NEW AMERYKAH, POLL 1 (4th World War)

this got such a strange vote distribution

well 4WW is a real creeper album...Rev said something about taking three months to get into, I think it took me even longer to REALLY get the second half...I mean I voted The Healer kind of automatically, and I would prolley still today, bcz I think it's one of the best songs of the decade, but it would be a lot harder now to not vote The Cell or Twinkle or Master Teachers (no votes?! wtf!) or even That Hump...

yeah and "honey" with no votes??? "my people"???

Of the ones that got no votes, I love both Master Teacher and Amerykahn Promise (I can sort of see why this didn't get the votes though, it's very much an introduction to the album). Still can't get into the last two on the album (That Hump and Telephone) - they just seem so generic in comparison with what went before.

xp well, Honey doesn't really mesh well with the whole One Minute to Doomsday vibe, but I think it's way cool...it's like finding out that the Oracle at Delphi is actually the sweet-natured girl work at Caribou Coffee or something...

does anyone else think this album kind of got snubbed in the decade-end polls? I mean this album is better than Kid A and waaay better than Is This It?

eh people into r&b rated it highly, indie websites gave it a middling placing or none at all

what r&b people rated it highly? (i take it from the 'eh' that this is not a conversation you really wish to have...)

(That Hump and Telephone) - they just seem so generic in comparison with what went before.

what; i guess that's a valid criticism of telephone if you appreciate the lp for its originality and different-ness, but they're two of my favourites. that hump seems like a comparatively grounded analogue for the choppier cuts like the cell at the start; bassy rumbling instead of trelby synthesizing. & i can't be analytical about telephone but i kinda want it played at my funeral.

naw it's just that it's hard to make sense of r&b consensus since most of the big mags and webzines online are more indie-oriented. not that there's not plenty of good indie music of course

but our own andy kellman (here) and al sh1pley (here) each rated it highly on their respective lists and ILM loves it (iirc it was top 5 in the 08 poll). ctrl-f "badu" on this thread Best of Decade (2000s) Album Lists doesnt yield anything but i know it was on a few lists - i think at least top 50 in pitchfork

xp

i can't be analytical about telephone but i kinda want it played at my funeral.

v. much OTM

love this track to death

this got such a strange vote distribution

Was about to speculate on the distribution for Return of the Ankh, but I'm pretty sure "Window Seat" would bury the competition. (My vote right now goes to "Love" or "Out My Mind.")

i'd go for 'get munny' today.

i think "gone baby, don't be long" would win

has anyone listened to both straight through consecutively?

Not yet. I think the moods are a little too divergent for it to work.

the winner would almost certainly be "window seat" or "get munny" imo

btw 4WW wz #133 in Pitchfork's Top 200 of the 00's

it was in their top 10 of 08 too

no it wasn't, it was 13 of '08...

i guess it doesn't really matter...just irks me a little.

r&b is still a pretty ghettoized genre critically

this record doesn't really fall into the category of r&b as it stands in modern terms tho -- and anyway, badu (and other older artists like r. kelly or maxwell or d'angelo if he puts out a new record ever) exists outside that sort of ghetto anyway -- this record should've been a huger deal than it was, but it's hard to find real geeking out about non-rock, non-rap records outside of places like, um, ilm because there are rarely publications that cater to those audiences critically

can we please not break out the small violins for the critical standing of an album that finished 5th in P&J

wow that's your most fatherly display name ever

fatherly as in dad joke? old reference? you know scooby wasn't scrappy doo's dad, right?

i dont get it

dad-ish reference

are you familiar with longtime poster 'uh oh I'm having a fantasy'? xpost

dude scooby doo was on cartoon network and shit when you were a kid just like when i was a kid

ok im giggling now

i know, i mean that it's silly in a dad-ish way, not old in a dad-ish way

i giggled too

ok so dad joke more than dad reference

yes

just realized that i haven't thought a display name to be as alternately good/bad/hilarious since m@tt's El Garbage

sorry about whining over nothing

nah i mean shit yeah it's better than Kid A, but it's not like i really expected any 2008 album, no matter how good, to really represent on end-of-decade lists like that, at least not this soon. it was actually the 7th highest '08 album on the Pitchfork list, so really it climbed a bit from being ranked 13th a year earlier.

To be fair, it is the best album of the decade, so it's not "whining" to point out any list/poll that doesn't reflect that.

meh, diff't strokes -- half the albums on my list that k3v linked upthread were on no other blog or publication's list, so i have a hard time thinking of it as insufficiently appreciated

'that hump' was my vote i think -- the chorus is just great

yeah I mustn't have voted in this cuz "that hump" has been my fave on this from the beginning. that bassline is crazy, the vocals, the lyrics... it's one of my top 5 badu songs easily. I never really got the crazy love for "the healer," i don't really understand why it won this poll by such a large margin, it's one of the lesser tracks on the album imo (though the album is pretty much perfect... but still, "that hump," "twinkle," "the cell," "soldier," "telephone," "me," >>>>>>>>>>>> "the healer"....)

i agree, altho i still like healer more than 'master teachers'

Is there a thread for the second one? I cannot find it if there is. Anyway this is a totally perfect happy summer album, totes didn't expect it to sound this blissed out.

most of the talk about it is here Erykah Badu: C /D, S&D

ty ty ty

"That Hump"

― Put A Ring On It (The Brainwasher), Friday, October 24, 2008 10:34 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

otm

Ha its 5am and That Hump is hitting hard (tho less hard now that I just finished giggling at the ship/sarge scooby exchange)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZLKkkOoszAA

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

Did we ever poll the second? We should. (Or both together, even.)

And there are so many easter eggs, lyrically and sonically! I always discover something new when I listen to it. It's a complex motherfucking work. Just about a week ago, I first noticed that "My People" ends with the words "Good morning. Did you have a Dream?" And I capitilize Dream intentionally, because whether she was referring to the American (Amerykahn?) Dream or, I think more likely, MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, she intends to load the word with more meaning than its M-W definition would indicate.

― mr. mayan end times guy (The Reverend), Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:07 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah absolutely - i get annoyed when people overuse adjectives like "meaningful" but it absolutely applies to new amerykah in the sense that every word, note, inflection, every last detail in the arrangement is there for a reason, and even the most minute element of it can spark off these chains of thought just like yours

― lex pretend, Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:12 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, even things in the sequencing. It's no accident that "Me" is followed by "My People". She's already claimed her people as her in the former song. "I salute you [insert your name here] because you are me". It's also no mistake that she goes from grown folks acting all niggerish and not taking responsibility for their kids in "The Cell" to lamenting how those same kids "don't know their language...don't know their god" in "Twinkle" to the epiphany of "wait....what if there were no niggers, only master teachers?"

― mr. mayan end times guy (The Reverend), Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:23 PM Bookmark

Wait, but that's the Dream she has! You even have Curtis Mayfield playing herald for her with the sample of him at the beginning of "Master Teacher" repeating "dreams..." over and over.

*still learning things about this album*