"dirrty drrunkies".

(do not download if you have anything better to do!)

jennifer lopez - "jenny from the block"

in winter the radio becomes less important to my listening - the feeling i get in spring and summer that its not only fun but genuinely important to hear what's going on isn't there with the same intensity. if i'm walking with headphones i keep choosing the j timberlake album over radio one; i still wake up to the radio but jesus christ, i swear it's always that shitty, tinkly u2 song playing at the exact moment i become conscious! i'm sure it is partly the drop in quality releases - the only songs i'm really enjoying are "sk8er boi"/"complicated", "dirrty", "heaven is a halfpipe" (which refuses to die a year or more since it's release, and thank god because now i love it so much!) and "jenny from the block".

i don't think any beat this year has been so pleasing and simple to digest - just straight up 'trackmasters do "south bronx" with flutes' executed perfectly to hit the pleasure zones ("south bronx" is still a great beat too). j-lo seems to have found a slinky voice which fits, one that can't be easily attributed to another singer's style, although no doubt its as real/fake as when she kind of sounds like milian or kind of sounds like ashanti or toni braxton etc etc. it probably should have been a monster summer jam, but i'm happy its around now without the baggage of distorted "man i was so happy in july" memories. i'm also thinking this is a more coherent and genuinely enjoyable old/nu face-off than anything on the missy album. i still don't understand why radio is playing the version without styles and jada though!

nas - "made you look"

"this ain't rappin'/this is street-hop"! despite the many, many problems i have with the nas persona, i really can't fuck with signing to murder inc only to release a white label which sounds like vintage paris - no doubt this is an attempt to hold on to the ageing hardcore illmatic fanbase (who've already been strung along for eight whole years) and anyone who is still excited by the "apache" break (me!). it might be cynical but this track is silly, theatrical, brilliant, and maybe the last glimpse ever of a bearable nas, since irv "prove yourself in the charts!" gotti would never let a whole record sound like this. (maybe he forced its white label status!)

blueprint two: cd two

diamonds are forever
it begins again! with initially low key sounding so-called filler, but you know this has a really good ruff ryder style chorus and goth chords. "young cause I'm thirty-two, dressed like I'm twenty-two/flow like i'm eighteen, do what I wanna do" - that's right man, eighteen till i die! this is really good!

guns n roses
i knew he was gonna say "more guns than roses"! jay needs to step away from the whole biggie thing for a couple of albums after this - i mean the soul on blueprint one was the first thing he did to genuinely move away from all the song styles which big might as well have invented (only relevant with jay because he has constantly pushed himself as successor, most people should probably sound more like biggie) but now this whole album is virtually about him!

anyway - that's right, jay said it! lenny fucking kravitz! fuck you all! i really liked one of his songs once but i forget what it's called, i'm sure it had a better riff than this song, although i like the chorus a lot! like jay just said to lenny stop fucking around and do some of that "cashmere" shit. the first two beats on this cd could also have been on the eminem show.

u don't know (remix)
i was going to say, jesus christ, don't put a remix of the already overrated "u don't know" on here for absolutely no reason, but then as soon as mop start shouting it becomes obvious this beat is the reason jay signed them to roc-a-fella because they sound so perfect! i bet they were asked to rhyme over this beat for audition purposes. honestly i'm not interested in listening to their relentless barrage most of the time, its too tiring, but in the context of this album its a shocking breath of hardcore fresh air! their entire roc debut album will sound exactly like this! did lil fame just say "rock with my cock out/face the crowd and piss off stage"!!!! i will never dismiss mop again.

meet the parents
that was such a great film! serious, i remember seeing it just before christmas 2000 - we had already sat through little nicky the same day and that was pretty good but i was kind of down on big cinema comedy, feeling like, you know, come on just make me laugh please! and then meet the parents has a really tight scenario and the kind of tone where no one can get away without laughing! my favourite part is where ben stiller has to wear those really small swimming trunks! ahh, we've all been there. this is an ok song "city is mine" style.

somehow someway
it's time to get reflective! this has a pretty sped-up sample that is kind of familiar, but it has to be said the whole sped up voice duet thing has about a month left before it gets hugely annoying ("i really mean it" by cam should have ended it!)! is this the album that gets such a bad critical (and maybe commercial) reception that it will kill off all recent roc-related trends? that would be interesting but i don't think this record deserves it in spite of the boring beats on most of cd two's songs so far; i've enjoyed the wildly disjointed feel and the lack of 'progression' because i always resent albums when they sound like they should actually be listened to from start to finish!

this song has great guest spots!scarface's voice is a thing of unnatural beauty and calm, its not even that important what he's saying, i just want to hear him speak all the time right into my ear to give me goosebumps! beanie has a less beautiful voice but sometimes he says good things.

some people hate
"this must be the way the nigga pac felt when he made 'me against the world', 'all eyez on me'/y'all niggaz got me feelin like all eyes on me, me against the world" - worst ad lib ever! this sounds like soul 2 soul and jay has precisely nothing interesting to say about hatas!

blueprint 2
more goth chords! w-w-where did all the fun go? so, its time for jay to reiterate that he dislikes nas and dumb old jaz-o and make an embarrassing austin powers reference in the chorus. nas would never pull that, but to be fair jay would never go for the ultra-lame junior school conceptual tracks ("whoo, what would it feel like if i was a gun!" "what if i did a song like that film memento!" - its like if ras kass actually got famous!) that always turn me off nas. but jigga, get some new enemies please! (why is this the song that is actually called "blueprint 2" like jay is entirely defined by these battles which aren't even real! stop it!)

nigga please
i said fuck the neptunes!

2 many hoes
"yea yea yea i know you rap and your sister spit too/you been callin the office and you can't get through/i understand all that, but now ain't the time/i came to the club to get that off my mind/and all you thugs with your war stories startin to bore me/i ain't tryin to hear about your guts and glory/i'm tryin to hear b.i.g. and some cuts from nore/and you keep talkin over the beat like clue" ouch! predictably, this has the most fun verses on the whole album! but if this is a timbaland beat then its yet more evidence his zen drum programming ability has disappeared. mysterious!

as one
due to jigga fatigue i made jack cable review the last two songs: "bam!!!!!!!!! massive over production, this joint rocks!!! wow!! rell is singing a singy bit AVANTE HARD!!! is jay-z even on this!! who cares it has a sub-house tempo 4-to-the-floor riddim! RIDDIM!! i think that all all rap-hop should in fact be house music, but without the rapping. this jizzoint has a rapper called peedo crack , CONTROVERSIAL!!"

ballad for the fallen soldiers
jack cable sez! "WAR!! a song about soldiers! bravo two zero to any callsign. BRAVO TWO ZERO TO ANY CALLSIGN!!!, crappy slo-mo beats and suck-core synth lines, wheres motherfucking teddy riley bitch when you need him?!?!?!?!?! jay-z loves soldiers, thats why he wrote a ballad about them, what with his sweetheart going off to invade saddam hussein or whatever...it's like ghostface always says- "we eat fish/toss salads and make rap ballads" , but not this rap ballad! w0rd."

man, the three bonus tracks are really good! but they're bonus tracks so they don't count.

ok, if blueprint two part two the sequel that has no equal isn't on here by tomorrow afternoon then i'll just pretend i refuse to review any cd featuring lenny kravitz and forget about it.

also, hiphopsite news points to something i totally missed on cd one where jay admits to stabbing that motherfucker lance 'un' rivera! its surely time for ja rule to own up to repeatedly attempted-murderizing 50 cent in hilarious fashion!

blueprint two

the spizzazzz annual album review!

a dream
first track the beat is kind of like the "dream on" track from the eminem show, rock descending bassline, probably some kind of famous sample. i don't know! faith evans sounds good but this is kind of lame as myth-making epic opening track. the main thing is it has the whole first verse of "juicy" actually performed by biggie at the end, what the fuck!? of course it's a brilliant idea, thanks faith, for representing biggie's estate to further your guest appearances! also a very explicit way of introducing the record as jay's version of life after death.

hovi baby
this is one of those bombastic tracks that go absolutely nowhere like specifically "the ruler's back", plus a lot of other b-list roc-a-fella product - time to change that up surely? i have no problem with mediocre filler but it would be cool if they changed the mediocre filler style from album to album! i find all these cymbals and hard kicks incredibly annoying! the problem i'm finding is the copy i downloaded is muddy and ridiculously bass-heavy so i can hardly hear what jay is saying, virtually invalidating this whole review! but nevermind! i can understand the choruses. (this chorus is shit but it's growing on me.)

the watcher 2
you know, a sequel to "the watcher" off chronic 2001! was it just crying out for one?? i dunno, but at least dre is actually on the boards with an even more minimal version of the original beat and a very brief verse. truth hurts causes a stink on the chorus. i don't think i actually like her voice at all! motherfucker it's rakim! sounding very deliberate and like he's trying too hard to project his voice (which is pretty much how he's sounded since the 97 comeback), never fear a burst of spontaniety around ra! this isn't as good or as interesting as the ra track off the 8 mile soundtrack, which suddenly comes into perfect focus two minutes in! i want to put that on right now.

03 bonnie and clyde
beyonce! kind of low key for the first single really? it starts off promising with the "cruisin down a west side high - way!" part, but honestly i haven't been arsed about playing this since first hearing it like a month ago. jay is supposed to come up with song formats that fat joe will try to cop, not the other way round! aspiring to be the new bobby and whitney is utterly heart warming! i'm not sure of the idea behind the allusions to relatively recent rap hits which seem to be all over the album yet, unless it just means jay owns us all.

excuse me miss
the kind of song that makes me just want to go for a coffee and forget this whole thing. sub-"big poppa" seduction beat, rubbish chorus, jay as ll/biggie hybrid - where are the witty, bitchy lines and the dismissive chuckle! this is some "no, i really actually love you" shit, but not in entertaining "hey papi" way.

what they gonna do?
ghetto real rap! crazy synths that aren't really very ear-catching anymore but still do their job nicely! some nice battle rhymes from jay from what i can actually hear! omg it has a fairly insane dancehall coda! this is pushing all my buttons! it claims to feature sean paul but all he does is answer jay on the chorus and mumble in the dancehall part. it reminds me though that i want to hear the sean paul album, and thus it's purpose is served. so far jay's voice is sounding too much like jay from blueprint one when it would be nice to hear him stretch. instead of life after death it might turn out blueprint + vol 2 = blueprint 2 but not as fresh as either obviously.

around the world
soul (we got it!). nothing to do with east 17 or, um, other people who have used this title. anyway this is the first sign of blueprint one's defining idea - 'timeless' soul samples with very little embellishment for jay to insist we respect him over! this format seems to be jay's most universally loved, but they sometimes give off an irritating 'this is bigger than hiphop' vibe, a leap towards a non-rap form of greatness which i don't really give a fuck about. no one is bigger than hiphop! fleeting rap greatness is eight million times more fun! still, this is a catchy tune.

poppin' tags
bounce! jay rhyming 75/150bpm double-time is perhaps the one unimpeachable, always-gold formula in all of music. i mean "big pimpin", "nigga what", "is that your bitch" = gold! i can't decide whether this is up to that standard after one listen, cuz although jay's verse sounds eye-watering, the track is trying to bring together raised-eyebrow outkast chorus style with the sighing soul blueprint thing! and bounce! it's rare when bounce productions can bring in any kind of true organic element and make it work; even beautiful string samples sound lame with stutter kicks (cf. any brit-hop attempt at bounce, the new trina single) - i think outkast have probably done it well at some point but i can't remember. oh shit, all that is irrelevent because twista just started spitting! i love twista!

fuck all night
"till we both start yawning"! nothing to do with mocky but quite sleazy all the same. bizzare lift from the beginning of "you don't have to call" by usher so jay can riff on it for the pre-chorus. this leery horny-parody beat works very well! it appears to be beanie sigel on the chorus in pervoid sing-rap style - why not just actually get usher? is he too much of a prude to come out and say he wants to fuck all night? "just keep your mouth shut/we can do this again/bring a friend" oh!

the bounce
zzzzz neptunes zzzzz blah blah fuck them. (important fact: this is not bounce.)

i did it my way
'omg he said "vamoose"'/'mob ties like sinatra' bullshit extended to a whole song - unnecessary yes? but also strangely touching, even if this is the most fucked sound-quality-wise so far, the bass is killing my speakers! this is the end of cd one, which scares me as to how the end of cd two can be even more final than this!

cd two coming tonight or tomorrow morning!

chart.

christina milian has the most perfect bubblegum r'n'b voice, she makes all her sustained proper singing bits really pretty to offset the chewy latina thing and her own singles are great - so great that spizzazzz was started just so we could say she's fucking cool. but now she's slumming it with passive-aggressive romeo and using the "top billin'" beat, which isn't automatically a bad thing i suppose, i just can't imagine romeo making a good hiphop-tempo record ever (he has the second-worst "seductive" style in all of music behind s****y [yay, he's at number ten!], though it's not drastically different from nelly's delicate flow on "dilemma" - maybe its romeo's annoying face!). milian makes it worth hearing but she's showing her lack of world-beating success by appearing at all - this shouldn't matter but i don't want to feel like i'm listening to second rate pop by second rate pop stars! it's not like j lo would have done this song, and that's the barometer by which milian must be judged (not always counting actual quality of music).

only "beautiful stranger" has transcended madonna's horribly coached voice in like the past eight years; "die another day" was ear-pricking for a few listens but all the melodrama is lame and now i don't want to play it again ever.

hearing that whitney's new song was called "whatchulookinat", i wanted to believe it would be a dancehall beat made entirely from gunshot noises - the chorus would be a brief silence before whitney screamed "whatchu lookin at!? (bang! bang!)" like five or six times, and the verses would be all about which haters she'd like to shoot with big motherfucking guns! and oh look, the sweaty-lipped, paranoid lyrics of the released song really are scary, even if the production is some unremarkable puffy-ness. there was surely a choice to be made on this comeback: to present a 'same as it ever was/i've been doing this for years' classic vibe where all her problems are put aside to bask in the glory of being a soul diva; or to address everyone who's fucked with her, a tactic which can only make her seem even crazier! can you guess which path she chose?? (she even explicitly tries to alienate everyone who's not in her "strong following" of good-hearted whitney obsessives!)

amerie (at number forty!) faces the plight of most american urban acts who don't get picked up for heavy a-list radio one love - a shame of course cuz "why don't we fall in love" brings the drama nicely, even if it's more of a summer melancholy style than winter chill (the video is set on the first day of summer, you dumbo marketing fucks!). i suppose the disappointing sales are mostly to do with the lack of having anything familiar to hang it on, like a nep beat or a cameo by a rapper who is properly famous here, which ludacris still isn't, thank christ. i wish "grindin" would get released over here because i can't even fathom whether it would do well or not. that's exciting!

all the other new entries are impossibly bad.