classic Wu-Tang solo run poll

I like Liquid Swords and Return to the 36 Chambers about equally, for entirely different reasons.

Liquid Swords is lean and ruthless; Return is a sprawling mess that is alternately horrifying and the most fun thing possible.

this is liquid swords

Choose the sword, and you will join me. Choose the ball, and you join your mother... in death. You don't understand my words, but you must choose...

GZA>Raekwon>Ghost>ODB>Meth

ODB album has the weakest beats and I just don't care for ODB's schtick

GZA > Rae > ODB > Ghost > Meth

liquid swords has some corny-ass proto-grocery bag similes

"lyrics is weak ... CLOCK RADIO SPEAKERS"

rae & ghost were totally w/in character the whole time, way more visceral record, and tical never has meth saying "scriptures hit the body like sawed of shottys / like my hair knotty and my nosepiece snotty"

"lyrics is weak ... CLOCK RADIO SPEAKERS"

he says "like" in between there, come on son

pretty sure it says lyrics are weak LIKE clock radio speakers lol xpost

agreed that rae and ghost def have the best rapping, but meth and odb got the better beats imo

yeah obv -- thats why i said 'proto-'
its a simile that doesnt really add anything to the street vibe hes trying to convey

i dont think theres a better beat on any record than 'incarcertaed scarfaces' or that one that samples black ivory

tical the one i jam the most now. kinda feel like liquid swords has aged the worst outta these

is cuban linx the boring pick? that's what i'm voting for anyway

pretty sure liquid swords is the boring pick

not that i don't still like it, but the more i get into rap the worse it sounds in comparison to everything else

i dont think theres a better beat on any record than 'incarcertaed scarfaces' or that one that samples black ivory

on these records alone, i would posit "Bring The Pain," "Daytona 500," "Brooklyn Zoo," "Liquid Swords," "Duel Of The Iron Mic"...

i guess sub-question would be what;s yr fave song on any of these records...

Mine would be like a five-way tie between "Bring The Pain," "Daytona 500," "Liquid Swords," "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" and the one where ODB fucks the teacher of his oral sex class

yeah obv -- thats why i said 'proto-'
its a simile that doesnt really add anything to the street vibe hes trying to convey

Since when was Liquid Swords about "the street vibe"? "Liquid Swords" (the song) especially is all about imaginative metaphors and similies, and IMO "lyrics is weak like clock radio speakers" is a fine example of that.

i think deej's point is that it's more awkward than imaginative, but i always liked GZA's outre lyrical curveballs--"feminine like sandals," etc

I don't see how it's awkward... Instead of using some stereotypical example of weakness he comes up with a totally unexpected yet instantly understandable simile. To me that's pretty imaginative.

i get where deej is coming from... just like grocery bag stuff, it doesnt really add anything. it's just a random example of 'weak'

Aren't all similes random, when you think about it? And why should they "add" something? What is it that they're supposed to add?

Meth's album is weakest to me. The beats don't cut it.

i think GZA is really saying rapping is where he's a viking

Raekwon > GZA > ODB > Ghostface Killah > Meth

Aren't all similes random, when you think about it? And why should they "add" something? What is it that they're supposed to add?

― Tuomas, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 8:01 AM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

rappers are inhabiting a persona, and while GZA is one second rapping about "life of a drug dealer!!" apparently hes a drug dealer who spent his crack rock cash on a shitty clock radio.

i mean, i still like the album. like whiney said a lot of that stuff, esp 'feminine like sandals!!!' is still charming in its way. but yeah GZA's style is super dated sounding relative to the rest (which makes sense, hes the oldest dude in the clan right?)

slow down there, souljah boy

no h in soulja boy fyi

Aren't all similes random, when you think about it?

No; when you think about similes, you come to the inescapable conclusion that a well-formed simile is not random.

lol

Tical > Return > Liquid > Linx > Ironman

Linx is overlong and has the second least imaginative production.

also I agree w/deej that "lyrics is weak like clock radio speakers" is a lame simile but from a sonics-only reading -- poetry being 1/2 meaning and 1/2 sound & GZA being a guy who is pretty into the sounds of words -- "lyrics is weak like clock radio speakers" is pretty gorgeous

yeah that's one of the best-sounding verses on the album imo despite all goofy similes

love when a3r0smith deconstructs lyrics, he is always otm

last twothree posts otm. can't believe the depths this thread has sunk to in its 8 hours of life -- criticizing GZA's flow on Liquid Swords is like criticizing icing on cake.

nice simile!

co-sign w/whiney, nice work bernard!

funnily enough I almost went with "frosting" but decided I liked the way the long string of i's looked on the page

saying any of these five records are less then classic is just fighting words to me

yeah but that's no fun, so instead we gotta nitpick about shit like "damn those diva vocals on Cuban Linx can be annoying when I have a headache" or "what the hell is GZA talking about, it would be AWESOME to have a zodiac sign on my sweatshirt!"

rappers are inhabiting a persona, and while GZA is one second rapping about "life of a drug dealer!!" apparently hes a drug dealer who spent his crack rock cash on a shitty clock radio.

Nowhere on "Liquid Swords" (the song) does GZA claim to be a drug dealer. Can't rappers inhabit different personas on different songs? This particular tune is full of pretty wild metaphors and similies, so I don't see how "clock radio speakers" doesn't fit there. And what does the simile have to what the character in the song owns?

No; when you think about similes, you come to the inescapable conclusion that a well-formed simile is not random.

What I meant by random is that, in a simile that starts "weak like...", you can pretty much pick anything you think is weak. Of course, in order for a simile to be good the thing you choose has to be:

1) recognizable as weak (so you can't, for example, say "weak like cayenne pepper", because that makes no sense), and

2) imaginative (you can say "weak as a 90 pound weakling", but you aren't gonna impress anyone with your lyrical skills if you do that).

At least to me, "weak like clock radio speakers" fits both of these criteria.

can i just say ... UNOFFICIAL WET TISSUE

let's just be positive. where one finds linx overlong i find it epic -- especially when you get to 'heaven and hell' at the end. and on what aesthetic grounds can the production be classified as unimaginative? it's broken, fucked up, lurching and banging at the same time. the criminology>incarcerated>rainy dayz run shows off three different, equally awesome styles. on the first one alone you go from the rush of the horns to that creepy jangling sound, which is a really powerful sonic transition to these ears. and the record is filled with those moments! scarfaces has one of the all time great open hihat sounds. etc etc etc

I've always kind of underappreciated Linx but lately I've warmed up to it in a major way and I don't know what changed. just gotta stop resisting and ride the gonzo cinematic crime-opera wave, I guess.

i'm with tuomas. i like that line. and it doesn't come out of nowhere, he is talking about LYRICS which are part of MUSIC which comes out of SPEAKERS. i mean, it's hardly totally random.

yeah and it's an evocative choice of words because EVERYBODY has had a clock radio with shitty little speakers, does anyone seriously go "that really took me out of the song, because I didn't imagine GZA as the kind of guy who's had a clock radio!"

he is talking about LYRICS which are part of MUSIC which comes out of SPEAKERS. i mean, it's hardly totally random.

I could reach into my hip hop collection at random and stand a good chance of picking out an album with at least one simile much worse than this. Such a weird line to have issues with. GZA is a terrific lyricist.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090721151701AAFpzde

THEN I DRINK FORTIES TO THEY MEMORIES

this thread is kinda the best thing that could have happened to my week I gotta say

had the beat to '4th chamber' stuck in my head on my way home from work cuz of this thread. also, was reminded of when someone compared the 'labels' beat to sounding like a sock full of doorknobs to the head. i always liked that

SONS ARE BORN AND GUNS ARE DRAWN
CLIPS ARE FULLY LOADED, AND THEN BLOOD FLOODS THE LAWN

a construction worker, who was caught for his bomber
no time to swing the hammer that was hangin' from his farmers

(perennially stuck in my head)

man Liquid Swords is totally backloaded, all the best songs are in the second half

this thread will be glad to know that I FINALLY bought Return to the 36 Chambers today thanks to all of you (they didn't have Liquid Swords or Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...)

holy shit I'd forgotten that this is fucking amazing

the holy ghost got you scared to death kid boo

that album is deep, if it weren't for my corny love for liquid swords I totally would've voted for it

the bonus tracks are so good it's hard to imagine the album without them

yell at 4:50 is incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlsE2Pz-AoE

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/12/06/101206crat_atlarge_sanneh?currentPage=4

Another great American lyricist has just published a book of his own: “Finishing the Hat” (Knopf; $39.95), by Stephen Sondheim, is curiously similar in form to “Decoded.” Sondheim is just as appealing a narrator as Jay-Z, although he’s much less polite. (While Jay-Z has almost nothing bad to say about his fellow-rappers, Sondheim is quick to disparage his rivals, subject to a “cowardly but simple” precept: “criticize only the dead.”) But where Jay-Z wants to help readers see the poetry in hip-hop, Sondheim thinks poeticism can be a problem: in his discussion of “Tonight,” from “West Side Story,” he half apologizes for the song’s “lapses into ‘poetry.’ ” And where Bradley and DuBois are quick to praise rappers for using trick rhymes and big words, Sondheim is ever on guard against “overrhyming” and other instances of unwarranted cleverness. “In theatrical fact,” he writes, “it is usually the plainer and flatter lyric that soars poetically when infused with music.” Most rappers are no less pragmatic: they use the language that works, which is sometimes ornate, but more often plainspoken, even homely. (One thinks of Webbie, the pride of Baton Rouge, deftly rhyming “drunk as a fuckin’ rhino” with “my people gon’ get they shine on.”) Maybe future anthologies will help show why the most complicated hip-hop lyrics aren’t always the most successful.

am considering undertaking something of an academic exploration into ALL of the Wu solo albums (jesus there are a lot) and seeing what few undiscovered/underrated gems there are

U-God albums, how bad are they

i would read that tumblr

well first up: Cappadonna's the Pillage. This is 1/3rd of a decent record, the majority of it is pointless and at least one track (Young Heart) is outright terrible. The dude just doesn't have enough personality and wit to make a decent solo record. He has no ear for lyrical hooks, his flow is monotonous and kinda clumsy... half the time it sounds like he's just stringing random catchphrases together. Unsurprisingly, the handful of gems on here are the cuts with other Wu members, and the single (Milk the Cow) was the only one where Cappa came up with a decent hook for the chorus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cqwIfllkDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g53nActB9c0
Ghost kills this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T23A61CBivo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAGKH0JFBzw
one of the better beats, and probably the only song on the album that Cappa really carries all by himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32n_21HSp3c
Meth puts Cappa to shame on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhbYpZepYSQ
and the album closer, which sounds like it could've been a great song if RZA and Ghost had made the effort to actually finish it instead of just letting it run on and on for 2 extra minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88jCMNxr6Ac

huh this GZA/Muggs record is way better than I would have expected

That got pretty good reviews at the time iirc although i've never heard it

I haven't heard anything Muggs has done since like '99 or something so I dunno if he's just aping RZA on it or if this is what he sounds like now (or did in 2005 anyway). but yeah it's solid. I'll post about it more tomorrow

the nfl track is CHEEZY

but the rest of it is good

i actually bought Pillage when I went through my "buy every Wu-Tang affiliated release I don't currently own, no matter how minute or pointless" phase last year. Never even got through one listen. ZzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I like the first Inspectah Deck solo album tho

first u-god album is underrated imo

I even bought that GZA "Pro Tools" one ....kinda meh, tho mostly due to the production.

"I like the first Inspectah Deck solo album tho"

Yeah, thats a cool lp. Inspectah is great throughout. Always loved the horribly schmoopy hook on the title track, good memories trying to sing like that fool. I sing that hook to my kid on occasion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee2NrhXEGWs

R.E.C. Room is a classic Wu banger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzDxg5psp9o

Muggs Gza album was kinda cool at the time but doesnt have any staying power. Pro Tools is boring. I bought Pillage back when, like 25% good iirc.

this is classic solo deck from 95

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs60xcgJZzo

quite aggy, this one

bob digi album is best post classic era solo lp in my humble opinion. fuck what you think, daily routine, mantis holocaust terrorist domestic violence all sick

That one had the odd good track a cool cover, but I don't think RZA's rapping can carry a whole album.

there are some decent tracks on the first u god album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmek6pR7jO4

This is great (but it's on one of the Chronicles too):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31naoRYXHK4

the nfl track is CHEEZY

yeah was gonna come here to say that there are def some low points, the labored sex-as-football rhymes being the worst. in general it's pretty consistent. his rhyme style is so clinical and dry it can get kinda boring, his tunes really live or die on the strength of the storytelling imho. these are the ones I thought were standouts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQPJUV3n6Ss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk4RTJzmlgo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-7g03iM3tU&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudaSqOZpkE&feature=related

y'know, Immobilarity is really not that bad

this thread has some amazing posts