Thoughts On The Blueprint 3

I was going to do this yesterday afternoon when I copped the leak from my second favorite rap blogspot site of all time, but it's the first week of my second senior year/superseniority and this fell by the wayside for 24 hours while I continued getting situated/wasting money on a useless political science degree.

1. “What We Talkin’ About”- Sounds almost identical to just about every lush R&B chorused track on Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool, except Lupe is an incredible rapper and Jay is still a twitching corpse without Philly rappers to take inspiration from

2. “Thank You”- Amazing. After the initial admiration and excuse-giving that comes whenever an artist or parent disappoints you time and time again (the same that makes me check out Nas albums even though he’s to date only made one good one in 15 years), this will probably be the only track that I don’t delete. Jay goes IN during the break when it’s just the instrumental and the drums fall out and he spits all this semi-insensitive 9/11 allegory shit. I first heard this the morning the album leaked, before I found out the album leaked Monday afternoon from Combat Jack, and it’s the sole of the 5 previous leaks that made me give a shit about BP3 and offer a glimmer of hope. I’d equate this to “N.I.G.G.E.R.”, from Nas’ album last year, which was also a gorgeous almost classic quality song buried in a meh album. Also, the first memorable post-retirement Jay hook.

3. “DOA”- The beat is ill. I wasn’t sure about it at first because I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me about the song, and then I realized that it was Jay. The lyrics on the song, ignoring his actual rapping and the grating “Awwwww”s, makes him seem like a crotchety purist jerk, which is a look that only looks good on KRS-ONE, and barely at that. It’s a song completely comprised of corrective talking points, and frankly, a lot of the shit he says is rote, immaterial, and oddly conservative. Who’s really going to rah-rah about these things when they’re just shallow parts of the zeitgeist anyway? People wear colorful clothes and tighter fitting clothes. That’s just what’s happening. And to get up in arms about a superficial change that will eventually be overtaken by something just and unimportant is remarkably myopic for someone who is supposedly blessed with foresight.

4. “Run This Town”- I find songs like this and T.I.’s “Anything You Want” insulting not because they’re poppy, but because they’re instantly dated trend-chasing throwaway tracks. Like, is anyone going to think this is a good reflection of over-processed ringtone-ready rap ‘n’b in context of T-Pain, The Dream, 808’s&Heartbreak and a slew of infinitely better examples of the strange mish-mash of pop radio that I’ve been subjected to since my summer working at Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s in 2006?

5. “Empire State of Mind”- It’s kind of sad to follow up a song prominently featuring Rihanna’s non-singing (statuesque) ass with one with Alicia Keys who can not only sing in the traditional sense, but can sang in the Steve Harvey sense. Also, did this motherfucker just reference Anna Wintour in a piece of wordplay? The beat is okay, but Jay is, third album in a row, the problem here. He frequently sounds like he has no more idea of what to do with his rapping.

6. “Real As It Gets”- Beat is inspirational and soulful in a Jeezy by way of Graduation Kanye sense as opposed to soulful in a Blueprint sense but this track is perfectly decent. No real complaints.

7. “On To The Next One”- My favorite thing about Swizz Beats, besides him seemingly existing to soundtrack dance crew movies and TV shows, is how hit-and-miss he still is. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being a college hippie’s suspended chord, Dave Matthews-inspired cover of a song from Popozao, and a 10 being “21st Century Schizoid Man”m "I Luv Your Girl" or something equivalently awesome, this song is a solid 4.7, to use Pitchfork scaling.

8. “Off That”- My age group (21 and older) is the last to give a flying shit what Jay-Z thinks is cool. He should keep that in mind, as well as the fact that that very demographic is a tiny minority as I sit here listening to Auto-Tune records and wearing tight-ass yeastXcore pants. Hallelujah holla back. Also, I don’t know how it’s possible, but Drake manages to sound mulatto on record. On some 80’s Soul-Glo/School Daze shit. This doesn’t bode well for my rap career.

9. “A Star Is Born”- You know you’re old when you spend an entire track giving praise to canonical rap icons. I’m guessing the kingly gesture is to, for the first time, actually acknowledge that Jay-Z has heard of rappers outside of UGK, State Property, Nas, Biggie, Pac, Cam’Ron, Lupe Fiasco, and (Vol. 1 reference ahead) Master P. It’s neat to hear him shout out Wu-Tang, but for the most part that’d be the only reason not to delete the song. J.Cole reminds me of Brandon’s point in deference to technically proficient rappers in a traditional New York/East Coast sense not being that interesting.

10. “Venus vs. Mars”- Fucking repugnant. Honestly. Also, I got douche chills when he referenced “Hit ‘Em Up” and “Who Shot Ya”. There’s just something very uncomfortable about hearing someone around then and so close to the beef do that in some shitty toss-off song referencing a shitty middlebrow relationship book from the early-90s. THE PLOT HAS BEEN LOST BY TRACK 10. The bridge is neat sounding, but would be best on a Kanye record or something with the rest of the elements culled and shat out of a plane, likely JetBlue.

11. “Already Home”- I really like/want to like Cudi. “Poke Her Face/Make Her Say” is fun and sports great effortless verses, “Day n’ Nite” was an amazing grower of a song, and the details of his album from Nahright seemed well contextualized (usually the mark of at least a decent record half the time) and the album art reminds me of a mix of Jacon Bannon and Giger. But that mixtape he put out was terrible minus the album singles and I’d be hard pressed to say if he offers anything lyrically or thematically that Devin the Dude or Lupe Fiasco don’t do better, respectively. But his singing on this track definitely has charm. Something I notice about a lot of these tracks, especially the singles and this, is that there’s one verse too mane and the 4 minute run times could definitely afford to be shortened if Jay is going to put out these stock verses that just go in one ear and out the other.

12. “Hate”- Douche chills. DOUCHE. CHILLS. Also, I like Kanye and Jay’s “slow Lil’ Wayne verse” impressions. Being full of yourself only works when you don’t consistently put out B- quality albums or lower. And the Blueprint is overrated, for the record. Classics don’t have “Jigga My Nigga” on it.

13. “Reminder”- This second half is pretty awful. You know who would make me love this beat? Gucci fucking Mane. Real talk. I never thought I’d say this. Get an old Pimp C verse for a screwed hook, Gucci, and maybe like Ludacris on the remix. Otherwise...feh. His raps and this hook should be violently dragged to the bottom of the abyss by a particularly ravenous and ill-tempered giant squid to be crushed like so much tinfoil in the unforgiving pressures of the earth’s watery black nexus.

14. “So Ambitious”- The most telling thing Pharell has ever said was in a studio interview (also, I’ve always appreciated The Neptunes for being technologically craptacular and more interested in songs and sounds than taking traditional routes to them, in a very punk rock way, to misuse a rotted cliché) was how much he loves major seventh chords and how “there’s just something about them”. Checking out his post-Neptunes falling off output makes this clear, as, though “I Know” was actually a really good song, a rarity in several lush yet tepid post “Give It Me (I Just Wanna Love You)” songs. Whatever happened to the guy who produced “Grindin’” and “Mr. Me Too”? Although that clearly seems to have been Chad’s department.

15. “Young Forever”- This album’s second half has quickly become a parody of itself. It’s unforgivably dated and terrible without aim or much of an even small inkling or anything important, profound, clever, or memorable. And this John Hughes bullshit is almost up there with “Beach Chair”, a song that single-handedly proved to rockist naysayers that it really isn’t that easy to make rap beats.

5 songs leaked by the time I had written this album off, which was a third of the track listing. Everyone hoped those were the 5 shitty songs, it turns out the fraction should be modified: 1/3 of this album is good and will not be deleted by the end of tonight, whereas 2/3's are equally bad and forgettable. It's a testament to nostalgia and Jay's hitmaking summers of yore that we still choose to pretend that Jay hasn't completely lost the plot whenever his post-retirement records leak. Also, can someone buy this motherfucker a hook and a Premier beat? Jesus Christ.

Criminally Slept On: "Remission"

This wasn't originally going to be the record I would inaugurate this series with (metal isn't usually very interesting to write about), but I've already written this for metal-archives.com, so fuck it.
Despite a lot of mainstream music outlets giving this album its proper due, there's definitely seems to be a lot of uninformed criticism of this record, especially in the aftermath of the band becoming popular years later. Detractors from the record, and to a further extent, the band fall into two camps; those who admittedly don't get the band and those who malign the band but, keeping in line with having bad taste, posit genuinely overrated bands like Opeth or Meshuggah as superior alternatives.

A shame because, as Mastodon continues on this seems to be the most overlooked and under-appreciated album in their catalog, the opening salvo of a streak that would produce two classic modern metal albums.

The band itself has always been odd, composed of members who had respectively flirted with tech metal, hardcore, grind and hard rock, leaving the band and their common influences into a sludge-y beast that congealed into a mix of 70's rock, 80's metal, the oddly unsettling chorus-drenched guitar balladry of 80’s Metallica, and Neurosis.

Tuned to Drop-A on occasion like the aforementioned sludge influence, the band was never heavier than on this record, though their rock influence, talked up in early Relapse press releases, is prominent in the songwriting, musical hooks, over-driven and noisy Marshall amp sound, and abundant Thin Lizzy-affected leads. "3:30"-"3:46" during "Ol'e Nessie" alone demonstrates some of the quirkiness that made Mastodon stand out in a stale genre burgeoning with metalcore clones, half-baked prog, past-its-prime tech death and hordes of uninteresting and over-produced European bands.

It's an extreme metal record that rocks, something that was rare and oft-ignored until metalcore bands like Avenged Sevenfold would turn that into a successful sales gimmick. The majority of that has to do with its rhythm.

The key to all music is rhythm; it's what differentiates something like The Violent Femmes' "Add It Up" from someone just blandly strumming a B power chord at an open mic. The core of a good riff is never the notes, it's its rhythm. Things like jazz and AC/DC always had a preternatural ability to determine where spaces and rests should go, why you shouldn't rush a phrase, why tremolo picking some C minor scale retread over blastbeats doesn't necessitate good music. Mastodon, from here until "Blood Mountain", understood that concept very well.

There's audible development in song structure, riffs change frequently and keep dynamic (although the band claims this is due to their "musical ADD") lending power to the longer songs which frequently contain dramatic bridge sections or riff refrains, which are frequently the only time Brann Dailor plays with the riffs as a standard drummer would, instead of playing "lead drums" against them. Though an aspect of the record that is criticized, it works because Dailor's actually a very good drummer, and someone who manages to tastefully overplay. This doesn't detract from the songs themselves because the band seemed to be quite aware of this and would occasionally surrender control of the dynamic and shift of the music to Brann as his drumming would take charge with the guitars and bass sometimes being static as he would appear to solo mid-song.

The guitars are no slouches either, supported by Sanders' distorted bass and employing everything from chicken pickin' to 70's arena rock harmonies to the signature open string arpeggios and interlude riffs the band made its signature. Against the more natural sound Marshall's produce, a lot of the guitar parts sound a lot noisier and more dissonant than they normally would, creating a record with crunch to spare and a lot of heft.

The "groove metal" tag is lazily slapped on this band now, but that seems to come from the vexing that they give some listeners, since there are songs that are blatantly Neurosis-influenced ("Trainwreck"), songs with more blatant rock feels ("Mother Puncher"), songs with a less-odd metered (and better written) Meshuggah feel ("March of the Fire Ants"). There are even a few death metal growls thrown in deep in the mix that, with the hardcore/sludge influence in the band, made them decidedly unique and difficult to categorize. This difficulty also made them appealing to all sorts, since they were never too much of one thing to alienate fans of a particular scene.

In terms of vocals, Troy is the dominant voice on this album, and possesses a gruff/hoarse sort of sludge metal throat that paces itself and is served well by the band's sparse lyrics. Like a lot of metal records, the lyrics are framed in sentence fragments and bandy ideas instead of presenting something fully detailed and literary like other genres. This isn't much a drawback since its a normal concession and a good amount can be determined or interpreted from what little is presented lyrically. As this is more of a guitar and drums record anyway, the lessened focus on vocals (particularly vocal rhythms which are performed well and in proper place but not anything special) and lyrics isn't surprising but doesn't really take anything away from the record as a whole.

This record was a landmark piece of original metal with great songwriting and proficient playing that hadn't yet ("Blood Mountain") bordered on the soulless and rhythm-less wanking of most progressive and technical metal. To tread a tired cliche, this album is just as heavy and crushing as their name, aesthetic, and song titles ("Trampled Under Hoof", "Crusher Destroyer", "Where Strides The Behemoth") implied and is perfect for anyone remotely into sludge but doesn't mind something that sounds this technical. Only hampered by "Trilobite" (which is maybe one plaintive Mastodon track too many and the sole dull entry on a surprisingly catchy album) and the second half of "Trambled Under Hoof" (which drags on a bit into "heavy-for-the-sake-of-heaviness" territory), "Remission" is a majestically heavy 00's metal and strong case that metal isn't quite dead. It's just that most of the bands can't write songs for shit.