| Rap Reviews:
How to Do It Wrong
The other day I was checking
out some reviews of albums from people who are 'closer' to the industry.
These people piss me off with their bullshit mumbo jumbo. When I
check out reviews I want to know if you thought the cd was good
or not, what qualities about it you thought were good, and what
tracks you liked and why. This is basic stuff to me, maybe it's
not as clear to someone with a degree in journalism.
Let me give you an example
of a review that I think has no value whatsoever:
Cleveland natives
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony have embodied the Nineties hip-hop ethos:
Establish your street cred, and take your hardcore pop. This is
a group, after all, that lent its melodic rhyme flow to odes to
public assistance (1995's "1st of tha Month") and Mariah
Carey hits ("Breakdown"). On BTNHResurrection, the foursome
doesn't stray from its most potent themes. The celestial concerns
of its biggest hit, "Tha Crossroads," are revisited
on "The Righteous Ones," a midtempo track with a harmonized
chorus and keyboard bleeps. The Thugs renew their faith in mind-altering
chemicals with "Weed Song," a piano-inflected standout
ballad; murder and mayhem abound on "2 Glocks" and "Battlezone."
Then, in typical contradictory hip-hop style, "Change the
World" spreads a utopian message over a track that recalls
Prince's "Little Red Corvette." It's all done in Bone
Thugs' influential singsong style, but this time there are none
of the dirge-y Wu-Tang influences of their last two albums. Bone
Thugs may have only come full circle with this roughneck pop,
but BTNHResurrection is a lively trip. (RS 839)
What can we get from
this review?
- The reviewer is sickeningly
disenchanted with modern rap. A holier than thou tone pervades
the entire piece.
- The reviewer is trying
to convince us he knows a lot about Bone by throwing around titles
of old works.
- The reviewer has an
exceptional ability to sum up an entire album in two lines.
Basically, the reviewer
has touched on some song titles and given each a paltry phrase of
dismissive analysis. Does this reviewer make any statements? Is
there anything here that's valuable to the Bone fan, the prospective
buyer of the CD, or the interested observer? There isn't a thumbs
up, thumbs down, or any stance taken.
The album is a 'lively
trip'. What the hell is a lively trip? Do I want to take a lively
trip or is a lively trip a trip that could have been breakneck or
exciting? Or, maybe it's too lively, and not for everyone. Whatever
a lively trip is, this review is human fisces. It was probably written
after listening to 35 seconds of half of the tracks and says a whole
lot of nothing. This cat may love hip-hop, like Bone Thugs, dig
this album, or a multitude of other things, but you can't tell from
reading this vanilla piece of shit.
This is what we try to
avoid at 10 Rap Commandments. When you are considering a cd we want
you to know if like the shit or not. While it may be subjective,
it's what most music fans want to know. Is the CD good? While this
is a perilous road to travel (and I
have the emails from insane 2Pac fans to prove it), it's real.
We tell you what songs we like, and when we hate a cd. After you
read one of our reviews you know if we liked the cd, what qualities
about it we liked, and at least one song from them that we thought
was hot. We may have misspelled words, and fucked up grammar sometimes,
but we're trying to keep it real. You may disagree with what we
say, or think we're right on but you never get finished reading
our reviews and wonder what the hell you just read.
The Bone Thugs spent
a long time on that CD; the least you can do is write a full page
about it.
Great H.
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