Sunday, July 18, 2010

#128 Lil Wayne - Tha Carter II

Going through some albums that were making the rounds on "best rap albums of the 00's lists".

Two short rants: what is with rap albums having sequel names? The Blueprint 2, OB4CL2, Stillmatic, The Chronic 2001, Tha Carter II (and 3!). Also, again, why are these rap albums so fucking long? 77 minutes? That is too damn long to listen to in a sitting.

This is tricky, in that there are some good songs on here. The guy is a deft rapper, and he has a slurred, whiplash style that I sort of enjoy. Here, try this, say "Yep", taking note of what happens to your mouth and voice. That's what every syllable on this album sounds lie, all "ye" -style windup and a dulled "p"-style hit on the beat. On the first few tracks, he's just rapping and rapping, and its flowing, and it sounds great, and the subject matter is even gritty and unpretentious.

But there's so much I don't like on here. God. Rant #3. I can't stand choruses in rap, they kill the flow, and they're almost always the worst part of the song. That's right, the worst part of the song is repeated again and again. They're song killers. Entire busdriver albums have been ruined by his recent move to choruses. There's tons of choruses here.

So despite finding things I like on here, as an album, given its excessive length and near-unlistenability of so many of the songs, its not really a win 3/5

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