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.