De La Soul - Classic or Dud?

The AOI albums rule

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

This. Especially the first one.

not just streaming services - they weren't even available in the itunes store this whole time.

y'know i was about to post on the "acts not on spotify" thread recently about my general despair over this - so hell yes to this news!

Much More came on an old mixtape I made that was in my car yesterday and it remains one of my fave DLS jams

― his cartoon heart expands, then he relaxes by smoking crack (stevie), Tuesday, January 3, 2023 7:16 AM

i have a "radio station" playlist that i keep and i try not to mess with local/offline files. went out of my way to put "4 more" on it. i liked it at the time, but that's kind of become the definition of a lost classic.

another one of their r+b hooks that i can't get enough of these days is "all good?" from the first aoi. featuring chaka, too.

c'mon 3 march!!!!

sorry, enthusiasm overload!

"much more" and "4 more" are two completely different songsa

In an impossibly excellent year for hip-hop, Buhloone Mindstate might be the best of 1993.

i'd have to think about that, but i would say "i am i be" is definitely the best thing they ever did.

Buhloone is the one of theirs I still play the most.

What a jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odsPr0GzSLs

"stir my lime with light, drink it down slowly"

mosaic thump is a top tier de la album and prob the one i listen to most.

havent we heard their stuff was gonna go on streaming many times before?

It's been promised for a long time. Plus you may remember the time they sent out everything as low-bitrate mp3s.

there's frankly not much bad de la, period

otm

De La/Beasties are the only holder age groups I can think of whose individual members never made solo records

Plus you may remember the time they sent out everything as low-bitrate mp3s.

― Chris L, Tuesday, January 3, 2023 4:27 PM

yeah, i grabbed all of the downloads at the time.
just checked : they are all encoded at 320.

i listen to those on the regular, they're fine.

xxp Ahem...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOWcvoDrJuw

Also love "Much More". Great featured vocalist who didn't do a lot more. Listening to what I can find now.

i'm hoping they put *everything* on there because some of those 12" mixes and dubs are pretty damn classic-

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

"what yo life can truly be" feat the whole damn native tongues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2B0hg6KUjE

"keepin the faith" (just a touch mix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCFuPeTqiA8

"millie pulled a pistol on santa (remix)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNKhM-iCkxc

"the dawn brings smoke"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUbk3FrMYfY

"who's skatin?"

COOKIE DEEMUSS!!

havent we heard their stuff was gonna go on streaming many times before?

― im a beacon of light (Spottie), Tuesday, January 3, 2023 11:23 AM bookmarkflaglink

It's coming in tandem with vinyl and cassette reissues that shops are already taking preorders for, so this feels 99.9% real.

yeah, i grabbed all of the downloads at the time.
just checked : they are all encoded at 320.

So I was the one who misremembered. It was the file names that made it obvious they pulled them from somewhere.

No ID3 tags.

cassette reissues

chucklesmhsigh

Yeah I'm sorry but I'd love to have these on tape :-D

honestly cassette was the format that most people heard all that era on, sometimes i listen to old stuff and it doesn't sound the same without that compressed cassette feel, makes way more sense here than most times

i think they are reissuing a cd as well from
looking at the get on down website

I remember that my cassette copy of De La Soul is Dead was a bit different from the CD version. Missing some songs I think.

My experience with these guys was odd, but probably not unique or even unusual. I absolutely loved the first two albums, then lost sight of them for years. When I finally got around to listening to some of their later stuff, I thought maybe it was a completely different group of people somehow operating under the same name.

makes sense, since they had died

See, I knew there was an explanation.

Are they reissuing Is Dead and Buhloone (and Stakes) on vinyl too? Because I have Is Dead and Buhloone but they're missing a bunch of tracks and would be up for unexpurgated versions.

Years ago on Sound Opinions, around the early '00s when it was still on WXRT, Jim DeRogatis reminisced about getting an advance copy (I *think* a cassette) of De La Soul Is Dead for review, and because there were major concerns of piracy, they threw in something like a braying donkey that would be randomly heard every now and then. He no longer had it but he said it actually added to the surreal nature of the album. (He brought this up because he wanted to talk about "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa" for what was probably a Christmas-related show.

I've never been able to find any mention of this anywhere since then, much less an actual copy. Anyone know what DeRogatis was talking about?

kinda like Lee Scratch Perry's cow-moo toy!

i've never heard of that but def sounds like some prince paul chicanery.

and yes, early 90s cd propaganda=differing tracklist across formats. the cd is the full version of the album. the only "real" song that got cut was "my brother's a basehead", the rest of the cuts were jokey half-songs or interludes.

Damn, they picked a wrong one to cut.

Basehead is on my copy https://www.discogs.com/release/210087-De-La-Soul-De-La-Soul-Is-Dead.

My Buhloone (has a first name) is definitely missing a bunch of tracks, not least as it's 1LP.

I played the cassette to death so those extra songs on the CD always seem superfluous to me. I interviewed them once and Maseo told me the cassette followed the vinyl version tracklist, and the vinyl had fewer songs so they could fit without sounding worse. I too thought Basehead was on the tape but I'm struggling to find my tape or an accurate tracklist of it online (on discogs even). I know Johnny's Dead, Kicked out the house and Who Do You Worship were among the CD only tracks

I remember hearing about the promo with the animal noises a lot in articles at the time of release but haven't ever heard that version

Still scratch my head about how …Dead got bad or indifferent reviews on release. And iirc Buhloone got better but still middling reviews.

I think it was perceived at the time as just more of the same, but less interesting.

I still remember it earned good reviews but also a sense of, "Well, the Digable Planets album did this kind of thing already."

I remember the take being “Didn’t these guys used to be funny? This album’s kinda depressing…”

You refer to is Dead, right?

Yes.

Yeah, I remember the reviews being, like, “why are they such boring sourpusses now”, which seems like a mystifying take on a record as full of wonder and complexity as DLSID

Buhloone is also one of my favourites of all time but I still wish Three Days Later and Ego Trip went on a bit longer!

Mercy!

Unrelatedly and dorkishly, my IRL name is Paul and I had “Paul’s Revenge” as my answering machine message for perhaps much longer than I should have (‘whatever you say, I agree”)

I was curious about the negative reviews - here are two FWIW:

Bill Wyman in the Chicago Reader for Buhloone Mindstate (which placed at #8 for that year's Pazz & Jop poll)
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/de-la-soul-a-tribe-called-quest/

"It’s another exposition of pulverized pop, but with side trips into drones, weird jazz, and other sorts of less-than-compelling sonic dreamscapes. It also contains a lyrical universe that’s beyond this willing listener’s ken, which is a nice way of saying I haven’t the faintest idea what the fuck they’re talking about."

And in Trouser Press's guide, written by David Sheridan and/or Steven Mirkin:

https://trouserpress.com/reviews/de-la-soul/

On De La Soul Is Dead, as on the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, the band’s ambition outstrips its ideas. The feeble, forced skits that dot the album fall flat, and many of the songs can be heard as a reaction to criticism that De La Soul was soft. Unlike “Do as De La Does” (from 3 Feet High and Rising), where the group puts itself in a leadership position, songs like “Afro Connections at a Hi 5 (In the Eyes of the Hoodlum)” and “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa” hew closer to rap convention, with harder-edged lyrics and sound. The album’s not bad, but it lacks some of the qualities that made the debut unique.

Superficially, Buhlööne Mind State is a return to form. While it does resemble the first album, there’s a pro forma air to the proceedings that even guests like Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker can’t allay; the sound is in the house, but the trio’s once-profound inspiration has fled.

It also contains a lyrical universe that’s beyond this willing listener’s ken, which is a nice way of saying I haven’t the faintest idea what the fuck they’re talking about."

oh like Wyman knew what Elvis Costello was talking about

no specific shade to any listed critics but i always took the in-its-time reaction to de la's mature work as condescending and at least racist-adjacent.
i mean, everyone loved paul's boutique...