Bearigator @ Bearigator @ttrpg.network

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134

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Joined

2 yr. ago

It was Epic exclusive on PC I believe

Visiting from !hiphopheads@sopuli.xyz !

I'm not a huge Alt/Indie music listener, but I do like folk music so when I saw her with Folk Rock as one of her labels on Wikipedia I was excited to check this out. I also really liked the track she co-wrote for Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.

This whole album is so sad for me. I love music that makes me really feel something, but it is rare that the emotion I get out of my music is a deep and genuine sadness. I won't pretend I'm not a pretty emotional guy, but I was surprised when started to tear up during Heaven. I'm a happily married man and the combination of

as I sip on the rest of the coffee you left
\ a kiss left of you

and

and the dark awaits us all around the corner
\ but here, in our place we have for the day
\ can we stay a while and listen for heaven

made me NEED to walk over and hug my wife. Her ex-husband passed away a couple years ago and watching my step-kids deal with that grief made me very aware that seemingly healthy people our age can vanish suddenly.

I also want to mention Star. As far as I can tell it was released as a single the same time as Heaven, so maybe it is appropriate that it is my second favorite song on the album. When it starts to build at ~1:45 and then peaks at ~2:35, I got goosebumps.

I also really liked the hard piano on "When Memories Snow", leading in to the orchestral build. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good build.

The only take I wasn't super feeling is I Don't Like My Mind, but I think that is just because it is following Heaven which hit me so hard. I was emotionally recovering or something, idk. I will be giving this album another listen in the near future and my opinion may change once I'm no longer gut punched by Heaven.

Last thing to mention is that the dog barking sounds on the back part of I'm Your Man made me genuinely uncomfortable. I don't know why exactly but I disliked it on a very guttural level.

Overall I really liked this album. Not as folky as I had hoped when I Wikipedia's her, but I think that was me setting false expectations for myself. Their was a bit of country going on though which is folk adjacent! Overall the the choral and orchestral pieces on several of the tracks sounded amazing and her lyrics combined with the general vibe of many of the songs had me all in my feelings. I'll have to check out some of her older albums after this if they are anything like this. I need to give it a few days though probably. Partly so I can re-listen to this, but also because I think I can only handle so much sad music in a short period of time.

I'm personally kind of torn on this. I haven't listened to a Kanye album since he started talking about liking Nazi's last year. On the other hand, this is a leak and doesn't directly benefit him in any way if I listen to it. Not sure if I'm going to check it out personally but I wanted to let anybody interested know it is out there.

Technically a mixtape I believe and released for free in 2011, this is the only album of the initial first 4 weeks I planned that I had never listened to prior to selecting it. I knew this was what blew up Rocky, and really the whole A$AP Mob but my first Rocky album wasn't until 2013 with LONG.LIVE.A$AP.

Overall

I was not disappointed, this very much feels like a prototype of LONG.LIVE.A$AP. Rocky is the only rapper besides Snoop Dogg that just oozes cool to me and it is all over this album. Thinking back to 2011, I can't imagine any other rapper of the time calling himself a "pretty motherfucker" and somehow coming out the other side with everybody agreeing. This was before Young Thug and before Lil Uzi Vert, at the time Hip Hop was just dropping of the hyper masculine facade and Rocky went a step ahead of other innovators by not just wearing what he wanted and looking how he wanted, but by being undeniably cool as fuck while doing it. Kanye had did it before but Kanye has never been what I'd define as "cool" and tight pants had started to make an appearance in raper wardrobes, but nobody was doing it like Rocky.

On to the album, shit is an experience before anything else. I love the production, with the generally slow beats and the grimy sounding vocal effects used where a lot of rappers would use a more traditional ad-lib. While rocky is rapping about drugs and getting high on Purple Swag, I can feel the calmness and relaxed vibe I get when I get the right type of high. This album isn't about the word play or the punchlines, it is about the vibe.

Best Tracks No particular order

Trilla hits different from the rest of the album for me. Maybe it is just the energy of having Nast and Twelvyy on the track but this is the best straight up rapping Rocky does on this album imo. Twelvvy's verse is the standout to me, with his voice and flow being perfect on this track.

Purple Swag makes me think back to my younger days. I'm older with 3 kids and I get high maybe twice a year when the kids are at their grandmother's house. That said, the vibes on this song reminds me of my early 20's going out, having some drinks, eating an edible and just vibing with friends.

Houston Old Head is all about the hook for me. The whole song is good but I can't NOT song along to this hook. Almost a shame because I don't like when my kids use language talking about hoes and I try to set a good example, but here we are. I blame DJ Burn One and Rocky.

Also good but I have less to say is Roll One Up and Bass

Worst Track There is just one

Leaf just doesn''t work for me. It is basically all down to Main Attrakionz. Their name is dumb and while they rap like Rocky, they don't have any of the swagger that makes it work. Also, "it feels good waking up to money in the bank" is a lame ass lyric. I know Rocky uses that exact lyric on Goldie and maybe elsewhere, but he sounds cool enough to get away with it. On a semi related note, I actually checked the next album they put out after this song dropped, Bossalinis & Fooliyones and it wasn't very good. It was fine. It also came out in October, the year following this song dropping. They did have some mixtapes come out in 2011 and maybe one of them was November, but they said album.

I've mentioned before here that I really like Macklemore and his love of all things Hip Hop is evident if you listen to his non-radio songs. This track is from his solo album, The Language of My World, from 2005. I won't say it is an amazing album but I really recommend it anyways, even if he can be a bit of a cornball. The guy's love of the game is undeniable.

I have family in West Virginia, more or less right across the river from Crown City, Ohio. I thought it was crazy that this was a group repping some podunk little no stoplight town. Then I googled and saw they were from Oakland. That was a really confusing 30 seconds.

Song was dope though, love when rappers shout out other parts of what make up Hip Hop. Pretty much as long as I've been following Hip Hop (~2006), rap has been the part of it that everybody knows but there is so much more and I love it.

Shout out !hip_hop_is_more_than_rap@lemmy.world

LordGloom already posted an individual song of their's, but this was a good Tiny Desk and I think this community would like it.

The video transitions to the interview at 26:47 and only lasts ~22 minutes. I'll admit I skipped everything before/after that, I'll have to go back and listen to the rest of it later because I'm curious how they found this after all this time. Lots of background noise but the conversation is plenty understandable. I'm a huge Slick Rick fan so this is super cool to see. The interview itself isn't amazing besides being amazing to have Slick Rick and you can tell that Brother Ali doesn't have a lot of experience doing this sort of thing yet. Having heard a couple more recent episodes from this podcast, Brother Ali has come a long way as an interviewer/podcaster from this. This was his first interview for this podcast though, obviously he has had time to grow and it is amazing this was found. It is also clear from the start that Brother Ali loves Slick Rick too.

Rick talking about how Kanye can't go above a certain level due to being a conscious rapper (in 2005, so around the time of Late Registration) is kind of crazy to hear now considering how huge Kanye became and the direction he took his music. I appreciate how open he seems to be about young rappers in general too, even if it isn't the sort of thing that he does. He seems so positive about the future of Hip Hop as a whole and it is cool, when you see so many old rappers get bitter.

Die Today has been on heavy rotation for me since somebody posted it here at the end of August. Wish this EP has the extended version.

I really liked all 5 songs, Bobby Boucher is probably my favorite overall. Johnny Venus' verse made that song for me.

I posted this sentiment elsewhere but I wanted to mention it again here.

TEC was way better than I expected, as somebody who doesn't usually like that kind of rap. None of the songs were amazing to me, with the best being Dead Or Alive imo. That said, as an entire album it really works. Even if Lil Tecca isn't your normal cup of tea I really recommend checking it out.

@LordGloom@lemmy.world made me think about this album again with his Outsidaz post

Glizzy is a terrible rap name, but I really enjoyed Hell's Kitchen.

This was new for me, which is neat cause they have 7 albums on Spotify. Hope it is all as good as this track

Pacewon's voice is always so cool. I think I enjoyed him more outside of The Outsidaz, but this track is still dope.

That is sick! I'll have to check out y'alls album for this week, I love to check out different sorts of music. If we can find an album that fits both of our communities we should try a crossover post one week haha

The aesthetic they seem to like to go with isn't exactly my cup of team, but I really enjoyed this song. Checked out their Tiny Desk (Home) Concert after and that was sick too. I really like some of this modern rock/rap hybrid stuff, much better than the first time it happened when Limp Bizkit was popular. Always a fan of rap over real drum/guitar too, normally I have to go to The Roots for that.

Cool to see what Pharoahe Monch is up to too. I didn't know he had anything out since his last album back in 2014. Didn't recognize his voice at first then saw him on the Tiny Desk and went "oh shit".

Joey Bada$$ is so good. For me, idk if he can ever top 1999, but I love all of his albums and mixtapes.

I have listened to this album every day since you posted it (so 3 times haha) and I really don't know how I feel about it still.

On one hand, I don't think I like any of the songs individually very much. The best track I'd probably give like a 6/10 and most of them are personally like 4/10 for my taste. I don't think they are bad tracks exactly, it just isn't my style of rap and I'm rating strictly on personal enjoyment.

On the other hand, as an album, it flows very well. I absolutely love when songs in an album flow in to each other well and this album very much does that. The transition from Yves to HVN ON EARTH right at the start hooked me the first time I listened to it. Then it happened again going in to the 3rd track, then the 4th. It isn't as seamless after that but every track still WORKS going in to the next one, even if it isn't as perfect as those first 4 and frequently there are sections where it does go back to those perfect transitions.

Dead Or Alive was the standout track to me, with Need Me being my second favorite but mostly because of the sample from "This Boy Is Mine" at the start.

Thanks for sharing. This isn't something I'd have given a chance if somebody hadn't posted it here but I ended up enjoying it way more than I expected.

That is because one party at least tries to be ethical most of the time and the other doesn't even have the courtesy to pretend. Ethics shouldn't be a party issue but here we are.

I actually had a similar experience with this album. I first heard some of the tracks back in like...2010ish? Then finally listened to it all the way through in 2020 during COVID. I thought it was crazy how it managed to take tracks I like and, in the context of the whole album, make them even better.