Aug 25, 2021

Companion Thread: Z Gangsta reviews Kanye West Discography

@Z Gangsta and I made a deal that if he does track by track reviews of Kanye's discography, I'll do the same for Eminem. We're each doing their 10 main solo studio albums—that means no Re-Up, no Cruel Summer, no Watch the Throne, no Bad Meets Evil, etc...but who knows we may do those later if these turn out to be fun threads.

Eminem Albums (@Donkey Kong Country)
1. The Slim Shady LP
2. The Marshall Mathers LIP
3. The Eminem Show
4. Encore
5. Relapse
6. Recovery
7. The Marshall Mathers LP2
8. Revival
9. Kamikaze
10. Music to Be Murdered By

Kanye West Albums (@Z Gangsta)
1. The College Dropout
2. Late Registration
3. Graduation
4. 808s & Heartbreak
5. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
6. Yeezus
7. The Life of Pablo
8. ye
9. Jesus Is King
10. Donda

 

Aug 25, 2021

My pre-listen rankings from @Wreckless ranking thread—dunno if they'll change much but I spose we'll wait and see.

Tier 1:
SSLP
MMLP
Relapse

Tier 2:
TES
Music To Be Murdered By Side B
Music To Be Murdered By Side A
Encore
Kamikaze

Tier 3:
The Marshall Mathers LP 2
Recovery
Revival

 

Aug 25, 2021

I don’t like:
Business
Square Dance
Say What You Say
Soldier
When the Music Stops

Drips > all those songs to me tbh lol. At least it’s tongue in cheek, the ones I mentioned are so self serious besides Business which I liked when I was younger but I usually skip it now.

Half of Encore is horrible. But the situation with Encore is different because half of it he recorded while he was f----- up on pills cuz he was mad a bunch of songs leaked. Those songs on TES as I mentioned are so melodramatic and take themselves too seriously (which side note was my biggest problem with 2010-3017 Em honestly too). Encore isn’t a good album but the half he recorded before he got to deep into pills is great and feels like an actual follow up to TES.

There’s def fat to trim on relapse Relapse too, but Relapse scores a lot of points for me because of the musicality of it—there’s a vision behind it, those Dre beats are phenomenal, and everything sounds so crisp and atmospheric. And songs like My Mom, Hello, Deja Vu…they combine Em’s natural humor with his natural honesty and introspection (which again was something missing from from 2010-2017 Em lol).

I get why people love TES and I give it a hard time on purpose cuz it makes people engage with me about it lol—but the crux of all this is what I believe for real

 

Aug 25, 2021

when I'm talking about Relapse's vision I also mean sonically...that means not only in terms of the actual themselves but and how it was handled by one person (minus beautiful), but also the way it's mixed and mastered and how it flows from one song to the next...there's a variety of sounds/production but at the same time it all contributes to creating this dark, brooding atmosphere...and just the way Dre can make it all sound so crisp.

It's technically a concept album I guess but it's really loose and I don't think it needs to be a concept album to have a vision in the first place.

that's "my d-ck hit the spot tho" in smiley form

 

Aug 25, 2021

There's some good stuff on MMLP2 but it's bogged down by some of the worst songs he's ever made. I appreciate him trying something different with Berserk for the single tho

 

Aug 25, 2021

In this context I'd think of "leaden" as meaning clunky or awkward, and both reading the lyrics and listening to the song right now I agree—that passage def feels a little awkward and I had to read it a couple times to get what he meant. It's not necessarily wrong but if I was editing something and saw that sentence I would tell them to reword it.

Of course music is different than an article, but in this instance it's like he was making his ideas fit into the rhyme scheme instead of fitting the rhyme scheme around his ideas, if that makes sense?

 

Aug 25, 2021

I do hope u guys speak on the actual music and not what they had for breakfast, what event happened on the day they recorded a certain song or how another artist did a similar song 100 years ago

Also if either of u give most albums a mostly positive review I dont wanna hear u say "eminem sux" or "kanye sux" again!