Nizzy Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 Two in the top 30? Fuuuuuuuuuck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin M Posted December 12, 2014 Author Share Posted December 12, 2014 Two in the top 30? Fuuuuuuuuuck. No love for Big Poppa? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seymour Skinner Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 considering there's only 6 spaces left there will be some fantastic albums (IMO) left out. Also since it hasn't been yet, the soundtrack of the edgy teenager which is the Marshall Mathers LP looks set for a top 5 finish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nizzy Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 No love for Big Poppa? His words just don't hypnotise me, I'm afraid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin M Posted December 12, 2014 Author Share Posted December 12, 2014 A wee correction, album should have been 6 = rather than 7. My bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seymour Skinner Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 His words just don't hypnotise me, I'm afraid.Is his placing on the list giving you suicidal thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boostin' Kev Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 I meant more a rap group thats unashamedly political like PE or causes moral panic like NWA. Killer Mike is very political. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boostin' Kev Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 No DITC entries so far. Will be raging at everyone who voted if this stays the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nizzy Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 I doubt we'll see a 'Lifestylez of da Poor & Dangerous' or a 'Word...Life' this far up the list... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boostin' Kev Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 Theres a few others I prefer that should be in anyones top 20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shputnik Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 Kicking myself for not getting my vote in on time. Its been great listening to some of these albums again. Loved this band after watching them live at the Riverside in Newcastle sometime in the early 90s and would definitely be my top Hip Hop album of all time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee Man Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 Who the f**k is this, paging me at 5:46 in the morning? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin M Posted December 16, 2014 Author Share Posted December 16, 2014 6 = Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) For most of the artists in this list, there was a ceiling to their success, an upper limit to what they could achieve commercially. The biggest rap stars of the early 90s were the much maligned MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, hugely commercial with a pop audience, despised and continually dissed by hardcore rap fans. Like most genres which can be preceded by the word "hardcore", hip hop always had an inherent conservatism, the view that there was the right way to do things, and for all its sonic invention and open minded and liberal approach to borrowing from other forms of music, there was always suspicion over anything that went too far beyond the core audience. For the seasoned rap fan, Eminem posed a conundrum. Eminem is, and indeed was in 2000, a bona fide mega star, an unmistakeable pop icon, and a unique talent. The success of his Slim Shady LP meant that the follow up would always be huge, and so it proved. There's probably never been a hip hop album so readily praised and dissected by the rock centric music media. And so, many rap fans didn't know what to make of him - here was a (shock!) white trailer trash dickhead who people were being told was better than everyone else who did it before, who carried the patronage of Dr Dre, who could have Snoop Dogg guest on his album and could have legendary cult producer Mark the 45 King produce a huge pop hit for him. He didn't really rap about how great he was, although his second album is the most self obsessed spread of music you could imagine. He had the skills, he had the credibility, yet here was a character who for all the precedents we can think of, just wasn't like other rappers. As its name suggests, The Marshall Mathers LP has the air of autobiography to it, the other side of the coin to the cartoonish Slim Shady LP focussed on an alter ego. It's not quite that simple, Eminem still indulging his notion for horror centric fantasy on several tracks, but the album is about his fame, about the reaction to him as a phenomenon, and about how he is perceived. It's an album that achieves success by self examination, practically writing the analysis that would come in response to it. It's a type of meta fiction, an album about itself. Eminem has the flow, the lyrical prowess, the styles and the vocabulary to rightly be celebrated as a great MC, yet here he displays a cleverness too, and an ability to poke fun at himself, so that the whining about the trappings of fame never grate too much. Many artists develop so that the music that follows their opening statements becomes about fame, but few if any display the same level of creativity in making their finest work as a result. All of this makes the album sound like it's a difficult listen, and it really isn't. It had amazing singles - "Stan" may have sampled Dido, but her insufferable style is rendered as spooky chorus to accompany the tale of the too obsessed stalker who goes mental and mimics his hero by killing his pregnant girlfriend in his car, just before Eminem gets around to replying to him. Tragedy in pop never sounded so popcorn friendly. "The Real Slim Shady" continues in the hip hop tradition of dissing imitators, despite the knowledge that Slim Shady isn't even real in the first place, and including a fantasy of murdering Dr Dre. "The Way I Am" is a golden slice of righteous anger, a response to his fame and how he's perceived. The rest of the album offers up a number of gems, with guest turns from RBX and Sticky Fingaz of Onyx on "Remember Me?" and the school of Dre all stars with the man himself, Snoop, Xzibit and Nate Dogg on "Bitch Please II". "Criminal" entertains the notion of Eminem's thoughts and art being perceived as a crime, while horrorcore "love" song "Kim" acts as a prequel to "97 Bonnie and Clyde" from his debut as he plays out the scenes leading to him killing his partner, echoing the theme already revisited on "Stan". The accompanying music throughout, again helmed mostly by Dre and The Bass Brothers, is cartoon riffs over spiky beats, as if the good Doctor had never even heard a Parliament record and was instead obsessed with Danny Elfman. The Marshall Mathers LP was a smash, critically acclaimed and was such a defining point in Eminem's career that he made a sequel to it. I would imagine that the reaction to it on this thread will be mixed - some will be annoyed that it features so high in the list, some will consider it undeserving, some will be indifferent, some will hate it, but enough voted for it to be here so it's clearly well loved. In writing this I join the legions of those who have lavished it with praise, and I'm obliged to do so, whether I believe it or not. And so it goes. Consensus would be boring. And that's not a criticism that could be levelled at The Marshall Mathers LP, a clever yet emotional album that uniquely examined itself while conquering the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seymour Skinner Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 Boooooo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shandon Par Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 Who the f**k is this, paging me at 5:46 in the morning? Must be Pop from the barbershop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Real Saints Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 I still consider Eminem to be the best rapper of all-time and, for me, this is his best work. A brilliant album. If anything, I'm disappointed not to see it rewarded with a top 5 place. However, I didn't cast any votes and I can't complain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boostin' Kev Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 Told myself I wasnt going to complain again on this thread but Real Saints you need to listen to a lot more hip hop assuming you actually have an interest in this style of music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nizzy Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 I still consider Eminem to be the best rapper of all-time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seymour Skinner Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 I still consider Eminem to be the best rapper of all-time and, for me, this is his best work. A brilliant album. If anything, I'm disappointed not to see it rewarded with a top 5 place. However, I didn't cast any votes and I can't complain.Encore, recovery, mmlp2, shady xv and those d12 ones are all terrible, terrible albums.Edit: all of his other releases are also varying levels of corny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerSaint Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 I like this album and voted for it, probably a lot to do with nostalgia and it's time of release. EDIT: just listening to it now for the first time in a whole and I forgot how satisfying it is to song "Kill You". I think the top 4 are predictable - and for good reason might I add. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.