Jay-Z - "American Gangster" (mp3)
I've got a big thinkpiece about Jay's new album in the City Paper this week (this ain't a movie, dog!), although I'm still kinda digesting the album itself. I did, after all, write the article less than a week after most of the record leaked, and only a couple days after "Party Life" finally leaked (talk about saving the worst for last), and still haven't seen the movie. What I don't really understand is, why is the title track just a bonus at the end? I understand why "Blue Magic" is buried at the end, it's garbage and I'm sure Jay regrets making it the first single. Maybe I'm just a Just Blaze stan, but it's probably my favorite song on the album after "Success." The "Ignorant Shit" remix is cool, I always loved that track, but his new verse sounds like it must've been written to a completely different beat, he sounds like a fuckin' robot.
American Gangster is definiter a better album than Kingdom Come, but I think it's by a much slimmer margin than most critics are making it out to be (and for the record, I think KC's best songs are better than AG's best). Jay has a lot of albums that people don't respect as much because they don't seem artistic or conceptually interesting, or have numbers and colons in their titles (In My Lifetime Vol. 1, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, The Blueprint 2: The Gift And The Curse) but if you actually listen to the music (instead of scanning through it, etc.) he fucking kills a ton of verses on those albums in a way that he doesn't at all on American Gangster, and approaches on maybe four or five points on the album. I wince when I listen to "No Hook," it's such a sloppy performance. Honestly I'm probably anticipating that supposed Dynasty 2 album in '08 more than I was anticipating either of these last two albums, I wanna see the Roc bring the crew love back.
I've got a big thinkpiece about Jay's new album in the City Paper this week (this ain't a movie, dog!), although I'm still kinda digesting the album itself. I did, after all, write the article less than a week after most of the record leaked, and only a couple days after "Party Life" finally leaked (talk about saving the worst for last), and still haven't seen the movie. What I don't really understand is, why is the title track just a bonus at the end? I understand why "Blue Magic" is buried at the end, it's garbage and I'm sure Jay regrets making it the first single. Maybe I'm just a Just Blaze stan, but it's probably my favorite song on the album after "Success." The "Ignorant Shit" remix is cool, I always loved that track, but his new verse sounds like it must've been written to a completely different beat, he sounds like a fuckin' robot.
American Gangster is definiter a better album than Kingdom Come, but I think it's by a much slimmer margin than most critics are making it out to be (and for the record, I think KC's best songs are better than AG's best). Jay has a lot of albums that people don't respect as much because they don't seem artistic or conceptually interesting, or have numbers and colons in their titles (In My Lifetime Vol. 1, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, The Blueprint 2: The Gift And The Curse) but if you actually listen to the music (instead of scanning through it, etc.) he fucking kills a ton of verses on those albums in a way that he doesn't at all on American Gangster, and approaches on maybe four or five points on the album. I wince when I listen to "No Hook," it's such a sloppy performance. Honestly I'm probably anticipating that supposed Dynasty 2 album in '08 more than I was anticipating either of these last two albums, I wanna see the Roc bring the crew love back.
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on Thursday, November 08, 2007 at 1:31 PM.
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