February is Music Writer Exercise Month #MWE • Page 23

Yeah, I just mean that I’ve always personally found two and a half hours of music to be a bit ambitious regardless of artist, and Pac doesn’t particularly reward listeners by switching up the sounds a lot. All of his albums have a little filler, but his double album is super overstuffed as a result of him writing a ton of material while he was in jail and him consciously trying to release hip hop’s first double album epic. I’d rank it fourth of the four Tupac studio albums I’ve heard because the length just drags so much for me.

You probably need a break from Pac tbh but next time you’re trying to get into his full studio albums I’d recommend Me Against The World (super insular, focused on his trauma) or Don Killuminati (top of his game intense rapping, dropped two months after he passed with a few of his best known singles). The latter is listed on streaming services under the artist name Makaveli I think, which was a plan Pac apparently had before he passed.

Or honestly if you’re just trying to get more comfortable with his range, diving into a Greatest Hits is valuable if you’re not super familiar. His albums come off more to me like they mark chapters in his life and less like he was crafting conscious narratives.

 

Thats really helpful, thank you. I won't be getting to any more of his stuff before the month is up but I'll follow up eventually. Me against the world sounds a bit more my speed, too much of Eyez felt like he didn't have enough to say, think I'll engage with an introspective album better.

 

Let me know how it goes, I did it for MWE 2018!

 

MATW is probably my favorite as well, but I agree that a greatest hits might work well

 

Megadeth today, which did zilch for me.

 

they’re incredible for riffs but that’s about it

 

Yup, that's about all I got from it.

 

There was a thinkpiece a few years ago where someone criticized the Beach Boys for having "beach privilege" and got absolutely torn apart online.

Here's the quote:

 

Well, similarly the venga boys have venga privilege. I'm not calling for anyone to be cancelled but we need to hold these things in tension.

 

You need to understand that not all of us have beaches nearby. Some of us have to put up with a conventional sand pit #beachprivilege #sandequality

 

I checked this out thanks to this post and absolutely loved it. I've seen his name around here and AP but always felt intimidated since all his albums have like 15 songs. I guess the point is: thanks, and I'll need to dig deeper now

 

#Landlocked

 

its no save rock n roll but its ok

 

was my listen yesterday .... and agree superb album

 

loved this. holy shit.

 

Listened to Eagles - Desperado last night, pretty good stuff. More diverse than I expected, and I really appreciate running musical themes so it was nice to have 3 versions of the opening track, halfway though, and the end. Title track is obviously so great.

 

Damn, what a blind spot you had there!! Love it, glad you wound up loving this

 

This has been a really fun thread to thumb through, shame it’s flown under my radar! No intention of participating this month, but definitely gonna hop in next year and skim this thread for ideas

 

Loved this one. She has a knack for these really interesting and surprising vocal melodies, and the arrangements are wonderful.

 

Today's Big Star's "#1 Record."

 

If you wanted to explain to someone what was great about music in the 70s, just pop on Pizzazz

 

A day late, but my Day 9 album was The Harder They Come by Jimmy Cliff, which is also the soundtrack to the film of the same name from 1972, starring Cliff.

I didn’t realise when choosing this that it wasn’t solely a Jimmy Cliff record, there’s two Toots and the Maytals tracks on here, one Desmond Dekker, both of whom I already like, and three tracks by other groups / singers I didn’t recognise, leaving just four Jimmy Cliff songs.

It’s good to hear a nice variety of tracks here, reggae isn’t something I’m well versed in at all, the handful of albums that I’ve heard, I’ve enjoyed, and this is no different. It’s hard to really assess it as an album considering the multiple performers here, but I enjoyed all the tracks, and I’ve been meaning to watch the film for a while.


Favourite song was probably Pressure Drop by Toots and the Maytals or Shanty Town by Desmond Dekker, so not Jimmy Cliff selections! Will maybe try and track down an actual one of his albums later on.

 

I'm not anywhere near as versed in Jimmy Cliff as I should be but the guy has some incredible pipes.

 

Catching up, my album for the day was Sophie’s Oil of Every Peal’s Un Inside. I was very sorry to hear that she’d died recently, but I knew very little about her music, so was looking to change that.

This is pretty manic! You can tell how talented she is as a producer, but it’s a bit exhausting to listen to. It runs the gauntlet through a huge variety of styles in just 9 tracks, going from 1975 style pop, to aggressively jagged pulsing electronics like someone like Arca or Pluto by Bjork, to samples that sound like the sort of stuff Burial does, then to some ambient bits, and then even some Madonna style dancey bits.

Im not convinced we have a particularly coherent album here, more of an excellent showreel of what she’s capable of. Definitely one that I’m sure would make a bit more sense with more listens, but a first impression is that there’s a huge amount of talent and creativity here , but it’s all a bit overwhelming.