best outkast album

southernplayalistic

I voted Aquemini. Mainly because one of my best friends in college would play it all the time and then was always saying "go and marinate on that for a minute." honestly, it was funny.

ATL

those first four albums...man that was some run

Aquemini>>>>ATLiens>>>>Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik>>>>>>Stankonia>>>>>>>>>>>>yawn>>>>yawn pt 2.

Aquemini, if only for the astounding Liberation. I will still unfashionably defend the double album, though.

Yeah, each of them have a totally great 45-minute single album in there. Two doubles was insane (and obv Andre has a lot more dross to drop).

Southernplayalistic is way below the first three for me. Idlewild also gets a "not shit" rating and I'm looking forward to listening again after I get around to seeing the movie.

Hard choice between Aquemini and Stankonia, but I had to go with the latter. So many stand-out tracks on that album.

I probably listen to Southernplayalistic most at this point, but ATLiens is possibly my favorite headphone record ever.

I will still unfashionably defend the double album, though. Probably take it over Stankonia, too.

Aquemini, for sure. I've never understood why Stankonia is considered a classic... Sure there are some good tunes on it, but the sound is so thin and tinny, and there's a pointless skit after every song.

ATLiens vs. Aquemini vs. Southernplayalistic for me.

Raekwon almost steals the entirety of Aquemini during his verse on "Skew it On the Bar-B," plus it kinda falls apart after SpottieOttie. Also I still don't know what the fuck "rhyme javelin" means.

ATLiens takes it. Detailed, dark, awesome.

okay, i have to step up for stankonia. maybe not their best, but it's getting no love here. the singles might be overplayed but it's a dope fucking album.

yeah i'm probably gonna vote stankonia- b/w that and aquemini for me

there's a pointless skit after every song

BREAK!

the singles might be overplayed

not nearly as much as the speaker/love & aquemini singles i think

Not even "Ms. Jackson"? I've certainly heard that one way more often than any single form Aquemini.

But yeah, my main criticism towards Stankonia is that the sound is kinda week and lacking in the deep end. And it too falls apart towards the end, worse than Aquemini, with all the mediocre P-Funk jams.

"week" = "weak"

Not even "Ms. Jackson"? I've certainly heard that one way more often than any single form Aquemini.

-- Tuomas, Thursday, May 15, 2008 7:23 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

rosa parks!!

I'm with Jordans.

And it too falls apart towards the end, worse than Aquemini, with all the mediocre P-Funk jams.

OTM, I want to un-vote for it now

ATLiens is my number one here but I'll happily listen to all these albums.

it kinda falls apart after SpottieOttie

dude, "Liberation", "Chonkyfire"

...dude.....

End of "Chonkyfire" still freaks me out.

And it too falls apart towards the end, worse than Aquemini, with all the mediocre P-Funk jams.

wait did you just call "toilet tisha" mediocre, cause it's the best thing they ever did

Aquemini fabulous

yeah i'm probably gonna vote stankonia- b/w that and aquemini for me

-- J0rdan S., Thursday, May 15, 2008 2:56 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

lol newjack

only replayable joint on stank is deez hoez i aint bullshittin

basically id rate them like this

southernplayalisticadillacmuzik
atliens
speakerboxxx
aquemini
stankonia
idlewild

I could live without about 40% of Stankonia. The first 3 albums only have 1 or 2 skippable songs, each.
xpost deez hoes is worst song on it!

My favorite single of theirs is still "Rosa Parks". ("G.H.E.T.T.O.M.U.S.I.C.K." comes very close, though.)

Their good albums have one word in the title and aren't soundtracks. Their best albums start with the letter A. Their best album has a Q in the title.

The first half of Idlewild is pretty good.

In the absence of a single-disc, pop version of Speakerboxx/The Love Below, it's Stankonia. That "I got a little bit of Spanish in me" bit is one of my favorite skits ever.

HOOS rosa parks wasnt as big as any of stankonia's 3 big singles - im only guessing you've heard more of rosa parks cuz it never got burned out quite as badly as those traxx or 'hey ya' or something, so it still gets spins on radio etc. (altho its definitely kinda burnt now too). love rae on 'skew...' but the idea that he steals the record on that track is serious o_O

i like aquemini and southernplaya the most, atliens close behind

2 dope boyz in a cadillac d-_-b

oh yeah and wtf aquemeni doesnt fall off at the end

ethan's anti-aquemini bias has to be an ATL thing, ive never known anyone who listens to rap up here hating on that record

i knew too many white guys with dreads who wouldnt stfu about how all rap should sound like aquemini

yeah up here they were definitely not checking for records the source was giving 5 mics, at that point it was 'things fall apart' and J5 maybe (i cant remember when they got big)

thread is a challops free-for-all

speaking of, which album did Ed vote for?

xxp

thread is a challops free-for-all

-- Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:31 AM (48 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

definite misuse of challops here. this thread is more opinions4u

u probably right

challenging

Aquemeni and Stankonia and Southernplayalistic and Speaker/Love are all great; even idlewild has moments. ATLiens just struck me as so completely different from all other rap I was hearing in the mid nineties: hard, naive, skillful, well written and smooth. I'll be listening to Two Dope Boyz, Wheelz of Steel, Elevators and Millennium for the rest of my life. Unspoken truth is that a lot of this just has to do with when the band intersected your world.

i knew too many white guys with dreads who wouldnt stfu about how all rap should sound like aquemini

-- and what, Thursday, May 15, 2008 2:30 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Ethan, I should probably already know how pointless it is to try to have a conversation with you, but not liking music just because you don't like the fans of the music = dud. Just as a for instance, I don't like you but I like a great deal of the music you like.

stfu forkslovetofuk im sayin why i got an bias against aquemini my real life does not concern your bullshit dharma & greg existence so go suck a fat dick and get off my nuts

I kind of agree with and what that the first one is the best but that's if you've settled on THAT outkast...it's gotta be between that and Stankonia for me. this is one of the hardest polls ever, I might just vote for Idlewild just to be a dick

and I also really enjoyed that last post

idlewild had a couple jams on it the train was underrated for grown folks mature south shit

atliens 8
speakerboxxx/the love below 5

Huh.

aquemini is still my fav but Atliens is the one I play the most today. throw yo hands in the ai-yerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Da Art of Storytellin Part 2 always unfairly overlooked for its predecessor. love the distorted vocals an that piano intro

(on Aquemini obv)

ATLiens top 5 album for me all time, Aqumini top 15

Stankoniaforsure. ATLiens is the only one of theirs I've never "got"

The votes/order for the bottom four in this poll is surprising.

spkrbx/lvblw getting more than southernplayalistic is offensive

nah SPCM is inconsistent in parts, The Love Below in particular gets way overhated. although the second half does have some of the worst shit ever

I don't know, revisiting SPCM a few months back, the thing that struck me about it was how incredibly consistent it was. I don't know if there's a bad track on that thing.

there's not one weak song on southerplayalistic. there's less than a handful of good songs on lv blw

Ppl just voting for Speakerboxxx?

"Call of da Wild?" that seems like an obvious one to me

don't really connect with that album the same way I do most of their other ones tbh

call of da wild is def the worst song on there but still low key nice

Agreed on Call of Da Wild being the weakest track on SPCM, much as I love Goodie Mob in general. But one track that's weaker than the rest is pretty par for the course even on most classic albums (see "Mamacita" on this poll's victor). I don't think that's enough to label a record inconsistent.

Mamacita is awesome what are you talkin about

marinate on that for awhile

probably worth noting that Rev is running the Outkast poll after sleater kinney wraps up.

I could def. name more than one track each I don't mess with on Aquemini and especially SPCM, y'all are overly generous. Or I'm too hard on 'em, dunno.

There are zero tracks (not counting skits before someone gets annoyingly pedantic) I don't fuck with on the first four albums.

also I told WmC someone else could run the Outkast poll cause I haven't been participating in single-artist polls at all

i might be able to do it

The one thing that bums me out about Stankonia is I don't like the two tracks after "Toilet Tisha" and it always seems worse when there's missteps at the very end of an album

"Tisha" kinda-sorta works as a closer though

speaking of skits though I'm actually cool with all of 'em on that one except "Kim & Cookie" (bet someone'll say that's the best one lol)

He got hisssssss
I aint get miiiiiiiine

yeah, actually fuckit most of the skits are classic. Pimp Trick Gangsta Clique is my personal favorite tho

I could swear I read somewhere that Outkast and Goodie Mob wanted to put out a Pimp Trick Gangsta Clique album, but it never got off the ground.

http://clatl.com/gyrobase/the-making-of-outkasts-aquemini/Content?oid=1552576&storyPage=2

Andre 3000: I wrote out the skits. It was like a parody of everything going on at the time. Back then all the hood record labels were called stuff like Slap a Bitch Records or Big Dick Records, so we made up the group name Pimp Trick Gangsta Clique. Me, Sleepy [Brown] and Cee-Lo were going to form an actual band called Pimp Trick Gangsta Clique. We recorded some stuff but never released anything under that name. It was really just a funny thing we made up for an album you'd buy at the record store.

I've been relistening to Love Below cuz the reunion's got me in an OutKast mood and the first half really is brilliant, "Prototype" in particular is gorgeous. shit really does implode after that skit in the middle though. I like "She's Alive" but otherwise..."My Favorite Things" and the Norah Jones one are cool I guess

TLB was/is way better than I expected it to be at the time

Love prototype but somehow every cover I hear of it feels more gratifying and realised than the original.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxqfkSw2Yhs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcHezZDijac

the picture of that woman on the swing is more gratifying and realised than the song

the woman on the swing is more gratifying and realised than most things tbf

TLB was/is way better than I expected it to be at the time

― sonic thedgehod (albvivertine), Tuesday, April 15, 2014 2:38 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everyone had REALLY high expectations going into this album ... the single was "hey ya" which was, like, universally acclaimed.

my opinion of it hasn't changed much - pretty much every track goes on for about a minute longer than they should, the riffs and melodies just get repeated ad nauseam

I can see that for sure, on the good ones I just vibe out though

I spent a couple years saying "Bitch, get off that BLOW" for every stupid thing

it's like for almost all the songs Andre thought "OK, I got a verse, let's have oh six of 'em. and then I have this little turnaround for the chorus, we'll do that every time. voila song's done!" compositionally they're just really lazy.

xp Did the same thing with "BREAK."

TLB is pretty uneven although the new generation raised on kid cudi has decided it is a CLASSIC ALBUM

pretty much hate it completely

put "Happy Valentine's Day" and "She Lives In My Lap" on Speakerboxxx and that's all i need from the whole project

xp is that true about the "new generation?" Is there really a cult around TLB? Legitimately curious here.

i kinda dig "spread."

"Happy Valentine's Day" is actually one of the weaker ones in the first half imo, a little clunky. still like it tho.

"Behold a Lady," "Pink & Blue" and especially "Vibrate" are the most offensively bad songs on there I think

I got into the album a little after the fact so I didn't really experience the "this is GENIUS" initial response & the backlash

I fux with about half of TLB

OK well yeah I'm conflating a lot, I/my irl friends were excited cos we loved Outkast and Hey Ya, it was disappointing but w hindsight p good, overall. Also ILM ws p staunchly against it, which made an impression on me

I don't think TLB's love was later revisionism, at least not in my quarters, cos everybody I knew was jizzing over it. Probably had more to do with the fact that the "rapper turnt sanger" concept was more novel, and folks viewed the sprawling, meandering nature of most of his songs to be "progressive" when they were really just "boring".

I do have to admit my initial reaction to it was not entirely fair. I was fine with him expanding his repertoire, but an album containing zero rap from a dude who was 1/2 of my favorite rap duo immediately turned me off. First listen, I liked "Hey Ya" and one or two more tracks, but once I got to the abysmal "Roses", I gave up and moved to Speakerboxx.

A few years later, I was ambushed by one of the funkier numbers from the album that I liked, so I revisited it and found that I actually liked more of the album than I remembered. However, still far too little to consider it a classic.

There were a few "rapper evolves into actual singer/writer" thoughts around, I think (not coming frm me). It ended up being a cool initially foray into modern soul funk stuff, would've been cool to hear more (was there any?)

I liked the idea of him doing an album of this type stuff, but the execution was off. Did not like it from the beginning, sold the CD within a few days. Doesn't change the fact they are my favorite group of all time tho.