#I'm gonna go listen to Illmatic

[bigbadbearthoughts]

Hey other white people

If you're throwing horns to some of the shit I've heard on the extreme metal community playslists that *I myself love very much* but balking at fucking Chamillionaire's "Ridin' " in 2024.

If you can listen to Cannibal Corpse but you think rapping about drugs and gun violence is too much IF YOU'RE CRANKING UP FUCKING ARCHGOAT BUT AFRAID TO BUMP KENDRICK FUCKING LAMAR Not only are you weak, and your bloodline will not survive the winter, you're the biggest hypocrites on the face of the planet. Why yes, my playlist went from Archgoat's Grand Luciferian Theophany to Mos Def's Mathematics on the same playlist because I guess I have more musical literacy than some of the other metalheads I know.

[oldhabitsdiescrming]

prefacing this with saying i haven't listened to the leaks. let's go.

every single time taylor releases an album, people who love critiquing leaks say it's the worst one yet.

this isn't new. i call it the eminem complex - every time a new album drops, everyone is all over it because they need it to be the worst thing in the world. they need it to be awful. they need it to be trash. they need it to be whatever they're saying it is because they cannot STAND certain people staying on top. a woman, a poc, an lgbtq+ artist, that doesn't matter. it happened to beyonce. it happened to eminem ("every CD, critics give it a three/then three years later go back and re-rate it.", "i guess enough time just ain't passed yet/a couple more years, that shit'll be illmatic."). pretty sure it happened to lil nas x. doja. megan thee stallion. i could go on, but you get the point. this has been a thing forever, but i'm focusing on strictly recent examples.

if you're on top, some fans/critics are gonna hate it. they want their indie artist. they want their underground. they wanna go against the mainstream and be seen as someone cutting corners with this critique of this high-end artist, and in taylor's case, they're gonna cling to when she hit a new peak: quarantine.

they want another folkmore situation so bad that it's almost tragic, but at the same time, how dare her albums sound similar? they want their sad indie girl who sings about heartbreak while staring out her window, donning her cardigan and sipping on white wine. they want their girl who felt like she was gonna fade from relevancy until she didn't.

because we all noticed that, didn't we? people want the pheonix after it burns itself down. who wants what it becomes when the ash rebuilds? we want tragedy because tragedy is relatability. we crave heartbreak from a woman fading out of mind because we feel like we're in on something the rest of the world isn't. we suffered with her back then. when midnights came out, hundreds of new fans claimed it to be her worst work yet without understanding that taylor swift isn't a one trick pony. notice how it's grown on seemingly everyone since the announcement of ttpd? notice how critics are going back and re-rating, re-evaluating because now it's old news. now it's not got everyone's eyes on it. now there's this new shiny toy to chip away at until the next one is announced.

because if it sounds similar to midnights, it's a copycat. if it's entirely different then it's a joke. if it's too cunty then it's her being a bad person, if it's too sad then she's a whiny bitch once again. because being on top means one thing: people want to bring you down.

veteran swifties are used to this. i've loved her since the original fearless era, i've seen this film before (sorry). we've all been here, done that, but i've only been on tumblr since late november/maybe early december, and the amount of people i'm seeing who are fans until they're not?

give it two years, they'll be calling this underappreciated and misunderstood while the cycle repeats itself.

happy ttpd release day 🖋️

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Lil Wayne - Tha Carter II

I slept on Wayne for too long. I suppose he was hitting his stride when I was barely a high schooler, but I have no excuse for not checking out his backlog sooner. Tha Carter II is a solid contender for his best work and represents a huge jump in quality from his previous work. That's not to say Tha Carter I is bad, far from it, but Weezy completely and utterly destroys the competition on this one. Behind the laid back lazy vibes there's a lot of highly technical shit happening in the verses here. Weezy can maintain a rhyme scheme well past when a normal person would have run dry and the multisyllabic patter is layered into the rhymes until he's practically juggling rhyme and rhythmic ideas. The ability to glide from laid back to intense staccato flow and from lazy to frenetic pace is an amazing achievement. When Lil Wayne declared himself the best rapper alive he was not kidding. He sincerely was one of the best rappers alive.

Mobb Deep - The Infamous

For people that are not already big hip hop heads this album is a bit of a hidden gem. It came out among a scene that was reinventing hardcore hip hop on the east coast, but didn't quite achieve the long term success of Enter the Wu Tang or Illmatic. Possibly the starkness is slightly to blame. There is no time for goofy skits and even the bravado isn't in the name of fun, this shit is serious. There's less individualist bravado here and more 'none of are gonna make it unless we all work together' vibes. East coast hip hop has a few notable hallmarks and my favorite is the oh so predictable inclusion of what I like to call "haunted piano". This tends to lend a more serious, stark sound to east coast hip hop as opposed to the funkier west coast. In the case of The Infamous these stark beats and dead serious subject matter make for an intense experience. Plus the features by Nas, Q-Tip (who also produces), and half the Wu-Tang crew make this album a who's who of east coast rappers.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

When the Beatles broke up John and Paul started their solo careers and Ringo went back into the Ringo box or whatever. George Harrison however had an ace up his sleeve. While John and Paul had been stealing the limelight he had just been writing a billion fucking songs and so his solo debut is a triple album. Surprisingly there is very little of the psychedelic raga influenced ramblings that you'd expect, instead Harrison seems to have gotten interested in country and blues. And it really works! There is of course a fair bit of psychedelia, My Sweet Lord was the big hit after all and the title track is pretty psych too. But imo the album's strongest moments are after a reprise of Isn't It A Pity where he just spends the rest of the album doing extended bluesy hard rock guitar jams.

Drake - If You're Reading This It's Too Late

Listen I'm such a fucking hater for Drake. So it pains me to say that this album isn't a complete dumpster fire. It is still impossible for me to take Drake seriously as a rapper but hey at least he's trying to actually rap right? I think this might actually be enjoyable if it was pared down a bit and if the beats were punched up a bit and if someone other than Drake rapped over them.

Aerosmith - Rocks

I'm gonna start being known as that girl who will go to bat for mediocre dad rock bands aren't I? I like Aerosmith, they genuinely nail the stupid guitar god machismo of the 70s. The guitars can scream, the drums go wild, and Steven Tyler's camp ass voice feels completely unrestrained. All they have to do is keep up that energy and they do. When Last Child started playing I legitimately air guitared to that sick ass riff.

Madvillain - Madvillainy

MF Doom and Madlib were a match made in hip hop heaven. Madlib could flip a sample better than anyone in the industry at the time and the esoteric nostalgic beats were the perfect accompaniment for Doom's supervillain persona. Doom's rapping is at its peak here, pretty much take every good thing I said about Wayne's technique and turn it up to eleven. Faster, effortless, deliberately sloppy, mumbly yet perfectly enunciated. Rhymes in rhymes in rhymes are stuffed rapid fire in a minute and a half what would take other rappers four. Doom's GOAT status is unassailable. The thing is that Madlibs beats are so incredible that if you just removed Doom from this record it would still be an amazing listen. These two are just so incredibly individually talented musicians that also happen to be the perfect fit for each other.

[francisp0rter]

BLINDSPOT/ROCKIFICATION

Why does this dude have such a massive blindspot when it comes to trap and street rap?

Just take a look at his new top 50 albums list. Not one trap or drill album. Not a single one. Are you fucked in the head? How are you gonna call yourself "the internet's busiest music nerd" when you don't even acknowledge the existence of the biggest rap subgenre in the world currently.

Imagine leaving Babyface Ray, Icewear Vezzo, BabyTron, Quavo & Takeoff, Duvy, Lucki, iayze etc. off of your end of the year list in favour of some generic, derivative garbage like The Forever Story. Just try and imagine that. Try and imagine having that bad of taste while also calling yourself "the internet's busiest music nerd."

The bald man seems like a nice guy but he needs to learn to listen to music properly. You're supposed to be this bigtime music critic right? So why you still listen to music like a fan then?

The thing that drives me nuts about Fantano is the simple fact that he tries to cover pretty much all music in the popular and indie spheres. There's a reason that reporters and critics have "beats" or specific areas of expertise that they cover. Pitchfork wouldn't send Al Pierre to review a Carly Rae Jepsen record. They know that's not his wheelhouse. They'll get Dylan Green or some other poptimist sycophant to do that kind of bidding. So why is Fantano reviewing shit that he doesn't like, is never going to like, and doesn't understand? That's not to say critics shouldn't give negative reviews. That would be ridiculous. I'm saying that a critic should not speak on music that they don't understand, and based on Fantano referring to Chief Keef's "Finally Rich" as "ridiculous novelty" (as well as his general ignorance on street rap), I think it's fair to say that he has no understanding of it. A 16 year old kid recounting all the murder, addiction, and destruction he's seen in his life is "ridiculous novelty" to you? Come the fuck on, bald man.

Remember when this dude was sucking off Brockhampton being all buddy buddy with them? That shit was unbelievable. What kind of self respecting music critic would ever make friends with an artist? There is a very necessary division between critic and artist and you can't just go around playing jump rope with it. Lester Bangs didn't start kissing up to Lou Reed when he interviewed him, despite Reed being Bangs' idol. No. He did the exact opposite. He called Lou Reed a bitch to his face and said his music sucks now and he should give it up. That's a real critic.

This guy needs to realize that traditional albums have never been a good way to consume rap music. Sure, you get an Illmatic or a Butterfly every now and then, but for the most part rap is a singles genre, and rappers' attempts to create albums in the rock & roll tradition (ten to fifteen songs, cohesive, with a curated tracklist and reflective cover art) is always annoying. It rarely ever works out. That's why J. Cole sucks so bad on albums but on features he's pretty good. Because when he's on a feature or a single he's just rapping. He's not concerned with making some great cohesive rap album, he's just spitting bars.

Idk. I love albums. I hate them in the context of rap sometimes. I "hate" them for the same reason that I hate when rappers perform with a live band. This is Hip Hop. It's not rock music. We don't need to conform the genre to the popular standards of music, because none of this was ever about that. The whole thing I fell in love with about rap, besides the music itself, is that it existed in stark contrast to and firm defiance of established musical norms. Rappers didn't try and be popstars. If one became a popstar, like Em or Wayne or Hov, it was almost always in spite of them being a rapper, not because of it. And I loved that. I mean, it's great that rap is popular now, but also it's terrible at the same time. I'm glad more people are being exposed to it, but also I wish that they would please just leave us alone and stop trying to make this genre into something it's not.

I'm aware that I'm not making the clearest point here, so let me say this: Trap and drill music are the new blues. It is a hyper-violent blues, but it is blues nonetheless in that it is poetics and rhythms that speak on a working class Black American experience. And it is being received with the same ignorance and narcissism that blues was received with.

[sothischickshe]

80s era hip hop or 90s era hip hop

Aaaahhhh! It's gotta be 90s for me man. I mean I guess you gravitate to your own era, what was formative, but there's just so many amazing classic 90s albums. I was gonna start listing but that would go on forever!

But just particularly think like outkast... Not just for being outkast but also there being a massive and amazing group (well duo) who weren't east coast or west coast??? That's like gamechanging!

And I think the UK scene was really getting going, I think roots manuva's first album is 90s???

Also I said I wasn't going to keep listing stuff and I'm not but the score is 90s??? That's gotta be one of the most popular albums of all time... Hip hop was so fucking Big but I don't think corporate control of it had realllllly set in yet (golden era tbh!) and I think it just had more popularity and punch than in the 80s???

Krs one said something like if you wanna understand hip hop, what you should do is listen to illmatic and then go back from there. And I think he might be right tbh.