Prodigy - Return of the Mac

if ghostface makes this album (v. easily could have) then this thing is the toast of the internet/mainstream mags, etc. etc. right?

-- Jordan Sargent, Sunday, July 22, 2007 9:59 AM

i guess we'll have to wait 'till year-end lists and whatever, but idk it seems like there was much more ado about Fishscale last year w/r/t like Entertainment Weekly or like little blurbs in GQ... like even though Pitchfork gave this best new music or whatever it seemed really here today gone tomorrow.
and i'm sure most of you all will think this is a bullshit point, but you can find like two songs off Return of the Mac on hypemachine compared to like 30 from Fishscale.
but even serious rap blogs are giving this props like "oh it's definitely one of the best albums of the half year word to black milk and turf talk" whereas fishscale was pontificated like crazy
maybe this is a figment of my imagination idk.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/2/21/MarkMorrisonReturnOfTheMackFrenchCDSingleCover.jpg

yeah we know about that song geir.

as far as the ghostface thing, i mean, it's not really a mystery - prodigy is pretty grim, grimey, lo affect NYC gutter type stuff, that's not really going to get people all geeked out like ghostface's more abstract goofiness bonhomie type shit...it's like this is a great great album but you kinda already have to like that type of shit to get into it, i'd think.

also: the way ghostface dresses and his name have a lot to do w/it too.

who cares what heads said about fishscale this cd is the shit

who cares what heads said about fishscale this cd is the shit

-- and what, Sunday, 22 July 2007 20:10 (1 hour ago) Link

i don't really care about the press prodigy gets to be honest, just merely saying (maybe in a roundabout way) that i'm surprised how little actual discussion has been held about this album... ESPECIALLY this year considering how weak it's been for rap.

i only brought up ghost a. because Fishscale was pretty big last year and b. because this isn't sonically/thematicaly really off from that.

also, considering how much time and words have been spent talking about the demise of new york, you would think that people would be jumping to overhype an actually good new york rap release.

just saying this has been unjustly slept on is all.

like i've fucking read about joell ortiz and sean price 10X as much as i have about this album. i know prodigy is old and boring etc. etc. but come the fuck on.

fun with metacritic scores:

Fishscale - 88
More Fish - 77
Return Of The Mac - 75

although the fact that the Prodigy album even has a metacritic score is proof that it's more widely reviewed than 95% of all nationally released rap albums.

ilx fishscale thread: 323 responses
ilx return of the mac thread as of this response: 35 responses

to be fair that thread had a fair amount of posts from some of us saying 'this blows'

but yeah i dont think this is very similar to ghost's album at all. If you ask me that Styles P Ghost Sessions album is just as good as return of the mac and thats gotten even less press

Some listener reviews from Amazon.com--

"This is not the all time great Prodigy...This is some rap group who using prodigy's name to sell cd's...This is a deceitful act and they should be punished for playing with ppl's money by tricking them into buying cd's...Luckily I read reviews before buyin' it but I know some people didn't...Shame on them...I'm surprised the orginal great Prodigy record label didn't sew this one for stealing their name..."

"I found this CD fairly annoying to listen to and certainly upsetting by calling themselves "Prodigy"... THIS IS NOT PRODIGY. I don't know who mixed up trademarks or whatever it takes to retain an artists' name but this is not even a good rap album. Just some fairly sad, rank, armature mix tracks with some gangster-thug talking about how he's all tough... What a detriment to society he is."

"this is defintely not The Prodigy; the heavy electronic beats and power that you may wish it is. This is some tired wannabee rap crap, don't waste your $$. This is going on E-Bay right now. This is the worst piece of deception ever, how dare they try to pass this off as The Prodigy!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"I've been a Prodigy fan since their 1st or 2nd album. I got this cd today and even though it is nothing like what they used to do it's still really good. I'm not very much a rap fan but this is really good. The beats are tight and everything is put together real well. If you're a rap fan I highly recommend this, but if you're the old skool prodigy fan expecting what they used to do you may be disappointed."

The last one is quite sad.

my last.fm charts this is as "the prodigy"

this record is tite. bang on 'em = 8^)

My Winamp lists it as "Prodigy of Mobb Deep", just so I don't got it twisted, you know.

I read this thread with the word "dunny" appended to each post.

lol

sean price is about as old and boring as prodigy probably. he's awesome too! old boring dudes are the new hot exciting dudes.

yeah all these crusty old NYC dudes dropping good records really give lie to the theory that Jay's age was the problem with Kingdom Come.

its not just oldsters from NY, really

Big Mike's album, twista's gotta be in his late 30s now, even Scarface rap-a-lot cut-n-paste albums are good now

hype datapoint: I got this album after reading a New York Times review of it, so I'm crying no tears for Prodigy.

true, true, i was just referring back to the previous mentions of Ballerina P., Styles P. and Sean P.

(xpost)

devin the dude can't be a spring chicken either

%)

http://z.about.com/d/rap/1/0/A/A/-/-/ProdigyReturnofTheMac.jpg

anyone else thinks alchemist looks like fucking bruce willis there.

http://www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/reviews/lastmanstanding.jpg

prodigy - my world is empty without you

http://www.zshare.net/audio/54295796ee5007/

I still play this.

like the new song...and yep this is still great

the other new song ABC is also great

oh man that video for ABC is kinda strange on some Omen/manson family shit

this is definitely still good.

title of the new one had me imagining p on some "just a friend" shit.

Ballerina P.

never got into return of the mac. prodigy sounded fucking comatose on it i thought, and really lacking in inspiration. yeah its consistent, which is something in itself for them/hip hop these days, but its just so so.

prodigy's always been real laconic and dead sounding

his voice is great. super-stoned

"prodigy's always been real laconic and dead sounding"

but on return of the mac he sounds like hes vocalling the tracks from a hospital bed. i listened to the infamous just to make sure he wasnt always like that and well, he wasnt.

Neither of these new tracks are as good as "Mac 10 Handle" - but neither was anything off that album, either. (or any other song released in the last year and a half)

Needs a propulsive beat to match the deathbed flow, yeah.

so it says Prodigy is serving jail time for his most recent firearms offense, his third.

anybody know anything about the first two?

Nope. But HNIC 2 has leaked, and it's a fine thing. So far I prefer it to Return of the Mac, which I also liked. OK look - it's Prodigy, you know what to expect. But he's a good judge of beats, and this is no exception.

So far I prefer it to Return of the Mac

!!!!

totally expected it to be a disaster, is why i'm shocked

so it says Prodigy is serving jail time for his most recent firearms offense, his third.

anybody know anything about the first two?

-- Bo Jackson Overdrive, Saturday, January 19, 2008 11:03 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

weird fucking RFI, dude.

For a second I thought this was going to be a thread in which Liam Howlett reinterprets the Mark Morrison classic.

I think this every time this thread shows up in New Answers. I am always disappointed to realize I am wrong, although I have nothing against this other Prodigy and their/her/his song/album/thing.

do u post wearing a monocle

Got Prodigy's 'as told to' autobiography to read on my plane home. Other than the clumsy narration (ideas repeated multiple times in same paragraph, characters reintroduced unnecessarily, etc), it's pretty interesting.

Some of it obviously seems "tall tale"-ish but Prodigy seems like he was an extreme dickhole in his youth. Conveniently, in the timeline, he skipped from 1987 to 1989 (I wanted to hear him explain the ballerina pic -- he keeps bitching about how he hated that kind of dancing in this book). I have a feeling it'll come up when he gets to 2001.

lol I totally don't remember this..

so it says Prodigy is serving jail time for his most recent firearms offense, his third.

anybody know anything about the first two?

-- Bo Jackson Overdrive, Saturday, January 19, 2008 11:03 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

weird fucking RFI, dude.

― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 11:33 PM Bookmark

book = Prodigy trying really hard to insist he was a ruffian growing up. not that I don't believe it, but despite his best attempts, you can tell being painted as phony by Jay-Z really put a chip on his shoulder.

He also claims that a friend connected with Tupac stated that Tupac knew who shot him in the studio, and only blamed Biggie/Puffy in the press because he felt the controversy would help his sales.

so weird that "Veterans Memorial Part 2" off of H.N.I.C. II essentially IS dude's book in 3 minute form. Most of the major stories he tells are touched on in it.

RIP

noooooo