat the Lyft crowd. I honestly enjoyed the music, but I probably won't go see that band again because of the crowd.
