Soul Strut 100: # 25 - Nas - Illmatic

[batmon]

SP 1200 said:batmon said:SP 1200 said: Life's A Bitch is another track where the chorus lets it down for me.







Buggin'




Always thought that for someone of his lyricism it was blander than it could have been.




I can understand that, but "life's a bitch and then you die" was a street anthem/motto before that song.


So it had extra weight cause cats were using that motto amongst themselves and they applied it to the chorus.

 

[francois parker]

batmon said:1.


6. "Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)" - ehhh...good story/lyrics, mediocre beat







Oh man I love that beat.

 

[Mr. Attention]

francois parker said:batmon said:1.


6. "Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)" - ehhh...good story/lyrics, mediocre beat







Oh man I love that beat.




Me, too. I think it's one of the best on the album, which is saying a lot. I think the weakest beat is "One Time 4 Your Mind" (which I still think is good), but to each his own, different strokes, etc.

 

[CinisterCee]

james said:SIRUS said:swv came about before.

Oh shit--how could I forget?!





When they first dropped, all three of them were in ads and shit wearing those unfashionably severe Terminator shades, so for a good while I really thought "SWV" stood for "Sisters Without Vision"--like being blind was their gimmick or something. I was quite the knucklehead.




lol!!!

 

[CinisterCee]

My original faves are still my all-time faves: "It Ain't Hard To Tell" which I had on an early Columbia promo (along with Xscape), and Zebrahead's "Halftime"

 

[Dawhud]

I remember when this album dropped and seeing the review in "The Source". When I saw it was 5 mics and that it was only really 9 tracks, I was like GTFOH. Don't get me wrong, this is one of my all time fav LPs, but at 1st I just didn't want to SAY it was 5 mics because time is what usually defines a classic and I wanted a larger track list. But... I was a 14 year old punk kid in middle school, so BLAM.

 

[drbrownscelray]

Illmatic, Doggystyle, Cuban Linx, all were at least 50% available before their release (shit Doo Wop had a tape where he basically played the WHOLE Doggystyle album). To me that doesn't/ didn't make any if them any less incredible. To hear them in complete, mixed, mastered form with cover art and all that and to hold the album in my hands and most importantly the musical staying power that they had is what makes them unfadeable. Red Alert ran the JB's in to the ground on Kiss. Didn't make the album any less spectacular when it came out.

 

[batmon]

drbrownscelray said:Illmatic, Doggystyle, Cuban Linx, all were at least 50% available before their release (shit Doo Wop had a tape where he basically played the WHOLE Doggystyle album). To me that doesn't/ didn't make any if them any less incredible. To hear them in complete, mixed, mastered form with cover art and all that and to hold the album in my hands and most importantly the musical staying power that they had is what makes them unfadeable. Red Alert ran the JB's in to the ground on Kiss. Didn't make the album any less spectacular when it came out.




50% of Illmatic is 5 songs. Take away the Intro and Halftime, what's left?


Those other albums left alot to get into. Doggy has 16 and Cuban Linx has 18.





When Red was setting us up for Straight Out The Jungle, he didnt overwork the album tracks.


Thats was one radio show burnin the JB's cause BLS wasnt playing rival Red's artist. This was in 88.


Nas in 93/94 had a mixtapes and radio throwing haff that shit out there.





For me its like seeing most of the movie on bootleg, then finally seein it whole, and asking "so that's it?"





My boy's buddy brought the tape over when it finally dropped. The three of us sat w/ it and i asked him "didn't u hear that shit 50 times already?"


The magic of hearing the small amount of "un-played" tracks next to the new shit, wasn't enuff for me to be super-open.

 

[Controller_7]

But it still has nothing to do with the quality of the album. It just sucks for you that you were an early adopter.





Watching most of a movie on bootleg and then seeing the real thing has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the product. I 100% understand why it didn't have the impact for you as it did others, but that's just the way the cookies crumbled. I'm not even trying to be a jerk to you about it. I totally get why you feel the way you do, but it's not going to change how anyone else feels.

 

[james]

batmon said:50% of Illmatic is 5 songs. Take away the Intro and Halftime, what's left?


Those other albums left alot to get into. Doggy has 16 and Cuban Linx has 18.





When Red was setting us up for Straight Out The Jungle, he didnt overwork the album tracks.


Thats was one radio show burnin the JB's cause BLS wasnt playing rival Red's artist. This was in 88.


Nas in 93/94 had a mixtapes and radio throwing haff that shit out there.





For me its like seeing most of the movie on bootleg, then finally seein it whole, and asking "so that's it?"





My boy's buddy brought the tape over when it finally dropped. The three of us sat w/ it and i asked him "didn't u hear that shit 50 times already?"


The magic of hearing the small amount of "un-played" tracks next to the new shit, wasn't enuff for me to be super-open.

Wow. This approach to evaluating a cultural product is disappointingly art-averse and bizarrely novelty-driven. I mean, if you didn't like it, fine, you didn't like it, but unless you were like twelve years old in '94, man, that's some fucking weird algebra to use in writing it off to such an extent.





"I had already ate some lettuce and tomato on Monday, drank some ketchup on Tuesday, had a ground beef patty on Wednesday, and a spoonful of mustard on Thursday, so when my man showed up with a hamburger on Friday, I was like, 'Whatever.' Dudes are all geeked over some mayo and a bun? GTFOOHWTBS"

 

[batmon]

james said:batmon said:50% of Illmatic is 5 songs. Take away the Intro and Halftime, what's left?


Those other albums left alot to get into. Doggy has 16 and Cuban Linx has 18.





When Red was setting us up for Straight Out The Jungle, he didnt overwork the album tracks.


Thats was one radio show burnin the JB's cause BLS wasnt playing rival Red's artist. This was in 88.


Nas in 93/94 had a mixtapes and radio throwing haff that shit out there.





For me its like seeing most of the movie on bootleg, then finally seein it whole, and asking "so that's it?"





My boy's buddy brought the tape over when it finally dropped. The three of us sat w/ it and i asked him "didn't u hear that shit 50 times already?"


The magic of hearing the small amount of "un-played" tracks next to the new shit, wasn't enuff for me to be super-open.




Wow. This approach to evaluating a cultural product is disappointingly art-averse and bizarrely novelty-driven. I mean, if you didn't like it, fine, you didn't like it, but unless you were like twelve years old in '94, man, that's some fucking weird algebra to use in writing it off to such an extent.





"I had already ate some lettuce and tomato on Monday, drank some ketchup on Tuesday, had a ground beef patty on Wednesday, and a spoonful of mustard on Thursday, so when my man showed up with a hamburger on Friday, I was like, 'Whatever.' Dudes are all geeked over some mayo and a bun? GTFOOHWTBS"

This approach to evaluating a cultural product

Overrated = "writing it off" & "didnt like it"?





An art show has 5 paintings in a group show for three months that many local folks saw.


They then open a "new" show w/ 10 paintings, which half of them were from the group show.


What's your "approach"?

 

[Possum Slim]

I'd go for a burger.

 

[LokoOne]

batmon said:AZ




So who here thinks that AZ'z verse is the best on the whole album?





We used to get into drunk debates about this years ago.





BTW- A top ten - will be blasting this till I'm old and deaf - album.





Despite different producers and songs recorded in different periods the LP has a unifying consistency and interconnected feel to it...everything works well together - no song stands out like it doesn't belong... and they are all exceptional.





Dont know if its true that Nas went through almost 100 beats before he chose the ones he did....

 

[james]

batmon said:Overrated = "writing it off" & "didnt like it"?

"Overrated" = "writing it off to [some] extent", yeah. And you sound like you didn't like it. Or at least you sound like your opinion of it was influenced considerably by the kind of weird number shit that doesn't usually hold much sway over people who like something.

An art show has 5 paintings in a group show for three months that many local folks saw.


They then open a "new" show w/ 10 paintings, which half of them were from the group show.


What's your "approach"?

My approach is: Context matters.





Five paintings from an artist mean one thing. Those five paintings can mean something different in the context of five more.





There's an author I really like who published a story in Granta a few years back. A couple years later, she published a story collection where the story from Granta was now part of a suite, one of three stories about the same characters. The two new stories affected my reading of the old one. And when I bought and read the collection, I was engaged and happy to be taking in a total work from an author I liked. I sure as shit didn't sit there like, "Aw man, this is wack--I've already read a third of this!"





There's five times two, and then there's ten, you know?

 

[batmon]

batmon said:Overrated = "writing it off" & "didnt like it"?

"Overrated" = "writing it off to [some] extent", yeah. And you sound like you didn't like it. Or at least you sound like your opinion of it was influenced considerably by the kind of weird number shit that doesn't usually hold much sway over people who like something.

An art show has 5 paintings in a group show for three months that many local folks saw.


They then open a "new" show w/ 10 paintings, which half of them were from the group show.


What's your "approach"?

My approach is: Context matters.





Five paintings from an artist mean one thing. Those five paintings can mean something different in the context of five more.





There's an author I really like who published a story in Granta a few years back. A couple years later, she published a story collection where the story from Granta was now part of a suite, one of three stories about the same characters. The two new stories affected my reading of the old one. And when I bought and read the collection, I was engaged and happy to be taking in a total work from an author I liked. I sure as shit didn't sit there like, "Aw man, this is wack--I've already read a third of this!"





There's five times two, and then there's ten, you know?




Context matters. Granta and Illmatics time spread is different. Theres a pre album street hype build up with Illmatic.


Was there for that collection?


And again I never said wack. Thats on you.

 

[jlee]

what has always surprised me about the legacy of this album is how it did NOT produce a myriad of other rappers trying to keep an album tight with only a dozen-or-so songs. Time and time again I believe the best thing about this album is how concise it was. Not that much Nas was doing at this time was bad per se, but add 5-6 more tracks to this album (It was written had 16 tracks) and for all we know we are talking about a "meh" album.





I can't count the number of times I wish my favorite artists would have cut about 4 or 5 tracks (or a full extra CD -- Wu-Tang Forever) and perhaps I would have enjoyed the album more.





Illmatic was perfect in many ways...and the "keep them wanting more" number of tracks is one of the better components to this album.

 

[sticky_dojah]

james said:those unfashionably severe Terminator shades




Erm, I'm still rocking them to this day. 92 Terminator edition. And I'm not blind.

 

[Da Vinylmentalist]

cai said:Incredible album.. but.. The production on Life's a Bitch and It Ain't Hard To Tell always stuck out to me. Great songs individually but the more slick 80s sound didn't fit in with the other album tracks for me. What I mean is its not the perfect record some make it out to be.







Not the Ain't Hard To Tell remix Large Pro did. So much better than the original:

 

[SIRUS]

i've always liked the OG more than the remix. same thing with fast life.

 

[rootlesscosmo]

This may be the 90's rap album I've played more times front-to-back than any other (which may admittedly owe somewhat to its brevity).





The idea that because some of the joints had already circulated makes the tape less dope has mystified me ever since it was first expressed on here like 7 yrs ago and continues to mystify me.





Like any great album, the "favorite song" award has changed hands countless times over the yrs. I have to say the last verse on "Represent" is the best moment for me currently (has been for the last 2-3 yrs prolly).