Your Thoughts Exactly: Albums The Source should have Given 5 mics Part 1: 50-31

Saturday, August 07, 2004

 

Albums The Source should have Given 5 mics Part 1: 50-31

The Source recently released a list of all the albums it was given 5 mics in its history. Overall they did a pretty damn good job, especially for a magazine that’s now considered a total joke. Of course it’s not that hard to list the best albums from before 1992, most hip-hop fans know what they are. After about 1995, their list starts to get sketchy, interestingly about the same time their magazine went downhill. There are some glaring omissions that made me angry, as I can only imagine political reasons for keeping them off. There are some albums that clearly don’t deserve to be on the list. So I went through and did a little housecleaning, kicking off 13 of the Source’s original 42, for the following reasons:

1) I’ve never listened to them. Good bye to Brand Nubian’s One For All, Eric B and Rakim’s Let the Rhythm Hit Em, De La Soul’s De La Soul is Dead, Scarface’s The Diary, and the Geto Boys Grip it on that Other Level. I am guessing that De La’s album in particular may be 5 mic worthy, but I can’t help my own ignorance. This is my list.
2) I refuse to overrate albums from the last three years: I think The Source thought it would look bad if they only had one album (The Blueprint) from after 2000. So they threw on Nas’ Stillmatic and Scarface’s The Fix at the last second (bringing them to an uneven 42.) Both good albums, don’t get me wrong, but not 5 mic worthy. Stillmatic isn’t even as good as God’s Son (Nas’ 2002 album.) Why is it on there? I think The Source bought into the hip hop communities’ weird urge to say Nas won his battle versus Jay Z: thus it had to say Stillmatic was 5 mic worthy if it gave The Blueprint that status. Let’s see: Jay had a better diss song, had a better album, led his crew to take over the rap game, has even Nas asking for Roca-Fella producers, and is fucking Beyonce as opposed to Kelis. I think Jay won.
3) I refuse to overrate albums just because they are old. Good bye to LL Cool J’s Radio, The Jungle Brothers’ Straight Out the Jungle, and Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill.
4) I refuse to give up my stance that The Fugees are untalented musicians who made their mark off crappy covers of classic songs. Goodbye to The Score.
5) I refuse to get involved in elevating albums to classic status just because the MCs got murdered. Goodbye All Eyez on Me and Life After Death. Now now, stop screaming at your monitor. I realize these albums both have some banging songs: Hypnotize, California Love, etc. But both these double albums had too much filler to warrant 5 mic status. In fact, there has never been a double album worthy of 5 mics. Even a Wu-Tang dickrider like myself couldn’t put Wu-Tang Forever on this list.

Having purged this list down to 29, I went about my mp3 collection to try and find albums The Source had overlooked. I found 21, bringing the total to 50, a nice big round number. I then ranked them from 50 to 1. So here is Marmaniac’s 5 mic albums, complete with comments and singles you should illegally download.

50) *Black Sheep- A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing- I originally had left Jungle Brothers on here, but I replaced it with this other Native Tongues album after listening to both straight through. This album features much more juvenile humor and rapping about important topics like how to ditch girls who only look hot in the dark. Just my type of album. Plus this album contains the first rap song I ever loved, “The Choice is Yours,” which I listened to on WZOU. That is old school.
Songs- “The Choice is Yours,” “Strobelite Honey,”

49) Main Source- Breakin Atoms- Definitive album for one of rap’s great producers, Large Professor. Also well known for Nas’ debut as a guest performer. Songs: “Live at the BBQ,” “Large Professor.”

48) The DOC- No One Can Do it Better- DOC ghostwrote for NWA and Dr. Dre, only releasing one album following a severing his vocal cords in a car accident. This album is a great, old school West-coast banger that bridges the gap between Dr. Dre’s production from Straight Outta Compton versus The Chronic. The DOC rips it on the mike as well. Songs- “Its Funky Enough,” “No One Can Do it Better.”

47) *Scarface- Mr. Scarface is Back- Ok I’ll admit it. I felt bad for kicking three Scarface-related albums off the list. I think he’s a very good rapper, and this is the only full album I have of his. And it’s pretty damn tight: Songs- “Mr. Scarface,” “The Diary of a Madman.”

46) Run DMC- Run DMC- I mean these guys are the shit. They are responsible for the lingo, the sound, the attitude, and the breakthrough of rap into the mainstream. Sure some of the songs are corny, but this is from fucking 1984. Cut em some slack.
Songs- “Sucka MCs.”

45) Dr. Dre- The Chronic 2001- I always considered this album to be overrated. I think its because of the name I always end up comparing it to the original Chronic, which is unfair. It also angers me to no end when my cracker ass friends love and recognize all the songs on this album, but would turn the channel if they ever heard “Stranded on Death Row.” On the other hand, this is the album that has Nate Dogg singing “Smoke Weed Every Day,” which became my theme song for about three years. And counting. Songs- “Forgot About Dre,” “The Next Episode.”

44) Big Daddy Kane- Long Live the Kane- I have only heard one song off this album. It also happens to be “Aint No Half-Steppin.” If the rest of the album was 60 minutes of The Best of the ESPN Sunday Night Football Commentators, it would still be 5 mic worthy. Songs- “Aint No Half-Steppin.”

43) *Big L- Lifestylez of the Poor and Dangerous- Ok time for a longer tribute here. This is Big L’s only album: he was killed three or four years after its release. But damn what an album. L is at once, hilarious and menacing in all of his raps. All of them. And his flows are ridiculous. No rapper has ever made me rewind songs more than him, making me think “what the fuck did he just say?” Some samples: “And when it comes to getting nookie, I’m not a rookie I got chicks that make that bitch Toni Braxton look like Whoopie.” Or “The Big L be lighting niggas like incense, getting men lynched and when tensed I be killing infants for ten cents.” The beats on this album are just good. The rapping is actually perfect. Songs- “Da Graveyard,” “No Ends No Skinz,” “Put it On.”

42) *Jurassic 5- Quality Control- I know, you are sick of this album. You’ve heard it in every damn dorm room, at every damn frat party you’ve ever been to. But there’s a reason it’s so overexposed, because it’s so damn good. And you know this. Man (And stop calling me a backpacker.) Songs- “Quality Control,” “Swingset,” “Great Expectations.”

41) *Pete Rock and CL Smooth- Mecca and the Soul Brother- Another album that gets its reputation more off of its production than its MCing. That’s not to say CL is Puffy-bad, he just tends to get overlooked when compared to the horn-filled jazz soundscape of Pete Rock. Horn filled jazz soundscape? Alert Alert. White person writing about hip-hop. Songs- “TROY,” “Straighten it Out,” “It’s Like That”

40) *The Roots- Things Fall Apart- Ok so like everyone else, I jumped on The Roots bandwagon when this album came out in 1999. So sue me. Like J5, the reason the album crossed over to the backpacker/college crowd is because it’s musically inspired with deft lyrics that don’t make insecure white people feel uncool because they grew up in the suburbs. Maybe I’d like “Do You Want More?” or “Illadelph Halflife,” better if I had heard them first. But I didn’t. Songs- “The Next Movement,” “100 Percent Dundee.”

39) Run DMC- Raising Hell- Imagine if this album hadn’t been released, and it had been the Beastie Boys who were the first big rap breakthorough. Ugghh. Of course, the song everyone talks about off this album is “Walk This Way,” which was totally necessary to get rap the attention is deserved, but not a great song in anyway. Speaking of Aerosmith, I wonder if they ever shared any of the millions of dollars they owed Run DMC for totally revitalizing their career. Somehow I doubt it. Songs: “It’s Tricky,” “My Adidas.”

38) Boogie Down Productions- By Any Means Necessary- Like many these days, I find KRS-One to be a somewhat annoying blowhard. Thus I was shocked when in Ego Trip’s Big Book of Rap Lists, they declared him the best MC of all time. KRS built his rep as MC for BDP in the mid 1980s releasing key albums for forming both the gangsta and political rap sub-genres. This second album finds KRS becoming more political, talking about stopping violence in hip-hop and having ridiculous foresight on how rappers would be marketed as dangerous thugs to sell more records. And he isn’t overly preachy at all. And he still releases banging songs talking about how he is the shit. Songs- “I’m Still #1”, “Stop the Violence.”

37) *Jeru the Damaja- The Sun Rises in the East- Has any producer ever had a better year than DJ Premier in 1994? His own group Gang Starr, released the well-received “Hard to Earn.” He also contributed classic songs to Nas and Biggie’s debut albums, like “N.Y. State of Mind.” And to top all off, he produced this entire album. The beats are unbelievable, faucet-drips on “Come Clean,” dissonant random minor-piano keys on “Dirty Rotten Scoundrel.” Spine-chillin. Of course, it’s hard to top Rza in 1995. Oh yea, the rapping. Jeru has a commanding voice and drops some knowledge, out of the KRS teacher school: take rap back to its African roots etc. So he may be talking about how the white people are devils on half his songs. He still does it well. Songs- “Come Clean,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrel,” “Jungle Music.”

36) *Kool G Rap and DJ Polo- Wanted: Dead or Alive- The other album, besides Big L’s that had to go on this list just to get something by the MC on here. Kool G Rap got more recognition later in his career than when his albums actually came out, because he pioneered the “rapper as a coke kingpin a la Scarface,” trend that dominated rap in the late 1990s. Now why would we be giving someone credit for a trend that was in general terrible and annoying? First because he was an incredibly gifted rapper. Second because he also rapped about the dark side of drug-dealing, as in everyone ends up fucking dead. Oh and coke is bad for you. Songs- “Streets of New York,” “Money in the Bank.”

35) 2pac- Me Against the World- Most overrated MC ever? Definitely. That’s what happens when you die young. Due to the fact he got shot up, people get to say: man what would have Pac done if he had lived? Well I can tell you, he would have become a smoked-out pop culture icon releasing good but not great albums and appearing in movies with Ben Stiller a la Snoop Dogg. Or he would have been labeled soft when his releases didn’t measure up with past material and made movies like “Barbershop,” a la Ice Cube. And both Cube and Snoop had better peaks and released better albums than Pac. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Whoops I am supposed to be praising, not hating. This is the album where Pac strikes the proper balance of thug songs, love songs, and remembrance songs, without seeming too hokey. Basically the forefather of every pseudo-gangsta album released in the last two years, (G-unit, The Diplomats, etc…) only no one out there has the skillz to adequately pull it off without sounding like a pre-packaged idiot…with one exception being…. Songs: “Dear Mama,” “If I Die 2nite.”

34) Jay-Z- The Blueprint- Same formula as Me Against the World, only updated with 2001 style production. The most influential album of the last 5 years. Unforunately, as I said, no one can pull off the, diss song, pop song, girl song, thug song like Jigga. A side note: I think Jay’s rapping is actually better on The Black Album. Unfortunately Jay decided to leave off beats from DJ Premier and Dr. Dre, among others, to push producers from the Roc-A-Fella stable. Always a hustler to the end, aren’t you Jigga, even if it means sacrificing quality from your own album? And why would you have a beat from Eminem on there? Can we please ban Em from beat-making? It’s the equivalent of Puffy rapping. Songs- “Takeover,” “Girls Girls Girls,” Renegade.”

33) A Tribe Called Quest- People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm- Quite an album title, and quite an album. Features a lot more Q-Tip than Phife, which isn’t bad because Tip is the better rapper, but means this album is missing the dynamic gained from the trade-off and differences between the two rappers present on their second and third releases. Still awesome. Songs- “I Left my Wallet in El Segundo,” “Can I Kick It?”

32) *Ghostface Killah- Ironman- The last of the classic Mid-90s Wu-Tang releases. Doesn’t quite measure up to the other albums because Rza’s production is merely “incredible,” as opposed to “the best production ever.” Also there is a lot of Cappadonna on this record. Cappadonna, for those who don’t know, was not originally in the group, but was worked in slowly over 1995-1997, to the dismay of most Wu-Tang fans, as Cappadonna is a terrible rapper. Actually Cappadonna isn’t that bad on this album, and there is plenty of other Wu-Tang MCing to balance him out. Some people don’t like this album, because they don’t think Ghostface is a good rapper. Listen to “All That I got is You,” and tell me you don’t start tearing up. Songs- “Ironman,” “Daytona 500,” “Winter Warz,” “All That I Got is You.”

31) *Big Punisher- Capital Punishment- The second greatest fat rapper of all time. The memory of Pun that will always remain in my mind is that shot of him on the motorcycle in the “Still not A Player,” video. How did he fit on that bike? It was one of the most surprising days of my life when I found out he died of heart failure. I suspect the real cause of death was that he choked to death on a porkchop sandwich, a la Mama Cass, but his people didn’t want to embarrass him in death. Ok enough being mean. Songs-“Tres Leches,” “Punish Me,” “I’m Not a Player.”

Well four single-spaced pages is enough for now. I’ll have numbers 30-1 up in a day or two. I know you can’t wait.

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