Well, first of all, yes MBDTF and Runaway are both among the best albums/singles to be released in the half decade (seriously, they're doing fucking HALF decades now?) in question...

Buy aside from that you're totally right. They're killing music. They talk about Centipede HZ as though its blandness ruined Animal Collective's "perfect" run. It didn't, because they never had a fucking perfect run! They had a bunch of albums that fit perfectly into the image that Pitchfork wanted for a period. But nobody other than pitchfork themselves ever thought they were the god damn perfect indie band. So for pitchfork to look back and shake their heads at the wasted potential... It's like Time issuing a total dis of their Man of the Year three months after Time itself chose the fucker.

I don't think they've won, and I think their time is just about up. They're not even having a positive influence on lonely college kids anymore. They're just directing them to the music that is already the most hyped and beloved in the country. They are the single most widely read publication in the country, which means they no longer have any true investment in independent culture, if they ever did. Their walls will come tumbling down soon enough.

They're raising new generations of freaking dipshits every few years, and I for one think they are the very picture of shameful music writing and hackneyed PR puppet stringing.

Something needs to be done about these assholes. They need to go down.

I've noticed more and more records coming out that I'm like "how did they not review that?" Like dude, they never reviewed Iggy. Was odd to me.

Hey, where the hell did you find a physical copy of XXX intoxxxicated anyway?

it was briefly for sale on his website, but sold out quick. Grabbed mine from eBay.

Got these at the flea market today for $8:

Makaveli - The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory
It always sort of bugged me that this was released as a Makaveli album instead of 2Pac album. But whatever. Logistics. Seeing as how it was released so shortly after 2Pac's death, and all the references to resurrection, it's easy to see how The 7 Day Theory could be seen as exploitative at the time. But this really was a 2Pac album that he wrote and laid out before his death. Rumors via members of the Outlawz suggest that it was intended to be a more underground release, which makes the brown paper bag artwork make sense in a sort of 'official bootleg' kind of way. This record was a rush job (seriously, 7 days) but an intentional rush job. As such, there's definitely an urgency to the material. Opener "Bomb First (My Second Reply)" for instance has a beat that at first feels like it has an unfinished demo quality to it. Repeated listenings reveal it to have a more first-take-best-take quality, not unlike punk's warts-and-all aesthetics. Though plenty of the material is well thought out and well produced. "Hail Mary" is a classic for sure, as is "Toss It Up." And "Me And My Girlfriend" would eventually serve as the blueprint for Jay-Z and Beyonce's massively popular "03 Bonnie & Clyde." In hindsight I think that it's easier to praise All Eyez On Me as it was a more expensive record that netted many career-highlight singles and was a sort of defining record in mainstream gangsta rap that seemed to work in a party atmosphere. On the contrary, The 7 Day Theory is far darker, moodier and condensed into a svelte piece of slightly paranoid perfection.

Ol' Dirty Bastard - Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version
This was the second solo album in the first wave of Wu-Tang solo albums (the first being Tical, or the real first being Words From The Genius). As such, it is produced almost entirely by RZA and certainly retains that early Wu-Tang lo-fi, creepy sound that made Enter The Wu-Tang so compelling. Indeed several tracks here could fit pretty well on Enter - "Snakes" being the most obvious. But what really makes Return set itself apart from the group effort - even when there are plenty of guests to boast - is none other than Russell T. Jones. Not for a moment will he let you forget that this is his show. And really, the album is better for that somewhat spastic hand taking the reins. While it does sound like Wu-Tang, it pretty much always sounds like ODB's version of Wu-Tang. Which means a long, drawn out intro about venereal disease. It also means that between bouts of incredible rapping ("Brooklyn Zoo" being the obvious overground example here) he'll also be seeing how long you can make a throaty sound, using words that seriously are not even words, or trying his hand at singing "New Jack Swing" style ballads that his father learned from your nana ("which is good!"). While it's not a perfect record, and while some of the choices that ODB makes lyrically and vocally fall in line with some of the more surreal output that Kool Keith would be known for a few years later, repeated listens reveal that this album is just plain fun, and ultimately that thematic consistency makes for a surprisingly solid whole.

Pac's best record if you ask me. I'm not much of a fan, but this album is kind of the exception. I'm not saying I dislike 2pac, but I have a hard time getting through most of his albums. This one still gets me.

Keep talking about 90s hip hop! Do Digable Planets or something next! :)

the Makaveli album took me some years to really "get." I don't think I really appreciated it until like 2008. On the flip, I loved All Eyez On Me right away. And I'd still consider Me Against The World my favorite 2Pac album.

Digable Planets were great. I'll get there for sure.

For now, it's a pretty un-scientific method of why I'm writing about each album. Basically, whatever CD's I happen to find get added to a pile. Then I try to listen to each one and write some thoughts on it before filing it away in the collection.

So...


DOOM - Unexpected Guests
This collection of (mostly) rarities is really good, unless you're a rabid DOOM fan. If you've followed his career closely than suddenly a glaring flaw comes into light: this could have been so much better. Most of the issues come from being too unfocused a set. While the variety is nice in having collaborations, solo b-sides and tracks that DOOM has produced for others, it seems that Gold Dust tried to cram too much onto one disc which results in a lesser compilation. For instance, considering the vast amount of rarities to choose from, why waste precious minutes on album tracks? Certainly any fan of DOOM already owns Operation: Doomsday, so the inclusion of "?" is baffling. Likewise, seeing "Angels" show up here is strange as well considering it was on 2009's Born Like This, though in fairness this appears to be the earlier mix with less drums that originally surfaced several years earlier. There's also the off-putting inclusion of partial songs. Scienz Of Life's collaboration "Yikes!" doesn't even feature Scienz Of Life on this one, instead just fading in and out of DOOM's verse giving it a mixtape feel that it doesn't need. So while there's no bad songs to be found here - which makes it a successful compilation - it also could have been the first of several amazing compilations had more thought been put into it.


Jay-Z - S. Carter: The Remix
So this is a weird one - an official release that nobody seems to know about because it was bundled with sneakers rather than sold in stores. So consider it a promo for both Hov's brand of kicks and The Black Album. What's surprising is that there's at least a real effort to make this feel like a solid album rather than a throwaway mixtape. Recorded during the fad of constant Black Album remixes, this seems to be the only collection of actual Jay-Z approved ones. Just Blaze shows up a lot here, and all of his remixes are good though hardly necessary. His take on "December 4th" is a really great somber affair, but it also takes away the feeling of celebration from the original for instance. Similarly his take on "99 Problems" sounds a lot like the original but employing Rick Ruben's sampling work from three decades earlier. It's an interesting, but feels more like a demo than a reimagining. Madlib shows up to remix "Threat," with a pretty unthreatening beat that unfortunately only lasts for a verse or so being ending abruptly. There's a couple of nice collaborations included - Dead Prez for one and a remix of Talib Kweli's "Get By" with Kanye and Mos Def. While none of this is top shelf material, it certainly comes close. And part of the problem may just be the unfortunate urge to compare it to The Black Album proper. In truth this is surprisingly solid even if not amazing. And it's definitely an interesting and overlooked sidenote to compelling era of Jay's work.

Here's the best albums list.

I seriously can't believe how mundane it is. They are missing so many brilliant records. Why is To Be Kind on the list instead of The Seer, or the infinitely underrated My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky? They can't even say how TBK fares in comparison to other 2014 albums yet, but they can apparently say that it's better than The Seer, which ranked above the 2012 albums on the list by far.

Where are Fuck Buttons?
Did they happen to catch any of the truly unique underground records of the past 4 years?

Are they even trying here? Seriously, where are all those Dinosaur Jr. albums they've loved so much? Have they forgotten the Flaming Lips are a thing? Try to count all the missing mixtapes that they overlooked for Clams Casino's ok instrumental? Thee Oh-Sees? Wooden Shjips? Black Bug? Rayon Beach? Gold Panda? Botany? DJ Koze??? Plaid?

Honestly, look at this list: it's so obvious that it is completely unrewarding to know that Kanye's at #1. I'd be more excited, and surprised, if he topped his own list, for fuck's sake.

But look at this: do any of you NOT recognize any of these artists? Is anyone thinking, "who the fuck is Miguel?" or "Deerhunter? Isn't that like a movie? Or a deer hunter or something?"

???

I'll bet not. I would wager most of us know of all of these artists, and are well acquainted with well over half of the list. I thought Pitchfork was about the "real" good music... The stuff that was so good only the guy who made it in his basement even KNEW it. Wasn't that the effect they were going for?

Well, I guess they decided to say fuck it, because this might as well be a Billboard list. You don't even have to get on the internet to find these albums. They're all at freaking Fred Meyers and Walmart.

So the decline of the motherfucking pitchfork era is absolutely imminent. The average american is probably ahead of the curve they're setting here. That is hilarious, because I hate them, but sad because people are going to continue reading, and trying to build their suit of cool-mouflage out of the Drake and Beyoncé albums they see here. Ugh.

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, m.A.A.d City
Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
Frank Ocean – Channel Orange
Beach House – Teen Dream
Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City
Tame Impala – Lonerism
Kanye West – Yeezus
Sun Kil Moon – Benji
Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel…
LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
Drake – Take Care
Real Estate – Days
Beyoncé – Beyoncé
Grimes – Visions
Destroyer – Kaputt
Swans – The Seer
Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today
The War On Drugs – Lost In The Dream
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
Disclosure – Settle
Bill Callahan – Apocalypse
Deafheaven – Sunbather
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
My Bloody Valentine – m b v
Japandroids – Celebration Rock
Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Death Grips – The Money Store
DJ Rashad – Double Cup
Robyn – Body Talk
Danny Brown – XXX
EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
Beyoncé – 4
Burial – Rival Dealer EP
Drake – Nothing Was The Same
Kurt Vile – Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze
Jay Z & Kanye West – Watch The Throne
Chromatics – Kill For Love
Future – Pluto
Vampire Weekend – Contra
Waka Flocka Flame – Flockaveli
Majical Cloudz – Impersonator
Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
Sky Ferreira – Night Time, My Time
James Blake – James Blake
Beach House – Bloom
Frank Ocean – Nostalgia ULTRA.
Andy Stott – Luxury Problems
Chance The Rapper – Acid Rap
tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
The-Dream – Love King
Miguel – Kaleidoscope Dream
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
Dirty Proejctors – Swing Lo Magellan
The Knife – Shaking The Habitual
Four Tet – There Is Love In You
Haim – Days Are Gone
Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
Todd Terje – It’s Album Time
The Weeknd – House of Balloons
Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh
Blood Orange – Cupid Deluxe
Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music
Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Danny Brown – Old
Cloud Nothings – Attack On Memory
Caribou – Swim
The Caretaker – An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
Jessie Ware – Devotion
Kendrick Lamar – Section.80
Darkside – Psychic
Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty
Mac DeMarco – 2
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Mature Themes
Chief Keef – Finally Rich
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker
A$AP Rocky – LIVELOVEA$AP
Swans – To Be Kind
Real Estate – Atlas
FKA twigs – LP1
Arcade Fire – Reflektor
Emeralds – Does It Look Like I’m Here?
Waxahatchee – Cerulean Salt
Actress – Splazsh
Bat For Lashes – The Haunted Man
Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972
How To Dress Well – What Is This Heart?
Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
Young Thug – 1017 Thug
Rustie – Glass Swords
Earl Sweatshirt – Earl
Jai Paul – Jai Paul
Clams Casino – Instrumental Mixtape

I "like" yr post.

G-Unit - God's Plan: Collector's Edition - 2006 - BCD Music Group
This is actually a more overground re-release of one of the early G-Unit mixtapes that caused so much buzz for their debut. Originally released in 2002, God's Plan was a pretty good highlight of the group's chemistry with plenty of freestyles and 50 singing the hooks. There are however two things that can majorly crush a quality mixtape: too many DJ drops, and random gun sound effects. And unfortunately God's Plan has both. If you can get by that, and you happen to be a G-Unit fan, then there's certainly plenty to like here though. Highlights include Tony Yayo going hard of Dre's "Deep Cover" beat, as well as the inclusion of the "Work It" remix that 50 did with Missy Elliott as well as his cut with Biggie from the Duets album. These tracks really help give it a more album-sounding quality - again that is botched thanks to the DJ drops and gunshots, as well as a few freestyles that cut-off abruptly instead of turning into full tracks (their take on "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" for example). But I do like how lean this set is. Clocking in at a mere 15 tracks instead of meandering like many mixtapes do to try to fill up the 80 minutes that the CD medium allows.

Hey noise.

How do I attack in Eye of the Beholder?

(playing on SNES. saw on rb thread you had a similar problem at first)

if you wanna do what I did it's easy:

(I got annoyed and played something else).

lol ugh guess I'm on my own. maybe i'll find a manual

sorry brah. I was playing the DOS version also, so not sure how similar they were.

i love those albums. :o

Well, so do I. I actually love a lot of the albums in the list, but it's pretty clear to me that they've totally lost interest in promoting lesser known bands.

The fact that they're including albums that are less than a month old is pretty odd. If they're going to do recent releases, how could they not include Untold, or KidKanevil, or .. Well, the list goes on.

I totally agree with the #1 choice, and I can't disagree that most of these albums are incredible. But are they really the best of the best? Because I can think of so many albums that deserve to be on the list and aren't.

Pitchfork is good for news and interviews. their reviews are hit or miss. as far as hip-hop writers go, my favs are Tom Breihan and Andrew Noz.

that new Abhi//Dijon EP is some beautiful lo-fi bedroom R&B. get it here: http://www.abhidijon.com/

"Nas: Time Is Illmatic" trailer:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_VNFCnS9c1E

fuck it, I'm back at University in the LBC and in all irony suddenly find myself owning a car and driving again after 11 years on the Metro so I had to make a bangin 1990s LBC rap mix to bump in the parking lot and bring back that OG ghettofab to all these stuck up college kiddies who think this shit they hear on Power 106 is rap music yo ;)

On the list?

The Eastsiderz "The Dogghouse" and "LBC Thang"
Daz and Kurrupt "We Can Freak It" and "Pop Da Trunk"
Makaveli the Don "Hail Mary" and "7 Day Theory"
E-40 "Da Bumble" and "Sideways" and "Yayo College"
Bone Thugz "Mo Thug" and "7 Signs"
People been tripping out and throwing up they hands in my direction. The only thing I missed about having a car was bumping so its nice to be back on point.

^that's awesome dood. Nothing like a legit mix to make you feel like a boss while cruising.

Heard Dat!

Also, I totally forgot about this line while bumping All Eyez On Me..

"the only thing I fear about death is reincarnation.."

fucking shit Tupac is the most underrated rapper of all time. He is like Hendrix, people think they know Purple Haze and Foxy Lady but that ain't shit to delve into Message To Love or Too Bad yo...

Same with Pac, knowing "California Love" and "Hail Mary" is not the same as knowing tracks like "Fallen Soldiers" or "Military Minds"

plus even songs you know are ones that you will catch some line that you never really "got" 15 yrs ago. He was just awesome w/ that. I'm excited - I actually got a copy of Better Dayz on its way to me.

Also - one thing I always thought was weird. The song "Changes" was easily his biggest postmortem single right? And for some years they were releases 'new' Pac albums all the time. Yet the song didn't appear on any of the albums - just his Greatest Hits, and later on one of the Thug/Life Best Of comps. You'd think it would have gotten tucked onto one of the proper albums though. Or at least the Resurrection soundtrack seeing as how that song was in the film and even in the trailer if I recall.

Sorry. Rant.

Prob one of my favorite Pac tracks to surface after his death was "Thug Nature." In fairness, any track that samples "Human Nature" by MJ automatically perks up my ears. And of course, Nas had done it far earlier, and surely better. But... it's a really good interpolation, and Pac sounds amazing over that beat. It was on a late-era Death Row comp... one of the ones where a bunch of dudes are dissing Dre, Snoop, etc for leaving the label. But then it was also on the unauthorized Ready 2 Die Pac album, which I'm pretty sure Death Row or at least Suge had something to do with?

i'm so excited about Aphex Twin's comeback! tempted to pre-order the album.

louder I miss yr long rants. Get on that son.

well, you guys were talking about Pac so i'll drop my two cents.. the big hits like "Changes" and "Hit Em Up" introduced me to his world, but it was records like "Krazy", "It Ain't Eazy" and "Old School" that made me fall in love with him again.

Me Against the World has a special place in my heart. i find it more touching and intimate than his next albums. of course All Eyez on Me and The 7 Day Theory are epic, but he never really captured that feeling again.

i just watched the "Live and Die in L.A." video and it made me smile. dude had such an aura about him. the way i see it, he was never the best rapper from a technical standpoint (rappers like Nas, Biggie, Jay-Z, most of Wu-Tang, etc were clearly more skilled), but his charisma made him stand out above all. i hate how he went away so young, but at least he's achieved more in 25 years than most of us ever will.

Thank you. :)

as a side note, i hate the local "rappers" around here.. all those morons do is try and act tough, it's like they don't even know that lyrics exist, plus they don't have the will to educate themselves about the genre and its history. there's absolutely zero creativity in their music. and those fuckers actually believe their shit is ill. truly disgusts me.

i love gangsta rap but sometimes idiots like them make me wanna ditch it and just stick with conscious cats like A Tribe Called Quest and Common.

Of fucking course you're excited, you're not a dimwit shitstain!

I've determined that anyone who isn't excited is worthy of that exact title.

I think we can call pac the "best technical rapper" as well as most charismatic.. see the dudes cadence and flow was superbly musical an fit right into that more soulful westcoast sound typified by natedogg and k-cee and jojo choruses so stylistically he was one of the best. He knew the power and effect of cadence, timing, and delivrry.. also crucial for rap he had an insane vocabulary and could seemlessly blend some intellectual black panther lines and some crude street slang in the same verse. In a way he was the perfection of what NWA tried to do, be totally street and yet touch on deeply intellectual political analyses.. also like pac said, "make you sweat while witnessing breathless perfections.." truly no rapper bridged the gap better, there are the smart rappers like common or talib kweli then tthere are hood rappers like daz or b-legit then there is makaveli the don

The Underachievers' Cellar Door was sick the first few times I listened to it, ten I put it on hold until it's real release. Then I kinda felt (as NR mentioned) that it was kind of samey-sounding. I was frankly a little disappointed. But I've kept it bumping, and... fuck me, it's so solid. The production is all over the place, and that keeps it fresh. It's almost like it doesn't even qualify as an album any more than Indigoism did... Like they're still in mixtape territory.

I must have gotten my timelines mixed up, because I was sure it was going to drop on FlyLo's BRAINFEEDER imprint. But I can't find any sign that that's the case in the liner notes or packaging.

I think it will serve as a brilliant stepping stone album, assuming FlyLo signed them after they recorded it. To hear his production behind their tommy-gun flows will be a goddamn pleasure. Hopefully he'll have a positive influence on them, musically speaking.

i can't wait to hear more rappers over Flying Lotus' production. the Captain Murphy album was OK, but he really needs to give his beats to Earl, Kendrick and The Underachievers.

But seriously, Cellar Door is the best hip hop album of the year. I'm certain Kanye and FlyLo himself will top it, but they're not disappointing me one bit. And they're even having commercial success, cracking the indie charts.

Meanwhile, my pockets are emptying as I binge on music.

I bought this killer compilation of late 70s-early 80s Connecticut Hip Hop and some of the 2014 Beatles US remasters, plus new releases by FKA Twigs, Ty Segall, Apache Dropout & Diamond Version's CI (effectively their first full length), and I've neglected other expenses.

Worth it.

where is local for you?

I'm not excited. Yet.

I've always been a fan. Heck, I actually loved Drukqs. But for some reason I'm not pumped yet. I'm sure I will be when it actually drops. Maybe it doesn't even seem real to me yet, it's been so long. It's like if Dre said "Detox is coming out next month" I might be like... "hmm. Really?"

I think he should be one of Yeezy's choice co-producers for the new album. I get Q-tip and everything, but there are some artists who are making hip-hop the most exciting and adventurous genre in the world, and q-tip hasn't been among them in a while.

I think returning to anything even resembling a traditional approach to production will ultimately be a hindrance to Kanye's momentum. So I say make it spacey, make it snarly, make it weird and make it hurt. Otherwise, the world may just get sucked up into Drake's asshole, where Drake currently resides, and all hope will be lost.

Pac was really into poetry. As such, he does a lot of cool stuff w/ Onomatopoeia, slant rhymes, enjambment... it's just a lot of it is lost on most people because they're paying more attention to the lyrics.

"Picture perfect, I paint a perfect picture" <--- he loved cramming in a bunch of the same consonant in a single line like that. Y'know?

or what about

"Don't trust my lady, cause she's a product of this poison
I'm hearin noises, think she fuckin all my boys, can't take no more
I'm fallin to the floor; beggin for the Lord to let me in
to Heaven's door -- shed so many tears"

^all in rapid delivery.

But the albums already streaming. I won't listen though.

Aphex Twin, like Sonic Youth, Unwound, Kanye, the Lips, and the rest of my musical pantheon, is untouchable. I'm going to avoid all attempts to pirate or sneak-peak the album, because this sh*t is a big fucking deal.