You can say what you want about Jay Z, but he's behind a number of the best hip-hop singles of the past 20 years.

I'd rather listen to "Brooklyn Go Hard," "Dead Presidents," "HOVA" or "Hard Knock Life" than "The Message" any day. Yeah, it might be more important, but it doesn't sound as good. And it can't even begin to compare the REAL classics like "Triumph," "Can I Kick it?" etc.

Just because it's the first doesn't mean it's the best, or even the mos important. That's really twisted logic. The Message was a nice blueprint, but people have built on it and transformed it, and it's got nothing on "Bombs over Baghdad" or ... fuck there's no point in even trying to list all the songs "The Message" is not better than.

Just a personal thang with Jay Z's music. never appeals to me. everytime I hear it I want to stop it.

Bombs Over Baghdad is not a song about societal ills. Hip Hop before The Message was DISCO man, straight fluff, party jams, to get people moving butts shaking and all that shit, completely superfluous thematically. The Message made Hip Hop a political force, more so than any other song of it's time, and it still holds up as a banger track.

Just my two cents. "Hard Knock Life" is the nadir of corpo-hip-hop. I fucking hate Jay Z and his bullshit music.

Of course it's just a personal thing. "Hard Knock Life" is the epitome of awesomely weird hip-hop sampling that works when it REALLY shouldn't. Glossy and stupid as Jay was during that era, that fucking song is undeniable.

All the stuff you're saying about "The Message" is fine, but I'd still rather listen to, like, a million fucking hip-hop songs than that. I love it, but it's dated as hell. I think a case could be made that a song as recent as "Alright" is more deserving of the top spot.

The Message was just the first sketch. Hip-hop has been filled in and colored and 3-D printed and molded and sculpted into a hundred different and more interesting pieces at this point. Is "Peggy Sue" the best rock song ever?

Please. No more parties in Houston, Rob.

I'd rather listen to Hard Knock Life than The Message or any Eminem song..

The quote I posted by Keef really made my day. :o I love how throughout his career he just keeps turning down all them crazy opportunities that every other rapper would only dream of, "just because".. dude doesn't give a damn about stardom, that's punk as fuck to me. Keef is so badass, man.

Also the home invasion accusations were false, so now I can appreciate him again.

Fuuuuck yeah, my ni-- ... never mind.

Hey I'm still waiting on your response to my last pm, loudbutt.

Wait, the home invasion accusations were ... false? As in, someone committed a felony by filing a false police report to frame him and now whoever did that is (presumably) in jail?

Or... was he just acquitted or something?

Gotta be crystal clear on this shit man.

The best rock song ever is Johnny B. Goode.

Not even a little bit.

It's weird that you look at things in such a traditional way — believing the alpha-song in a genre is the best song in that genre simply bevause it came first — especially since you've been outspoken about your disdain for "dad rock" like Radiohead (not dad rock), and your stubborn insistence to only listen to the newest (and worst) kind of hip-hop.

I mean, that's very strange. If you think "The Message" is the best hip-hop song, one would think you'd listen to hip-hop that is culturally and sonically connected to it; hip-hop that continues its tradition. Instead, you're all about Lil Yachty, and other artists who aren't even from the same gene pool.

One would also think you'd appreciate traditionalism — not hate on "dad rock" because it's old or whatever... or made by older people.. ???

Actually, you hate the fact that traditionalist old farts vote on the Grammys, but those old farts are more likely to measure rock based on a "Johnny B. Goode" metric, and hip-hop based on a "The Message" metric.

Anyway, you're a constant source of bewilderment for me. But maybe that's why you're "Rob Instigator" and not "Rob Participator" or "Rob Abettor" or "Rob Peacemaker." :D

Johnny B. Goode honestly doesn't do too much to me.. so even if it's the BEST song, whatever.

@ Sev - I'll reply to your PM as soon as possible.

Also, just off the top of my head...

"A Day in the Life"
"Come Together"
"God Only Knows"
"You Really Got Me"
"Like a Rolling Stone"
"Satisfaction"
"All Along the Watchtower" (Dylan, Hendrix, as you like)
"Search and Destroy"
"Purple Rain"

Just a few hit (and hit-ish) songs in the classic rock vein that are better than "Johnny B. Goode" even though they're not quite as archtypal. I would throw several others of lesser renoun on my own personal list, but these are just some standards that are more interesting.)

Yeah, you do that man. I've been thinking of you.

Also, I feel like our once close-knit café crew has all but dissipated this year.

Louder, did you happen to hear the leaked Kanye features that popped up over the weekend? One with Migos, one with Young Thug and one with Rocky.

I'm not going to post them here because they're not done, and they weren't supposed to be heard or released, so it feels shady to share that. Also, I pray they're unfinished, because ... well, they're not good. Sonically the Migos track is ok, and Kanye's flow sounds fine, but it sounds like he's just making up the lyrics as he goes. Literally freestyling. And the result is... um... really shit lyrics, to be honest.

Don't post them. We're not here to post bad demos that were never meant to see the light of day.

He's apparently not in "album mode" right now, but last time he wasn't in "album mode," we got "Only One," "FourFiveSeconds," "All Day," and that fetal version of "Wolves."

Hope he re-enters "album mode" soon, or just calls it a day and retires with the best track record in hip-hop (or modern music) history.

OH, YEAH...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. WEST!!!

Hip Hop used to be about individualism and iconoclasts and trying to be as entertaining as possible while also talking real shit. I respect someone like Kanye because he is always true to himself, but I do not like what he creates.

I loved sonic youth as a young teen and janes addiction and butthole surfers and godflesh and megadeth and the misfits and dinosaur, because each on eof those groups was menacing, scary in their own way, transgressive, and did not give a flying fuck about what anyone thought of them. This is why I love Young Thug, Future, Yachty, OT Genasis, Rae Sremmurd, etc now, and why I loved Geto Boys, Outkast, UGK, Public Enemy, De La Soul etc....

I can sniff out when a musical artist is desperate for acclaim and wide acceptance above actually crafting greatness. I don't think Kanye does that so more power to him. he could give a fuck. no shame in his game. wish his music was actually as interesting to me.

Oh well.

BTW, "best ____ song ever" is always a subjective. there is no best anything ever. in truth the message is not the best hip hop track. That is impossible to define. my favorite hip hop track changes as I live and grow and shit but right now it is "Louder than a Bomb" PE https://youtu.be/vp1W2I6uWOg

CIA, FBI, all they tell us is lies/when I say it they get alarmed/cuz I'm louder than a bomb

I love talking about music

I think "Like a Rolling Stone" is a rock song. Not a folk song. I think it was written to be, rather explicitly, not a folk song. It's even got a little swagger to it. Listen to it Live at Royal Albert Hall performance, and tell me it doesn't rock.

I guess "A Day in the Life" might not be a ROCK song, but it's also not a pop song. It's a an experimental blending, and creation, of gentes. It plants one foot in the past and a foot in the future, but it's center always seems to be in the present, even today. It eats "Stairway to Heaven" for breakfast and then shits it back out and leaves it burning on your principals doorstep. Hard to think of a more subversive mainstream song on a major album in that era. I think it qualifies as rock.

I refuse to go by theory when it comes to stuff like this. "Rock is 4/4 time and blah blah blah." I think rock is whatever rock spat out st a given moment, so "Love Will Year us Apart" is rock. "Like a Rolling Stone" is rock. "Smells like Teen Spirit" is rock. "Paranoid Android" is rock.

Just like "Hey Ya" is hip-hop even though it's really not in a technical sense. Same with innumerable Kanye songs, and, indeed, Young Thug songs. They're not hip-hop, but hip-hop had a seizure and vomited things like "Runaway" and "Who Will Survive in America," and "Hey Ya" and Death Grips and the world is a better place for it. Sometimes genres are defined and even kept alive/rejuvenated by weird-ass moments that kinda defy all expectation about what the genre means. And in that sense, "A Day in the Life" is definitively rock n' roll by virtue of how much it fucked rock n' roll in the brain.

You know what I mean, I'm sure.
Also, thanks for acknowledging that Kanye has some integrity as an artist. At least in the way we care about ("we" meaning not just you and I, but folks who define great artists by how little of a fuck they give about maintaining the status quo. Sonic Youth fans. Punk fans, etc.) even if you never like a single song of his, it's nice to hear you say that you respect him a little.

Also, I don't actually think "Satisfaction" is better than "Johnny B. Goode." The Stones have a ton of songs that are so much better than that, and I've always found it to be quite overrated.

Anyhoo... whatevs.

I think "Like a Rolling Stone" is a rock song. Not a folk song. I think it was written to be, rather explicitly, not a folk song. It's even got a little swagger to it. Listen to it Live at Royal Albert Hall performance, and tell me it doesn't rock.

I guess "A Day in the Life" might not be a ROCK song, but it's also not a pop song. It's a an experimental blending, and creation, of gentes. It plants one foot in the past and a foot in the future, but it's center always seems to be in the present, even today. It eats "Stairway to Heaven" for breakfast and then shits it back out and leaves it burning on your principals doorstep. Hard to think of a more subversive mainstream song on a major album in that era. I think it qualifies as rock.

I refuse to go by theory when it comes to stuff like this. "Rock is 4/4 time and blah blah blah." I think rock is whatever rock spat out st a given moment, so "Love Will Year us Apart" is rock. "Like a Rolling Stone" is rock. "Smells like Teen Spirit" is rock. "Paranoid Android" is rock.

Just like "Hey Ya" is hip-hop even though it's really not in a technical sense. Same with innumerable Kanye songs, and, indeed, Young Thug songs. They're not hip-hop, but hip-hop had a seizure and vomited things like "Runaway" and "Who Will Survive in America," and "Hey Ya" and Death Grips and the world is a better place for it. Sometimes genres are defined and even kept alive/rejuvenated by weird-ass moments that kinda defy all expectation about what the genre means. And in that sense, "A Day in the Life" is definitively rock n' roll by virtue of how much it fucked rock n' roll in the brain.

You know what I mean, I'm sure.
Also, thanks for acknowledging that Kanye has some integrity as an artist. At least in the way we care about ("we" meaning not just you and I, but folks who define great artists by how little of a fuck they give about maintaining the status quo. Sonic Youth fans. Punk fans, etc.) even if you never like a single song of his, it's nice to hear you say that you respect him a little.

Also, I don't actually think "Satisfaction" is better than "Johnny B. Goode." The Stones have a ton of songs that are so much better than that, and I've always found it to be quite overrated.

Anyhoo... whatevs.

I don't even know what I just walked into. But I love it.

I was never a big Stones fan. I think Sticky Fingers is great sure. But I was always a Beatles guy in the Stones/Beatles debate.

BUT my favorite Stones song "Back Street Girl." Ugh. Great song. kind of wrong, but great sounding.

Also much as y'all hate Eminem, I think "Toy Soldiers" is utterly brilliant. And I think "Rap God" is probably the finest example of his actual rapping skills.

"Hard Knock Life" is amazing - and I mostly think that Jay's carrier was horrible for that stretch. Seriously I think the IN MY LIFE or whatever trilogy is pretty much the worst era of his work. How you go from Reasonable Doubt to those three records? Everything* before and after is better albums. I mean I'd still rather hear I don't know... Streets Is Watching?

*except the R. Kelly collabs.

I also think it's stupid to even spend any brain power debating a Rolling Stone mag list of hip hop songs in 2017. I mean I grew up reading that mag, but they're so antiquated at this point who are we kidding even discussing?

Same. Definitely same. But, I'm not sure that debate really exists anymore. That was a debate for our parents' generation. The Stones have gone on to live (and limp) trough SO many different variations of the same exact phase since their early late-'69s to early-'70s golden period that they have really botched their chance at having a career comparable to that of the Beatles, who quit almost 50 years ago, after less than a decade, leaving the world with an incomparable legacy. I think for a time, especially as the Beatles were dissolving and after their breakup, the Stones had a shot at being a force of nearly equal power, but if you look at their careers as a whole, you have 7-8 years of lightning in a bottle that changed music forever and will someday be the subject of doctoral dissertations just as Shakespeare is today (the Beatles), and then you have the ultimate band that didn't know when to quit, and represents the stereotypical arena rock legacy band that can still make money touring, but hasn't released a truly good record since before we were born (the Rolling Stones.)
There is no Beatles vs. Stones except for hardcore Stones fans who think Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon are, like, classic albums (hah!). I think a good analogy for our generation would be Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam. Does anyone sit around and argue about which of those bands is better and more significant? I don't believe any sane person does, except for our version of those Stones folks... the people who genuinely think Lightning Bolt is great, and have deluded themselves into thinking that Pearl Jam is somehow too good for the dumb old modern world to properly appreciate (not true).

I think there's still a debate about who the most definitive old guy artist of the classic rock era is, but I think that debate is about The Stones vs. Bob Dylan. Both are doing covers albums 50 years after their superiors bowed out and left a permanent mark, and with respect to that debate, Dylan is better.


Mine is *probably* "Play With Fire." It's a weird choice, I know, but it just hits that sweet spot. And that scene in Darjeeling Ltd. kind of cemented it for me. I also really love just a fuck ton of their music from Satanic Majesty's to Goat's Head Soup. It may sound like I'm anti-Stones, but I'm not. I'm just anti-BAD Stones; which is basically all Stones since Goat.


I don't totally hate Eminem, and I definitely don't think he's a bad rapper (not that you were insinuating that I felt that way... I know you weren't). But to say he's bad at rapping is just factually and categorically untrue. He's an amazing rapper. He just chooses to rap about the **dumbest possible shit over beats that mostly sound like they came from a child's jack-in-the-box toy. But I like the beat of "Role Model," and I could probably listen to him freestyle all day (as long as I didn't have to watch him... his mannerisms really put me off), and I recently revisited "I Just Don't Give a Fuck" and "Rock Bottom"and there are some decent moments on both tracks.

(** Why people throw tantrums over Kanye's "bleached asshole" line in an otherwise soaring and vibrant song, when Eminem got away with saying the most absurdly disgusting shit about the most absurd things in the most uninteresting ways for the stupidest reasons for so long... is just absolutely beyond me.)

My main issue with Eminem, aside from his entire existence being perhaps the most perverse waste of talent in the history of mankind, is that he always tries to hit the same note. Unhinged murdery dude who has a daughter and is "not afraid" but probably shouldn't have a daughter, and should be afraid. I think a lot of people still believe he's relevant to rap, and that's just absurd. He's never really been relevant to rap culture. He was relevant to rap becoming something white people of the worst kind could appreciate. He was rap's Elvis, it's true, and he became so big standing on the backs of black America. His popularity was always a symptom of casual, culture-wide racism. He never chose to actually take any kind of stand about anything significant, and used his pulpit to make plain white t-shirts super popular.
It didn't have to be that way. He could have, I don't know, NOT rapped about mouth raping Hillary Clinton... NOT rapped about beating up women (at the best of times) and murdering them with his daughter at the worst of times.
But even that was better than when he became the Creed of rap, and developed his god complex and stopped being in on his own joke and started to legitimately milk his celebrity without irony.
ALSO, as I said before, songs like "Lose Yourself" and its malnourished conjoined twin song "Sing for the Moment" gave birth to a kind of bullshit hick-centric pattern in rap-adjacent rock that we're still dealing with today. The overly self-serious autobiographical white guy overcoming odds motif has been used by every one of the worst artists of the era, including Nickelback and Everlast and ugh... Machine Gun Kelly.
He could have been something great, but nope. And yet, people all over the world who are uncomfortable with blackness respond to the praise heaped on Kendrick Lamar by saying, "What a joke! Let me know when he can do THIS" and posting videos of Eminem rhyming "orange bill" with "ignore skill."

Kendrick Lamar is a better technical rapper than Eminem. So was Tupac. Eminem is a has-been whom many dumb white Americans somehow think is still "being."

I basically agree. I definitely agree that "Hard Knock Life" was the absolute highlight of the In My Lifetime... era. Those albums had some moments, especially, I believe, the first one. But on the whole, they're quite shoddy. Their "moments" are few. Most of them are pretty minor moments. Except for "Hard Knock Life," which is about as perfect as radio rap got in 1998.

I used to excuse those albums, because I was just plain loyal to Jay Z — I mean, he can be so impressive at his best that it's really hard to think of him as an artist who was lacking, especially with all that kind of retroactive legendary status that became affixed to his name and brand in the late-'00s and early-2010s. But you're goddamn right... when you look at what he's capable of when he's really ON... when you look at his truly great albums (Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, The Black Album, American Gangster, **Watch the Throne), it's hard to forgive his earlier discretions. ESPECIALLY those R. Kelly collabs. YEESH.

** It's kind of interesting that despite the shared album credit, Watch the Throne has become, rather indesputably, a "Kanye" thing at this point. Like, when people list the Kanye albums (which many critics and bloggers and bloggers have been doing online since COMPLEX put that list together a while back), WTT is always included. Not included with an asterisk, but ranked right alongside College Dropout and MBDTF. Jay's name may have come first on the album itself, but as far as popular discourse goes, WTT is a Kanye joint.

As it really should be. Jay had some great verses on that album, but what would it have been without Kanye's curative abilities? His sense of style and flow. His humor. His own production, and his actual rapping on the tracks, which I believe goes just as hard as Jay's in most cases.

Jay tried his hand at executive producing and curating... remember that? The Baz Luhrman Great Gatsby "soundtrack?" Yeah... I don't really remember it either, except that it re-used "No Church in the Wild," a very Kanye-centric WTT song.

Hahaha!

Ok, we all need to talk about..

B R O C K H A M P T O N

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMZZUyos1kI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ZRRlVDVa8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VkyJWH5ak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpu0JZxDz-w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nWYiEq4wd0

Man, wow. I haven't felt this way about a new group since Odd Future. They are much much better than OF though.

Where the hell did these guys come from? Just wow.

Speechless.

Their name is dumb as fuck, but I'm listening to "Gold" right now and I'm impressed. Who are these guys?

What a nice, eerie, jazzy, soulful beat.

I like this shit louder.
I like it. Only about half-way into my first song, but fuck me in the ass, this shit is promising as fuck.

P.s. When are you going to pm me? After some of those messages I got from you you'll understand if I'm a little nervous about not having heard back from you. You good bro?

Holy shit, "HEAT" is even better!!!

Yeah I'm fine dude, thanks! Just exams + work have been keeping me busy. I promise I will get back to you soon!

YES!!

I'm still not sure who they are. They seemed to have arrived outta nowhere and are now getting praise by all the blogs and critics.

A friend told me about them, then the next day I saw that NeedleDrop gave their album a 9/10, you know I don't really care for his opinions, but still, that score is pretty rare from him.

I haven't heard the album yet, just watched their vids on YouTube yestetday and I was pretty amazed. They've got that classic, raw, underground hip hop feel going on, but mixed with all that new, modernized shit.

I hate the NeedleDrop guy. He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. He's not actually very articulate, but he goes for the "articulate, intelligent guy" shtick. A lot of what he says makes me wonder what the fuck world he's living on. Like how he said, in his ranking of Kanye albums where he placed Yeezus in LAST PLACE, that "a lot of fans and critics couldn't get behind this album because... (blah)"

Seriously, prematurely bald college dropout guy? Really? Yeezus was an album fans and critics couldn't "get behind?" Uhhh... it was ranked either the #1 or #2 album of 2013 by *literally* every major outlet that bothers listing that kind of thing. Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Spin, Pitchfork, Guardian, Time, Newsweek, and maybe hop on over to AOTY.com just to see how many others. But apparently we "couldn't get on board," and it was just "experimentation for experimentation's sake." It's not even really that experimental... it's just not easily boxed in hip-hop. And no, if actually doesn't sound anything like Death Grips, though I get why the album is conceptually linked with he band.

Fat-headed idiot.

Oh and he said DAMN. was weak, and bitched about some of the best parts. Ugh. I hate listening to him talk about shit. He gets things wrong too. Untitled mastered. wasn't a "B-sides" compilation, moron. Idiot. That's factually and categorically incorrect.

And he's not funny. To his credit though, it takes an awful lot of determination to become a nationally known "music critic" despite having no experience or education. You really have to have a lot of time to kill making YouTube videos. How *brave* that in this independent contractor "gig" economy, someone would pursue such a dream. *eyeroll*

He want everyone to think he's like a huge fan of all different genres, but I don't buy it. Listen to him talk about Swans. He's missing some pieces of that puzzle. There are gaps in his knowledge. And let's face it, the only propel who legitimately think College Dropout is the best Kanye album are this generation's "I like their early stuff" posers. The people who decide what they like and don't like based on an urge to go against popular opinion. Like the assholes who think "London Calling" isn't real Clash, because they want to be able to look down on people. Ugh!!

Fuck you, NeedleDrop guy!

They have one that album that came out in 2016. Check it out on Apple Music or Spotify or YouTube or whatever.

late to respond, but I actually liked the Great Gatsby soundtrack quite a bit.

Hmm. I guess I've never really listened to it. I was pissed that it was marketed as a rap album, so I was expecting something like American Gangster. Then I realized it was more like a score... or something? With a couple bars scattered throughout and "No Church in the Wild."

Is it worth looking into? Certainly not worth buying, but if I'm missing something let me know.

nah. More than anything I should say "I really liked it in the context of the movie".

Ah.

New albums by Young Thug, Keef, 2 Chainz, Big Boi. Opinions, y'all?

need to hear these albums. I have been too busy to do so lately.

I'm sick of 2 Chainz. Jesus Christ.

Probably not going to listen to any of the others, except maybe Big Boi.

"so many bitches by the pool/ I make them hos look like my landscape"

I love 2Chainz. he is funny. Kanye? Not funny AT ALL.