Jay-Z: American Gangster

since jay-z's impromptu decision to record a concept album based off his favorite movie since scarface the internet has been ablaze with every bit of new info available leading up to the albums release. while the album doesn't officially come out until next tuesday, the things been leaked so damn much already that it might as well be out by now. the concept holds together in theory, what with the heavy handed intro and the random (yet tasteful) placement of dialog form the movie throughout, but if we didn't know this was supposed to be a concept album, we probably wouldn't have caught on. this isn't necessarily due to a weak concept, more to due with the fact that this is basically what jay's been rapping about since his classic debut in '96. not that thats a bad thing, jay does this better than anyone else, and the album is pretty much a success, with no real weak songs, only a couple of misguided ideas and jay reaching out of his nearing forty comfort zone (more on that later).

when jay was discussing concept, he must of had the flow of the album in mind, because its track sequencing is pretty much flawless, leading off with a perfect intro to set the tone into "pray", an epic sounding track that starts jay off documenting his urge to deal. the next thirteen tracks play with pretty much the same concept, but it remains interesting by switching to the different mindsets of a hustler; in fact the album is basically exactly what jay described it as: the concept of reasonable doubt mixed with the lyrical prowess of the blueprint. what on paper sounds like a jay-z fan's dream come true (and for the most part it is) the execution sometimes falls flat due to jay not realizing he really is about to turn forty, and while his rhymes and flow are still up to par he makes an occasional mistake that makes you think hes trying to adapt to guest lil' wayne's persona at times. blasphemy you say? maybe im just not used to jay adopting to trendy terms such as "ya dig" and muttering "hot hot hot..." but for a man of his age and a rapper of his status these come ons sound sort of elementary, especially when paired up against his aging voice, which is actually starting to give jay a new feel with his words. while im sure hes still capable of his double speed flow that he nearly abandoned since the late nineties his voice is much more comfortable giving the authoritative flow that jay has always been famous for, now that his voice is sounding older when he works his rhymes to fix with this flow the effect is amazing. jay-z has always had the ability to seem like a legend giving advice to younger men, now that this is actually the truth jay has the ability to truly destroy anyone vying for the throne, its only when he tries to go down to their level that he falters.

now i've spent far too much time talking about the few negatives on the album, as the positives FAR outweigh the negatives. the album flows perfectly, the aformentioned intro and first track segue into "american dreamin" which basically works as a placeholder to hold us off for the lil wayne collaboration hello brooklyn 2.0, i dunno why this has been getting so much bad press, the song is fucking awesome, with jay and weezys personas bouncing off of eachother, a simple pulsating bass with a voice shouting the tittle, it works, both of the rappers are on point, whats not to like? no hook follows which leads into the celebratory second single, roc boys, which, like blue magic, is one of jay's best singles in years; even if neither necessarily "sound" like a jay-z single. the following three tracks, "sweet", "i know", and "party life" all round out the middle of the album perfectly, leading into the revamped "ignorant shit", a leftover (although it really shouldn't have been) from the black album, now complete with a beanie sigel verse and a brilliant new verse by jay dealing with the don imus controversy. "say hello" might be the best track on the cd, or possibly "success" featuring nas, which has the formal rivals trading verses over a beat that only these two could do justice to. the album "closes" with "fallin", with a great hook by bilal, but its a godsend that there are two more bonus tracks, seeing as this track would be a pretty weak closer. its lyrics, which ape reasonable doubts "regrets" to fully demonstrate the downside of the hustler lifestyle, are great, but the tone of the track just doesnt demonstrate closing material. so the first bonus cut is the first single, blue magic, which breaks the flow of the cd completely but by this point its so late in it really works, and the track brings to mind the eighties, while the rest of the cd jay is trying to invoke the seventies, it gives the song a sense of looking back after the "fallin" out of his heyday. the album closes with the celebratory title track, which only makes sense: jay wanted to illustrate the demise of the fictional gangsters throughout his concept, but (in typical jay fashion) he couldn't help to put himself at the forefront of things, and we all know how he turned out....

Just in time for halloween....

...the shining on a two disc remastered adition, along with every single one of kubricks films on a two disc remastered dvd. its about fucking time! this is at the top of my christmas list for sure, i've been wanting a beautiful looking edition of 2001 for a very long time now. its only $70 on amazon too, this is a must buy for any kubrick fan.

"Love will tear us apart"

thank god nip/tuck kicks ass again, their move to l.a. at the end of the fourth season, while a welcome change due to the kinda lame fourth season, seemed like it could have been a last ditch attempt to breath some life into the series. thankfully it was the complete opposite, the shows gotten a pretty substantial facelift. the onetime big shots are finding it difficult to adjust at the beginning of the episode, they even went as far to install a basketball net in their office to pass the time while they wait for a patient to drop into their office, its not until they realize theyre gonna have to make a name for themselves that the show really kicks into action. their attempt to go out to an l.a. nightclub and hit on prospective income stalls once they are informed theyre not in miami anymore by a publicist who hooks them up to appear in a primetime hit show hearts 'n scapels. the show really seems to be moving in a great direction, after christian installs some hairplugs that dont properly heal for their big nationwide appearance the shows producer orders the cameras to focus on sean. as a result christians "big" speech is cut out completely and hes relegated to a quick shot of his hand on seans left shoulder. that asshole "sack" from wedding crashers plays the hot shot actor in the show and hes an instantly likeable character, as well as the dude form scary movie 4 playing a hollywood big wig who is addicted to a dominatrix to put his life in perspective. as he tells sean and christian later in the show to get out of the city before it devours them, the show gives us one of its best moments in its history: both of them looking down, christian with a determined look that tells us hes not turning back, sean with a giddy apprehension due to his newfound fame. jealousy ensues, but we all know these two will work out their friendship, no matter how many hot models they have to fuck throughout the season to come to terms with themselves.

mood muzik

i dont know how i've been sleeping on budden for so long, pump it up is still one of the best party jams to be released in years, but im making up for lost time. he recently got released from his contract with def jam, which he called a "great day" for joe budden fans. he's prepping up for the release of his latest mixtape in the mood muzik series, mood muzik 3: the growth, which follows the fucking awesome 2, i cant comment on 1. seeing as how the newest tape took the name of his still unreleased sophmore album, who knows what he'll name it, i wonder what labels gonna pick him up. guess well have to see how his new tape pans out, fans expectations and anticipation are pretty high right now. why jay let this dude go i have no idea, then again he has been pretty busy lately.

mcnamara/troy go west

nip/tuck season 5 starts tomorrow, i got hooked like crazy on this shit during its third season, the fourth just sort of pissed me off, granted i kind of tuned out after a couple of episodes and didn't really give it much of a chance. they've moved to l.a. now, should be interesting how to see how this all pans out, i wonder if the carver story line will make another appearance...

Oh there will be blood, but no country for old men...

so the coen's have a new film coming out very soon, its called no country for old men and it looks like its harkening back to the "classic" coen style if that makes any sense. so does paul thomas anderson, who i reluctantly admit to not knowing anything about, i've never seen boogie nights or magnolia or anything else he's done, but his new one looks great. its called there will be blood. it's starring daniel day lewis in a turn of the century story revolving around oil, i've already been hearing early talk of people comparing it to citizen kane (!) of all films, i guess the power hungry motivation to capture the american dream runs strong in this one. both of these films i guarantee will spark quite a wave in hollywood come oscar time, just by credentials alone, but the odd thing is that these two along with the already released 3:10 to yuma and the assasination of jesse james by the coward robert ford all deal with those wide open spaces in the west. granted the latter two films are set during the wild west but still, it's nice to see talented filmakers filming these kind of scenes again. hopefully a resurgence of sorts comes about following the release of all these films this year. the coens newest comes out on nov. 21, with there will be blood comes out the day after christmas, should be a good flick to see that day after a marathon session of a christmas story. extra note to there will be blood, radiohead guitarist johnny greenwood contributes the score, this is good news. the performances in both have already been getting crazy good reviews, no country in particular looks so fucking badass, but it may just be that i'm familiar with the coens work, i've heard great things about anderson and this trialer at least seems to verify that, i espcecially cant wait to see lewis in this, for my money his bill the butcher still remains one of the best characters in any film in the past decade.

"Get em girls..."

so cam'rons back, hes got his new song out called Glitter, looks like early internet talk is leaning more towards the negative side, but thats okay, cam divides hip-hop heads almost as much as weezy. but the song is great, with cam flowing like he has no idea he tried starting one or two insanely stupid beefs and just disappeared for a couple of months. im not sure if this is his official "comeback" single, in the traditional sense this would be a horrible choice, but were talking about cam'ron here. he uses his most unassuming flow laid atop a beat that slowly bubbles along, some synth pops thrown in among random drum hits for good measure. some dude i dont' recognize lays a pretty decent verse, but it really doesnt add anything. "the glitter in your ear, the glitter in your chain" says a familiar sounding chipmunk voice during the chorus, with cam laughing back at it and rephrasing, adding in "it ain't yo bitch shes mine.... you actin funny ho?", i missed this dude, good thing hes got a new double disc mixtape november 7, Public Enemy #1.

Can't Knock the Hustle?

that jay-z felt a revelation of sorts after his viewing of the upcoming American Gangster and has decided to make an album based on it shouldn't be news to anybody who pays attention to music. but this shit gets a lot weirder the more i think i about it, and trust me i think about it quite a bit. but here goes: the album is loosely based on memories and past experiences that jay hadn't been able to really rap about for years that were culled from his viewing session of said film. its not the official soundtrack, and suprisingly enough there doesnt seem to be any huge tie-in with the film either, actually jay claims he is going to make his own 40 minute film tittled american gangster (?) that from what i hear has relatively nothing to do (scratch that, nothing at all) with the original movie and seemingly won't even detail jays drug slinging days, but that of his fathers or uncles or something. so we've got a nearly forty year old legend using a movie as an excuse to lay out a non commercial (for jay-z anyway) concept album detailing the rise and fall of a drug dealer, this is a major jump from the dude who premiered the lead single from his last album in just about the most extravagant way possible.

as fucked up as all of this sounds its actually the coolest sounding thing this side of "in rainbows", the lead single was given its own teaser trailer and was gifted with one of pharrell's "hell hath no fury" sounding beats(crooner Bilal closed off that album, seems the same is happening on AG, jay's taking the right ideas from the right people here), and jay demolishes it with a seemingly hidden for the past ten years rakimish flow. apperantly those steely synths didn't fit into the flow with the rest of the album, so the single, with it's hype williams directed video that helps to remind us jay is talking about drugs again gets kicked on to the end of the cd as a bonus track. not that jay really needs to worry about not highlighting a single and video that probably cost too much to think about, dude most likely literally wipes his ass with thousands. he's ecstatic about this new shit, claiming in interviews hes in a "zone" he hasn't been in for years. jay is also deciding to follow his part of the deal and allowing nas to be on a song on this one, after their too good to be true matchup on hip-hop is dead, plus beans (!) is on the revamped ignorant shit, a track leftover from the black album. speaking of beans, hes got a new disc coming out, as does freeway (finally). plus unless jay was just bullshitin i'm pretty sure the roc is gonna come very very hard in the next year. better even, the other greatest rapper alive drops in for hello brooklyn 2.0, a track meant for tha carter III, jay heard it and needed, wayne obliged. i don't quite understand how a song about weezy hollering at a girl from brooklyn fits in with jays supposed story arc here, but fuck it. a lot of people have been waiting a long time for this, and it sounds great.