Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

I've come to realize that I don't post enough in this blog often enough. Naturally, I want to fix that. Posting more often would seem to require one of two things change - either I listen to music at a greater pace and write about it at a pace to match or I tweak the format of the blog such that I don't have to change my listening habits all that much.

The solution I have arrived at is that, beginning with the letter C, I will begin posting at 5 album intervals, instead of the current 10. This will allow me to hurry some write-ups less and get more of them done, and that's good for everyone.

In addition, beginning with C (and eventually retrofitted to A and B), I'll be including some more goodies to help you listen to some of the music I'm reviewing. I'm hoping to put some services like SoundCloud to good use when possible, as well as some uploads from yours truly. It should be grand.

That said, I'm back at work with the remainder of the B albums, so expect to see a new post by the end of the month.

Cheers!

Blue Collar - Born of Man and Flies

Blue Collar by Rhymefest
Virtually every one of you reading this has heard a song that Rhymefest is at least partially responsible for writing, though very few of you know it. He has a Grammy on his mantle at home for co-writing a little song by the name of "Jesus Walks". You may be familiar with it. Blue Collar is his debut album, and it's a strong work, almost cover to cover. An experienced rap battler - he once beat Eminem in the finals of a major competition - Rhymefest flexes his lyrical muscle throughout, firing off indomitable salvos filled with clever wordplay and great humor. He gives us an album for the middle class, those working hard day in and day out. He pays homage to strong women, with the tender "Sister", he shouts out to people pushing for their dreams. He questions the government, while rapping over a Strokes sample on "Devil's Pie". At the same time, he also cuts loose like no one's business - tracks like "Fever", "Dynomite" and the not-very-good but really hilarious "Build Me Up", which features Ol' Dirty Bastard singing The Foundations, show how willing Rhymefest is to goof around. And then, of course, he has lines like these, from "Devil's Pie":

Asking Kanye for money just to pay my gas bill/ He asked me for it back/ Nigga, brush up on your math skills/ Nothin' plus zip equals zero/ Can you relate? That nigga ain't been broke since ‘H to tha Izzo

How can you not like that?

Blue Lines by Massive Attack
Massive Attack is a strange band to write about. So, in lieu of an actual write-up, I instead give you the video to the album's best song, "Unfinished Sympathy".



Blue Record by Baroness
I picked up Baroness' Red Album and Blue Record last spring, when their name popped up on the Bonnaroo lineup. I was told they bear some similarities to fellow Georgians Mastodon, and I hoped to see them at the festival before The Dodos. Unfortunately, we were stuck in miles of traffic approaching the festival, and the only show we saw on Thursday was Wale. Having listened to the Blue Record several times leading up to the festival, I was rather disappointed (though not as much as missing both The Black Keys and Chromeo for a lackluster Flaming Lips set. But that's another story for another day). The album features some beautiful guitar lines of both the melodic and rhythmic variety. The percussion is powerful, but not the focal point, like it often is for Mastodon. The vocals and lyrics are... not negligible, but not really central to the enjoyment of the music. It's a solid album, with great pacing and interesting, engaging composition.

The Blueprint by Jay-Z
What can I say about The Blueprint that hasn't been said a thousand times over? It's a masterpiece, it's the reason Kanye West is famous. I am of the opinion that it is Jay-Z's best album, though I'm fairly certain most people would disagree. Reasonable Doubt, I'm sure they would say, is Jay-Z's magnum opus. The Blueprint has it all, though. It has meticulous production from West, Bink and Just Blaze. It's got timeless singles like "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" that can still tear a club down, even a decade on. It's introspection, pride, swagger, emotion. "Heart of the City" has become a bona fide classic, as has Eminem's performance on "Renegade". It covers the full breadth of topics Jay-Z is known for, and displays his full talents as an MC and executive producer.

The Blueprint²: The Gift and The Curse by Jay-Z
In the tradition of double albums in all genres, BP2 would have been twice as good if it were half as long. Well, maybe two thirds as long. There's four tracks produced by The Neptunes, which is three too many, especially when the first, "Excuse Me Miss" is far and away the best. There's about eight apiece from Kanye and Just Blaze, which not only lessens the impact of their beats on the whole product, but also means that the two were digging a little too deep in their crates, especially Just Blaze - The Blueprint's "U Don't Know" is a great song, and the beat kills, but bringing it back for a remix featuring M.O.P. on The Curse just feels unnecessary, even if it is a great remix. That sort of thing is bonus track material, you know? The most glaring flaws though, are the beats from Timbaland, who as you may recall, was responsible for "Big Pimpin'" and produced "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" a year after this album. Two of them, "What They Gonna Do" and "2 Many Hoes" are uncharacteristically awful. The other, "The Bounce", is pretty average, and buoyed by the combined charisma of Jay-Z, as well as that of Kanye delivering his first verse on record. All that said, you probably think that I hate this album, which isn't quite accurate. 2001-2003 Jay was vintage, and his lyricism and delivery will make you enjoy otherwise average tracks and will make you tolerate otherwise bad ones. It's just disappointing that those tracks exist when he's capable of pairing the perfect flow with the perfect beat more often than almost any other MC.

The Blueprint 3 by Jay-Z
Now here's an album I am very close to hating. Oh gods. I'm going to get the good things out of the way first, so that my vitriol will be uninterrupted. "Run This Town" is a phenomenal song, even if Kanye runs away with it.

Now, for the bad stuff. Yes, that was all the good stuff.

Holy fuck, Jay. What happened? I've listened to Kingdom Come, and this is no Kingdom Come. Yes, it's that bad. Unlike the previous writeup, I'll start with the biggest offender. Like The Blueprint 2, however, that offender is still Timbaland. The tracks he produced here make his BP2 tracks look like classics. "Reminder" might be the worst beat + hook combination I've ever heard, and on top of that, Jigga's verses sound like he thought of them while on the phone and recorded them over that very same phone. It might be a worse song than Kanye's "Drunk and Hot Girls". Jay and Timbaland also hook up for the second worst track on the album "Venus vs. Mars", which I will simply write off as some trite battle of the sexes bullshit, if only so I don't have an aneurysm thinking about it. There's the requisite bad Neptunes-produced track featuring Pharrell, which is a pairing that clearly ran out of steam a long time ago. And don't get me started on the "Young Forever", a song that is somehow both saccharine and smarmy. Most of the remaining tracks are Kanye beats that sound like rejects from 808s and Heartbreak, which is truly the least offensive thing that could be said about them.What takes the cake, though, is this mystifying verse from "Thank You", a song that would be reasonably okay otherwise:


I was gonna kill a couple rappers
But they did it to themselves
I was gon' do it with the flow
But they did it with their sales
I was gon' 9/11 'em, but they didn't need the help
And they did a good job them boys is talented as hell
Cuz not only did they brick they put a building up as well
They ran a plane into that building and when that building fell
Ran to the crash site with no masks and inhaled
Toxins deep inside their lungs until both of them was filled
Blew a cloud out like a L into a jar then took a smell
Cuz they heard that second hand smoke kills
Niggas thought they was ill found out they was... ill
And it's like you knew exactly how I wanted you to feel

What the fuck.

Blunted on Reality by The Fugees
The Fugees' debut is a good glimpse into the group that would, in two years' time, dominate the hip-hop world with The Score. On Blunted on Reality, they don't yet sound fully-formed, both as lyricists and as emcees. There are flashes, like on "Nappy Heads" and "Boof Baf", both of which were rightfully singles, but most of the time, they sound manic, and too reliant on the Caribbean music with which Wyclef and Pras grew up with. It's almost amazing how much they matured between 1994, when this was released, and 1996, when The Score came out. Still, this is worth a listen or two.

Blur by Blur
Their self-titled album marked a conscious decision by Damon Albarn and company to leave the confines of Britpop and head toward a more alternative sound. The result? A strong album featuring one of the most ubiquitous rock songs of the last twenty years. A mostly nonsense song poking fun at grunge, "Song 2"'s plays from sports arenas alone has probably funded every one of Albarn's flights of fancy, as well as paid for his house. That said, Blur is still a very good album, with true gems in songs like "Beetlebum" and "On Your Own", and especially the Bowie-esque "Strange News from Another Star". The importance of this album on Albarn's future can't be overstated either - by branching out from Britpop and succeeding, he was no doubt encouraged to continue to explore new styles, leading to Think Tank, the "formation" of Gorillaz, and The Good, The Bad & The Queen.

The Body, The Blood, The Machine by The Thermals
Roughly speaking, this is a punk concept album about a couple fleeing an America run by religious wingnuts. With that out of the way, let me say this - it's a good album. Not great, but closer to that mark than not. It's got its heart, its emotion, in all the right places, which is a big part of making both conceptual albums and punk rock work. The riffs are abrasive, the rhythms are firm but not over done, which is certainly a credit to producer Brendan Canty. Lead singer Hutch Harris' vocal style is a bit of an acquired taste; it's sort of reminiscent of John Darnielle's croon. You'll eventually like it, but probably not right away.

Born of Man and Flies by Mummy Fortuna's Theatre Company
This was one of those albums that I had never listened to before coming upon it in the alphabet. Just overlooked it from whenever it was that I picked it up. Between how long it sat there and the fact that it has no genre tag in iTunes, I had no idea what exactly I was walking into. Turns out it is a stellar little EP of long-form hip-hop, both traditional and instrumental. I can't find a fucking bit of info on these guys, really, but it seems this is the only thing they ever put out, which is a shame. The emcee's name is Sketch, and he's lightning fast, but not merely as a show of technical skill, he can write as well. The production is handled mostly by Mr Cooper, who uses a lot of unorthodox sounds in tandem with typical hip-hop instrumentation to create a dark, dismal soundscape for Sketch to rhyme over, to great effect. I'd highly recommend you check this out, though I'll be damned if I can point you in a direction where you'll be able to find it.