I'll be shocked if Jay-Z ever makes a new album that's as good as even the weakest of his first 8 albums, but I was optimistic that The Blueprint 3 might at least be the best of the post-retirement bunch, which wouldn't even be such a tall order considering that I was not a big fan of American Gangster. At the very least, the choice to work extensively with No I.D. on the heels of "Success" seemed like a good omen. Even the prolonged run-up to the release with several discarded leaks, which used to be the one industry bullshit tradition Jay was immune to, ultimately was a good thing for the album, because he got shit like "Jockin' Jay-Z" and "Swagga Like Us" and that stupid accent on "Brooklyn Go Hard" out of the way and they ended up not sullying the final product. It's just that the stuff that replaced those songs isn't much better. The voice on "Thank You" might actually be worse than the one on "Brooklyn Go Hard," actually.

Even if Kanye and No I.D. had actually stepped up to the plate with some bangers, though, I'm pretty sure Jay would've sunk them with his suddenly desperate need to use obnoxious ad libs like he's playing catch-up with Jim Jones. I don't know what's worse, the 23 times he goes "Auh!" on "D.O.A." or the 38 times he does it on "Reminder." The "'sup"s and the "yeah I said it"'s on "Run This Town" are pretty interminable too, but after hearing Lil Wayne wreck that beat I'm reminded that it's not that bad in and of itself, it's just the worst chorus of the year that really makes it an annoying song. I wonder if Kanye actually considers any of the tracks he did on this "one of the best hip-hop beats of all time" or if he ended up saving that track for his own album, because I don't hear anything that could even remotely fit that description in Kanye's wildest most self-deluded dreams. Not to say the album's completely worthless; the middle third from "Empire State Of Mind" to the kind of charming "A Star Is Born," where Jay sounds like a hip hop fan who's willing to big up artists he's not directly affiliated with for once, even if it's ultimately in a self-serving way. But the album falls right into the toilet (seriously, Beyonce should be embarrassed for appearing on "Venus Vs. Mars") right after with a run that makes the album overall worse than Kingdom Come. Yeah I said it.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26, 2009 at 1:34 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.