CBR Record Club #7 "Illmatic"

[twilight]

Welcome to the seventh in a series I like to call "The CBR Record Club".

The club works thusly:

-Have a record assigned.
-Track a copy down. (legally or illegally, I’m not going to judge you)
-Listen.
-Form an opinion.
-Report back over the course of a fortnight.
-Repeat.

Sound cool?

The fourth assignment is...Illmatic (1994) by Nas:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/NasIllmatic.jpg

1. The Genesis
2. N.Y. State of Mind
3. Life's a Bitch
4. The World Is Yours
5. Halftime
6. Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)
7. One Love
8. One Time 4 Your Mind
9. Represent
10. It Ain't Hard to Tell

So everyone go find it, either it already has a place in your music library, at your local record store or from your digital downloading program of choice.

Use this thread for your thoughts and feelings about the first assignment.

This assignment goes from November 26th until December 9th at which point a new album will be assigned.

Go!

-Twi

[ZombieHavoc]

I haven't listened to this album since like...'98 probably.

I'm sure many will chime in that it's the best hip hop album ever. I don't agree with that, but I do think it was a good album. This and It Was Written are the only two Nas albums I've ever cared about.

I don't really have much input.

On a related note, I do like that the record club is genre-spanning, even though not all of the albums are ones I've been interested in checking out.

[Ideal.]

One of the most important hip-hop albums, not just historically but to myself as well.

Nas took the foundation laid down by Rakim, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane et al and ran with it; pushing it to the next level. He forced writers to go back to the lab and rethink all the simplistic concepts they were pushing. He never was the same again, It Was Written was a great album but it wasn't approach the rawness of his debut; God's Son was the closest he came to a return but even then it's not the same.

In ten tracks he delivered some of hip-hop's most street intellectual music; mutherfucker was dropping wisdom line after line. Nothing was extraneous. Although he was clearly influenced by greats before him he had his own style that was unrepeatable (despite how many tried their hardest). The cadence, the multisyllabic rhyming, the thought provoking bars; it was the total package. And even though he stole the show on Life's A Bitch; the one guest appearence made it quite certain to the listener that it was all about Nas. The album isn't a collection of tracks; it's a perfectly cohesive unit. The songs flow seamlessly into one another thanks to Nas' consistent delivery.

And the beats are a perfect match; what else would you expect from the most talented producers in the biz? Premo steals the crown with NY State of Mind but the truth is all the producers held their own and helped to push the album sonically to the next level.

It captured New York in 33 minutes.

[The Confessor]

Hmmm...OK, I've never heard this album or even heard of it, for that matter. I'm not too well versed in Hip-Hip I’m afraid but I do quite enjoy some of the stuff this genre produces. I'm pretty interested to hear this record after having read Ideal's comments above.

Let me track a copy down and I'll get back to you on this.

[DrewTheXenocide]

I'm down for this. I should have no trouble finding a copy while I'm home for the holiday.

[twilight]

Just a little something before I relisten and dig in deeper but I love that Illmatic doesn't overstay it's welcome.

Brevity and quality.

-Twi

[ZombieHavoc]

I do have one record club suggestion...*most* of the albums have been staples of their respective genres...it might be fun to do some albums that aren't on so many people's top-ten-of-all-time lists.

Not that I'm a huge contributor to this...just saying.

[ZombieHavoc]

I do have one record club suggestion...*most* of the albums have been staples of their respective genres...it might be fun to do some albums that aren't on so many people's top-ten-of-all-time lists.

Not that I'm a huge contributor to this...just saying.

Although...discussing staples might be the point, and if so, then nevermind.

[Jonathan Bogart]

I do have one record club suggestion...*most* of the albums have been staples of their respective genres...it might be fun to do some albums that aren't on so many people's top-ten-of-all-time lists.
Pretty sure this first run-through is about the canon. If I remember right, twi's gonna be open to suggestions later on?

[twilight]

Pretty sure this first run-through is about the canon. If I remember right, twi's gonna be open to suggestions later on?

I've always been open to suggestions!

Anyone has an idea they think is good,shoot me a PM.

-Twi

[Jonathan Bogart]

So I just got finished listening to Illmatic twice through. (Kind of. Forgot my iPod was on shuffle the first time through, so I listened again in the correct order.)

And it is a lean, mean record, a record in the sense of a coherent document, not some collection of singles and filler and dumb skits and extraneous bullshit: just beats and rhymes and a shitload of personality. But that, while a pleasant surprise, isn't quite enough for me.

My two problems with the record are precisely the things that made it such an amazing slab of East Coast rap back in 1994, and those problems are a) the East Coast and b) 1994.

I came to rap in the 2000s. Eminem, Outkast, and Kanye West are my primary documents, my unconscious yardstick for what I want rap to sound like. Which basically means I want a sense of humor and an awesome carnival of sounds. (This is all way, way too reductive.) Nas is a singularly humorless motherfucker, and while the beats slam, they don't vary much either. The record has a gritty, cinema verité feel to it that I can respect and admire, but don't have much room for in my lizardbrain "that's awesome!" index. I'm a pop dude, as I may have said once or twice, and although [i]Illmatic[i] is many very great things, it's not really a pop record. It hits me the same way great metal albums or great modernist composers do: their appeal to me is entirely intellectual, not emotional or visceral. (Which is my problem, not theirs. To reiterat.) But without that emotional connection, exhaustion sets in and even my intellectual appreciation gets blunted. Illmatic ends before I'm able to get exhausted, which -- aside from the rhymes -- is the only reason I can truly love it. (Yet.)

But God, those rhymes are wicked. Nas is the purest poet of hip-hop I've ever encountered, with a depth and complexity to his wordsmithery that is basically unrivaled among modern writers in any form or genre.

Nope, not gonna qualify that statement. He's that good.

And here's the thing -- I'm using the present tense for a reason. The received wisdom about Nas is that he made the best rap album of all time with Illmatic and was never able to live up to it again. But I've listened to a bunch of his later stuff, and it's not that he's gotten any worse, it's just that there's more of it and it's harder to separate the great from the merely good when it's not presented in such a strong, unified package. I think some of his later songs are better than anything on Illmatic -- as songs, anyway.

But he's still a humorless fuck, so I can't really love him.

[leonaozaki]

I listened to this record many, many times when it first came out, but I haven't really listened to it much since then....

Holy crap, what a record. The beats are wicked, the production is incredible, and Nas's flow and rhymes are just on a whole 'nother level.

I think a lot of the record is very funny, and if more current rap was like this, I would listen to more of it.

rob

[glue]

And here's the thing -- I'm using the present tense for a reason. The received wisdom about Nas is that he made the best rap album of all time with Illmatic and was never able to live up to it again. But I've listened to a bunch of his later stuff, and it's not that he's gotten any worse, it's just that there's more of it and it's harder to separate the great from the merely good when it's not presented in such a strong, unified package. I think some of his later songs are better than anything on Illmatic -- as songs, anyway.

But he's still a humorless fuck, so I can't really love him.

The general consensus (in my experience) is that the albums got worse, but not the lyrics. His ear for beats is either awful, he's not looking to spend money or he's trying to put unknown producers on. I've never checked the liner notes of his later stuff because the production is really bad to me, though, so I'm not sure which of the three is more likely.

I think something that gets lost in what makes Illmatic so great is the fact that he's only influenced by and talking about the small world he lives in. That's a kid that's spent his whole life in Queens and so that's what he's talking about. He is that world. As he moved along he started playing roles and he can't express himself as well because he's not being himself anymore. He wants to be everything to everyone and it destroys his art. I think he's finally starting to realize that and while I don't like his last album (should've released The N*gger Tape instead) it's definitely a move in the right direction.


But, yeah, Illmatic (for me) has been discussed to death. It's probably my second favorite album ever and there are no flaws, although I always felt like the intro was missing a quick verse at the end.

[DrewTheXenocide]

I think my biggest problem with Illmatic is that it's all very one note. Every track is his story of his hard ass life in the city. I get it, Nas. Now can't you chill out, for one song at least? I'm not saying that he doesn't do it with a certain swagger. "I never sleep 'cause sleep is the cousin of death" is one of the best lines I've heard in a while, but all this intensity is so compacted, concentrated into this intense album, that I've got no breathing air.

Then again, I'm not a big rap listener, so maybe there's something I'm just not hearing.

[DrewTheXenocide]

I've been listening to it more, and I think it's starting to grow on me. I listened to "One Love" and I really got to appreciating it. That being said, I think my favorite track is still "One Time 4 Your Mind," simply because it's the most chill.

[DrewTheXenocide]

Here's something I didn't notice: this stuff is headphone music, through and through. I figured since it wasn't Radiohead, or Deerhunter, or some other noise-ish band, that I could listen to Illmatic on regular speakers. While this is possible, I think I've found a new appreciation for it listening to it on headphones. It wasn't until I did so that I realized how spot on the beats were. Also, with a decent pair of headphones, the rhymes are heard more clearly.

It seems like an obvious thing, and I feel like a dumbass for not doing it sooner.

[DrewTheXenocide]

*Double post*