FREEFORM 1990's ALTERNATIVE ALBUM POLL - THE RECKONING (TOP TEN COUNTING DOWN NOW)

E40 bitch

As far as fat rappers go.

Also: Vast Aire, Cee-Lo.

it sounds like everything on ready to die refined and sometimes perfected and all the new things that you've never heard him do before. there's the twisty storytelling tracks that build down into perfect payoffs ("nigga turned around holdin his daughter..."/"through all the excitement, they range got towed-- they double-parked by a hydrant"), the big puff/big tracks, the gully tracks, the slow jamz, whatever. it's amazing just to hear him rap-- like, he's perfect and most of the time it's just sort of in the back of your mind, like, "oh, he's good," but there're so many moments on it where it's like just .......... "this is perfect" and he can do anything.

― William Wiggins, Friday, 2 April 2004 06:10 (6 years ago)

Wiggy knows.

I'm trying to think who I think the greatest MC ever is and basically it's just reminding me that I need to go back and listen to more hip-hop.

Vast Aire? I think I need to go lie down.

he's definitely better than Fat Joe. Big Pun and Cee Lo are kinda debatable. I dunno RAWSE... Biz is an all-time great and a groundbreaker, he's kinda in a different league

lol what about Heavy D (The Overweight Lover)?

RAWSE = rick ross obv

Vast Aire is good in the context of the CO album but the solo wasn't that great.

lol what about Heavy D (The Overweight Lover)?

lol forgot about him. he has some good shit!

can't forget my man Sir Mix-A-Lot

I smell a poll...

ugh can't stand Rick Ross myself

Well, yeah, I haven't even heard Vast Aire's solo stuff, but on the Cannibal Ox album he certainly impressed me more than Biggie ever has.

I just spent too long looking for the thread where (I think Ethan?) was complaining about not being able to recreate Biggie's flow I and wrote "try filling your cheeks with ham"

oh actually maybe it was Big Pun

sounds kinda gay

xp

Lets all buy one record we haven't heard based on this thread - would that be cool? I think that would be cool.

Done. I put the double deluxe version of Imperial f.f.r.r. on hold for $8.99. Funny I'd never heard the whole thing. I always meant to, but never got around to it. I also never bought Spiderland as I had everything on tape and got burned out on it. I'm thinking a remaster of that could pop up next year as a 20th anniversary edition. Downloaded Superconductor last night and heard it this morning, not bad.

double deluxe version of Imperial f.f.r.r.

?? didn't even know this existed

Biz will always be my favorite plus-sized mc.

I always like Biggie's flow, but I'm not a fan of his voice; honestly, I wish he wrote for other people. Also, hate, hate, hate the production. But I'll take Biggie any day over Jay-Z ,whom I've never warmed to in any way.

xposts

It's hard to say, I'm an old east coast fan, so yeah i basically roll with "Who's the Greatest? Jay-Z, Biggie, or Nas" for the most part...

it's hard one, but in some way maybe Biggie is the greatest...he's the most human of the three to me, he seems genuinely scary when jay and nas only seem like they are playacting (or balancing a ledger sheet in jay's case)...he's self-depreciating sometimes, you could tell little moments when it was clear it was hard to be fat, that kids made fun of him for it...

plus, he did genuine party jams....like he was a man of real human appetities...jay is too remote and cold, he has some party jams but he seems like the type of guy that doesn't have much fun at his own parties, he just wants his parties to be the "best"....

nas is a formalist, a hermetically sealed weirdo to the fucking bone and i love him but he's an odd person, a bizarre person really so even after all these years i never feel like i know who the guy is...(though it must be said at his peak, he crafts the most incredibly written verses just from the rhyme as high art perspetive)

jay is off the charts talented and his flow in his heyday was remarkably slippery and inventive...his bragging shit is so regal and imperial and cruel that everyone else's boasts seems pretty weak by comparison....it's no surprise he ended up as he did, an actual businessman....

but yeah biggie has more laughter, more tears, more sweat and blood...sloppier maybe at times, not as focused at jay was, maybe not as absolutely stunning at painting mental pictures as nas was, but biggie was the dude you could relate to and feel

also, he's not as explicitly showy as a rapper as either nas or jay, he never really got by on a big vocab or real elegant rakim-derived stuff...but damn, the man could phrase a fucking line in a way that would just knock you on your ass...

"our parents used to take care of us...look at 'em now: they even fuckin' scared of us"

"Birth-days was the worst days, now we sip champagne when we thir-stay"

"high as a motherfuckin' hel-i-cop-tah"

like they don't even scan as classic rhymes, they even read a little corny but the voice, the delivery, the passion...fuck man...yeah biggie is great, if you think otherwise you are just plain wrong.

double deluxe version of Imperial f.f.r.r.

?? didn't even know this existed

It adds the Isobel Bishop EP and some other stuff from the same era.

really only got into Biggie this year but I get it now; 90s hip-hop remains a gap for me (that I'm actively trying to fill, with pleasure)

whoa H3lg! titanic post

The next album is SPECIAL, because it's the last album none of whose votes guaranteed it a place in the top 100

great post matt, some madness being talked re: biggie right above you

xpost to Tuomas

and yeah I LOVE Big Pun...but he's not close to Biggie as a figure in hip hop...

super talented, super tricky flows etc, but every single thing Pun did he owes to Kool G Rap, and I don't personally feel that him or Fat Joe ever really transcended that influence.

Biggie is amazing, he's just not a personal favorite.

The next album is SPECIAL, because it's the last album none of whose votes guaranteed it a place in the top 100

as in, nobody except me KNOWS it's about to appear!

18 Autechre - LP5 (1998)
87 points
7 votes
1 first-place vote
Greatest contributor: another al3x

http://www.kompaktkiste.de/cd/warp/warpcd66.jpg

fucking classic

― cutty, Saturday, 10 November 2007 13:34 (2 years ago)

Maybe my favourite IDM album.

― the next grozart, Sunday, 11 November 2007 06:20 (2 years ago)

Fold 4, Wrap5 is what time travel sounds like. Brilliant.

― Loader, Saturday, 10 November 2007 18:12 (2 years ago)

autechre would've been godhead if they retired after LP5.
LP5 would've been pristine if not for the hidden track.

― Sir Leee (Leee), Monday, 29 September 2003 22:48 (6 years ago)

I think, as an album, my pick for moving electronic music would be Autechre's LP5.

A thesis could be written on this album! It’s totally pure computer music. It’s faceless and inhuman, but at the same time darkly emotional. The CD artwork communicates this feeling too. If you listen to it alone late at night you feel like Autechre is a computer struggling to communicate with you.

― Salvador Saca (Mr. Xolotl), Thursday, 20 May 2004 16:42 (5 years ago)

autechre, LP5, on a decent soundsystem or good headphones, with acid or mushrooms. you won't believe your ears....

― heywood jablomi (heywood), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 22:56 (5 years ago)

having said that, i just stuck on lp5 and half of it is straight electro bangers in a leaner gescom style, and the rest is big simple bewitching toybox melodies and then 'rae', the soppiest ballad they ever did.

― r|t|c, Tuesday, 5 June 2007 21:30 (2 years ago)

i mean, fuck, they're basically total b-boys at the end of the day.

― r|t|c, Tuesday, 5 June 2007 21:34 (2 years ago)

like, I'm never going to argue with anyone who says he's the best of all-time because he deserves serious consideration for it, whereas I love my own personal fave to likely unreasonable heights but I could see why ppl wouldn't put him on the list

(Q-Tip)

yeah, i dunno, man the whole "Greatest MC" thing is tough...there's so many brilliant MCs it's hard for me to pick one

yeah, also true; so many ppl doing wildly different things, it's hard to compare them

xpost

back to Biggie...that's why I think he's the only one where the violence in his stuff, esp. against women actually can BOTHER me...like with Jay and Nas I just feel like the humans are chess pieces in the rhyme....with Biggie there's a genuine hurt and anger that's disturbing at times.

18 Autechre - LP5 (1998)
87 points
7 votes
1 first-place vote
Greatest contributor: another al3x

http://www.kompaktkiste.de/cd/warp/warpcd66.jpg

fucking classic

― cutty, Saturday, 10 November 2007 13:34 (2 years ago)

Maybe my favourite IDM album.

― the next grozart, Sunday, 11 November 2007 06:20 (2 years ago)

Fold 4, Wrap5 is what time travel sounds like. Brilliant.

― Loader, Saturday, 10 November 2007 18:12 (2 years ago)

autechre would've been godhead if they retired after LP5.
LP5 would've been pristine if not for the hidden track.

― Sir Leee (Leee), Monday, 29 September 2003 22:48 (6 years ago)

I think, as an album, my pick for moving electronic music would be Autechre's LP5.

A thesis could be written on this album! It’s totally pure computer music. It’s faceless and inhuman, but at the same time darkly emotional. The CD artwork communicates this feeling too. If you listen to it alone late at night you feel like Autechre is a computer struggling to communicate with you.

― Salvador Saca (Mr. Xolotl), Thursday, 20 May 2004 16:42 (5 years ago)

autechre, LP5, on a decent soundsystem or good headphones, with acid or mushrooms. you won't believe your ears....

― heywood jablomi (heywood), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 22:56 (5 years ago)

having said that, i just stuck on lp5 and half of it is straight electro bangers in a leaner gescom style, and the rest is big simple bewitching toybox melodies and then 'rae', the soppiest ballad they ever did.

― r|t|c, Tuesday, 5 June 2007 21:30 (2 years ago)

i mean, fuck, they're basically total b-boys at the end of the day.

― r|t|c, Tuesday, 5 June 2007 21:34 (2 years ago)

― Mansun was where I fucked up (acoleuthic), Thursday, 6 May 2010 16:44 (6 minutes ago)

lol

post it again, I don't think anyone noticed

So good it deserves to be posted twice

Life After Death- It really is on another level. Top 10 albums of all time. It's not even perfect, but the highs are so good that you can deal with boring 112 songs or whatever.

Somebody's Gotta Die is such a perfect way to start the album. Like I said w/ Reasonable Doubt - he potentially throws it all away just to avenge his man. But it's not just that, I don't think anyone else did off the cuff characterisation as Big did, 'see niggas like you do ten year bids, miss the nigga they want, murder innocent kids' and then to pull it around with Jason holding his daughter as a shield. It's fucking epic, it's fucking scary. No other gangster rap was so personal. I mean sure this was post 'lol i'm 2pac and i've called you fat and i had sex w/ faith lol' but Big was saying he doesn't care about the situation, he is ruthless. It's fucking scary and this is even in a complete song w/ lols and punclines (dreaming of how to sell records like snoop, oops!)

But fuck it, y'all prefer Vast Aire for being the second best mc in CoFlow. It's like preferring Juno to a Heat/Godfather 2 double bill. Taking myself out of the alternative 90s 100 before I sb everyone.

xpost Sorry LJ i got shit to say.

and back to Nas for a minute:

I always thought this "diss" from The Takeover by Jay actually kinda summed up what I loved about Nas:

Nigga; you ain't live it you witnessed it from your folks pad
You scribbled in your notepad and created your life

that's how I imagine Nas, a weird quiet kid living in QB that didn't really roll with the hardrocks but just sat back and watched, committing the whole scene to memory, then spit it back as these fracture, poetic pictures of that life that meant more and said more about it than anything that the guys who actually lived through it could say

whoa, he's trying to simulate Autechre's music in his postings, via recursion!

xp

yay autechre

Well, yeah, I haven't even heard Vast Aire's solo stuff, but on the Cannibal Ox album he certainly impressed me more than Biggie ever has.

― Tuomas, Thursday, May 6, 2010 3:36 PM (13 minutes ago)

i am caught halfway between lololololol and O_O xposts

lp5 has been sat on my harddrive for about a year now unlistened, may check it out :)

(is it weird that that LP5 came out at the height of my IDM fandom and I never bothered getting it?)

actually given time to reflect i have settled into t (o _ O t)

it's cool, just tryin' to keep control

proceed with the biggie talk, it's illuminating

as a dude that should be hardwired to like autechre, i have never been able to even slightly care about their stuff. i do not know why.

LP5 is great and seems to always get mentioned as their definitive album but it's not Autechre's best IMO

great set of posts there, M@tt

I've still only got Confield, which is awesome

16 of my picks have made it i think so far