i should take the time to point out that the "best album besides" conceit in no way presumes that the excluded album is everyone's favorite, it's just to encourage more interesting results and discussion
― Victory Goon (some dude), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 12:24 (eleven years ago) link
Xodus for me, I will probably be the only vote there but I loved that stuff
― Inconceivable (to the entire world) (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:02 (eleven years ago) link
It's crazy how old most of these albums sound now. The Chronic is the only album that could work as some sort of blueprint still. Unless, of course, Romney wins the election and there's a manichaean funk revival.
― O-Jah Da Lionmane (longneck), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:09 (eleven years ago) link
well this is the end of the era right - '92 is the year of the Gilbert O'Sullivan lawsuit, and production styles shift over to a less sample-based aesthetic - which Dre was out ahead of, right? or not? heads can correct me but that's my understanding, there's a big shift underway in '92 toward basically making the stuff from scratch instead of building from parts
― Inconceivable (to the entire world) (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:13 (eleven years ago) link
the law was definitely impacting the music at that point but a pretty huge amount of popular rap was sample-driven up until maybe 1998
― Victory Goon (some dude), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:25 (eleven years ago) link
like practically all the big producers/production styles drew heavily on samples up until the swizz/timbo/neptunes/mannie fresh era
― Victory Goon (some dude), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:26 (eleven years ago) link
Pete Rock & Cl Smooth - Mecca and the Soul Brother no contest
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:33 (eleven years ago) link
btw granmal butthurt, i LOVE the pharcyde, but that doesn't mean some dude wasn't otm
― Mr. Zone A (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:58 (eleven years ago) link
about the urkel part. that's why i love it tho
― Mr. Zone A (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:59 (eleven years ago) link
of the few i have, voting eric b & rakim over das efx
― da croupier, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 14:00 (eleven years ago) link
Predator over everything including The Chronic
― chow mein kampf (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 14:01 (eleven years ago) link
I remember always laughing at the line on Kizz My Black Azz when MC Ren uses his hardest, angriest voice to shout "I'm sick of rappers using live instruments on the stage / SAVE THAT SHIT FOR PARADES"!
― Walter Galt, Tuesday, October 30, 2012 3:53 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
mc ren otm
― een, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 14:39 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah, I think it has to be The Predator. Not that topicality is the only or best way to judge a hip hop album but it was such a rapid response to the LA riots (as was the Da Lench Mob record) that it screams 1992 to me.
― Deafening silence (DL), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 14:39 (eleven years ago) link
I got a hell of a lot of mileage out of The Goats album at the time. Not sure how well it's aged but I'm voting for that.
― millmeister, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 14:54 (eleven years ago) link
I played that a lot too but I think it has aged horribly.
― O-Jah Da Lionmane (longneck), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 14:55 (eleven years ago) link
for years i would get The Goats mixed up with Aer0smith and when i first came to ilx found it amusing that people made such a fuss about a guy from a '90s alternative hip hop group posting here
― Victory Goon (some dude), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 14:56 (eleven years ago) link
lol
― Mr. Zone A (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 15:02 (eleven years ago) link
ha haaa
― O-Jah Da Lionmane (longneck), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 15:11 (eleven years ago) link
hahahahahaha that
i didn't hear the Goats until a couple years ago, they sounded like hip-hop people who comment on AV Club articles would like...sorta dire
― don't trust the lil b in apartment 23 (fadanuf4erybody), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 15:31 (eleven years ago) link
― Inconceivable (to the entire world) (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, October 30, 2012 6:13 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Victory Goon (some dude), Tuesday, October 30, 2012 6:25 AM Bookmark Flag
Yeah, but 88-92 rap had 12 samples in a song whereas 93-98 rap had one or two and maybe a sneaky uncleared one.
― thraeds of life (The Reverend), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 19:13 (eleven years ago) link
Comedy vote for disposable heroes of hiphoprisy (which i actually owned/loved when I was 15)
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 22:48 (eleven years ago) link
rev otm - samples still there but for pomo poseurs like myself who got ALOT out of prince paul/hank shocklee sample density this era felt like a definite downturn, there's a reason ppl overreacted to dj shadow. voted pharcyde but immediately wished i'd voted predator instead, a dip from amerikkka and death certificate but that record was huge and had that weird bigger pop impact, feels like the year hip-hop finally truly broke thru completely on radio, maybe some combo of soundscan and 2L2Q flopping.
― balls, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 01:47 (eleven years ago) link
Predator juuuust ahead of Bizarre Ride, which I expect to be the final result too
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 12:57 (eleven years ago) link
true fact: Arrested Development played for free at the reopening of a pub five minutes from my house tonight
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 13:01 (eleven years ago) link
(I didn't go)
oh i seriously doubt Cube will get more votes than Pharcyde here
― push iatee (some dude), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 13:38 (eleven years ago) link
idg why ppl hate on pharcyde good group imo
― fanute da croupier (D-40), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 15:43 (eleven years ago) link
i don't think anyone said they're not good for what they are, i just like a bunch of these records more
― push iatee (some dude), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 15:59 (eleven years ago) link
I like Pharcyde better than Predator because there's way to compare it to a much better previous album. Also because it has no "Gangsta Fairytale 2" on it.
― joygoat, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 16:16 (eleven years ago) link
oh what, you've never heard Bizarre Ride I The Pharcyde?
― push iatee (some dude), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 16:18 (eleven years ago) link
I used to have three fourths of these on tape. I heard Das EFX and Redman on baskspin radio the other day and was surprised how nice they sounded through my trucks speakers. Showbiz & A.G's best album didn't come till 97 or 98 with Full Scale. For awhile it seemed like everyone in school was singing Pocket Full Of Stones.
― JacobSanders, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 16:19 (eleven years ago) link
cool school!
― push iatee (some dude), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 16:23 (eleven years ago) link
Redman, Gang Starr, Das EFX, DJ Quik, Pharcyde ... I have gone for Whut? Thee Album, fuck me what a vintage year and '93 was even better. Not really dug much of Redman post Dare Iz A Darkside, loved bits of Muddy Waters though. I thought The Pharcyde's follow up to Bizarre Ride was very disappointing as well.
― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 16:34 (eleven years ago) link
I grew up an hour from Port Arthur and an hour and a half from Houston, UGK were huge and the Houston scene. There was a radio station call The Box out of Houston that played local artists before they were known outside of the area. I used to have tapes I recorded from the Box late shows.
― JacobSanders, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 16:35 (eleven years ago) link
lol Bizarre Ride I
I like Pharcyde better than Predator because there's way to compare it to a much better previous album.
(I've said before that) I wasn't down with Death Certificate when I was a kid, the a) homophobia b) racism c) slackness towards women made me take it back to the shop and exchange for something else.
Also because it has no "Gangsta Fairytale 2" on it.
This is a feeble charge to lay against an album that has When Will They Shoot on it, let alone Wicked and Check Yo Self with the OG beat and Good Day (remember how remarkable it was at the time before it became the most-played Cube song ever). Not to mention We Had To Tear This Muthafucka Up and Who Got The Camera and Say Hi and...
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 21:47 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah I just listened to the Predator again and it really isn't bad, but Death Certificate just feels like a better album to me. I was like 15 when it came out and it didn't seem any worse than any of the other stuff I was into at the time content-wise and I was dumbly oblivious to a lot of it anyway. That and a lot of other records do make me cringe a bit now.
I just never liked Dirty Mack and Now I Gotta Wet Cha that much, and the sudden and obvious Das EFX and Cypress Hill influences kind of bugged me too. And nothing on it - even Good Day - comes close to Steady Mobbin', Alive on Arrival, or My Summer Vacation.
― joygoat, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 22:07 (eleven years ago) link
the remix of Good Day w/the Staples/Mayfield sample may be my favorite Cube song ever but even still Death Certificate just hangs together better, warts and all. the skits/interludes on Predator are annoying, and while his bandwagon-jumping songs aren't bad in and of themselves they are kind of glaring
― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 22:11 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah I just listened to the Predator again and it really isn't bad, but Death Certificate just feels like a better album to me.
I bought the re-release later and love it to bits, of course (bcz now I hate women, gooks and gays) (and many of the songs were still fully intact in my head from the week I'd had it the first time), but I have no problem at all seeing The Predator as a great album separate from its predecessors (it's no Amerikkka's Most Wanted either)
I was like 15 when it came out and it didn't seem any worse than any of the other stuff I was into at the time content-wise and I was dumbly oblivious to a lot of it anyway. That and a lot of other records do make me cringe a bit now.
as an Australian teenager I had no problem rapping along with "nigga"s in songs, but I'd stfu & rolleye or come up with my own "my ninja" style substitutes for homophobic lyrics.
"The Big Daddy law is anti-bigot / That means no intol-E-R-A-N-C-E..."
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 23:16 (eleven years ago) link
I do think Predator has Cube's best singles altho man When Will They Shoot? really should've been the lead-off single
― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 23:18 (eleven years ago) link
^ true
Alive On Arrival might be one of Cube's five best songs ever, even counting NWA
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 23:23 (eleven years ago) link
a single of WWTS would have meant a version existing without the last word or two of the intro crashing the beat >:(
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 23:24 (eleven years ago) link
done watched two episodes of M*A*S*H*
xp
― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 23:25 (eleven years ago) link
only ran one block, but my shirt's soaking wet
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 23:34 (eleven years ago) link
^ also a great example of what a great rapper Cube was in his imperial period - halfway through "shirt" he slows down a tiny bit, juuust lagging behind the beat for those next three and a half syllables; this provides a subtle enough emphasis that the listener will subconsciously note it, and make the callback connection on the reveal a few lines later, AND! ALSO! once you know the scenario for future listens, reads as the narrator physically losing step without even being conscious of it himself yet.
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, 31 October 2012 23:44 (eleven years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 00:01 (eleven years ago) link
boom bap bump
― Citizen Ship (some dude), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 18:34 (eleven years ago) link
Predator talk is making me happy I voted for it
― I loves you, PORGI (DJP), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 18:44 (eleven years ago) link
Ended up voting for Redman.
― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 19:23 (eleven years ago) link
― sug night (sic), Wednesday, October 31, 2012 7:16 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this is killing me
― croup da color of mayonnaise (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 19:55 (eleven years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Thursday, 8 November 2012 00:01 (eleven years ago) link