Wednesday, March 29, 2006

NOTHING LIKE WAKING

To the sounds of your upstairs neighbors powersanding their floor. Or building a private, state of the art bowling alley. This morning they were running windsprints. In steel-jacketed clogs. For an hour, starting at 7:30. I will find a way to kill them. It will be a most painful way.

Last night, I had the second Martini of my life. Also the third and fourth martinis of my life. None of these was a standard martini, as olives are repellant, but all have been with Tobor. These last three were lychee martinis. Some kind of vodka (carachararara?), pineapple juice and a lychee (it's a fruit from some alien world, possibly the one that birthed Beta Ray Bill). Simply delicious. And cheap. $4 until 10PM. If i ever find myself in the need to impress a woman again, I've got a place to go.

I also got work done. Some work done. EMAW #5 is ready to go. #6 is ready. In a repeat of last year, only EMAW #1–4 need be finished. I'm more than halfway done with those. Finish by tomorrow night? Let's hope.

FISHSCALES!!!

New Ghostface Killah. I thought he dropped the Killah quite some time ago, but iTunes will sell you some hippy crap if you try to buy Ghostface's new album.

What's with guys putting out albums that they declare is the best one they did since their greatest achievement. What's with those bragging songs always being so good? Just Blaze does it one time, giving Ghost, 'The Champ.' He ain't been hungry since Supreme Clientele. Ghost is the hungriest rapper OF ALL TIME. No one in hiphop history ever sounded desperate until Ghost came on the scene. This song is revisionist history! But, if this is Ghost even hungrier, I'll take it. More Just Blaze too. Crazy dual organ duel. Seriously. More Just Blaze everywhere.

And less MF Doom, please! Metal Fingers has an incredible talent for finding ace loops—and then driving those loops into the ground. The experience of listening to his production is one of returns that diminish to the point of annoyance. Also, his production is so overwhelming, that it often drowns the vocals. He does five tracks. Some not as bad as others. The loop on '9 Million Bros." is fantastic, but needs a little mixing up, because it get old. All Wu Tang is there, even ODB in yet another tape fragment. Also Capadonna. Giving Cap three appearances. That's equal to the number of Chef appearances. Wha—? Was U-God busy? I need to listen to this a few more times. I couldn't tell if guys were bringing their A game or if a bunch a random drug-running rhymes were just cobbled together. It felt like the former at first, then stumbled into the latter.

But talk of A games that aren't played by Just Blaze, makes me think of Pete Rock. I won't blame him for the egregious use of eBay in the chorus of 'Be Easy', but I will credit him with making that song fun (this first version of the song). I will ALSO give him full props for 'R.A.G.U.' Of COURSE, R.A.G.U. had to be ace. It's named after pasta. Also, Chef throws in the first of his great guest spots.

His next great guest spot is on 'Three Bricks'. Raekwon knows he's on the track with Biggie, and does a great job. Ghost does a decent job trying to match Biggie's wordplay. It's all good, although A) do we really need to keep bringing that guy from the dea? and B) I know you're trying to get named best NY MC, but it actually doesn't help you to remind us why Biggie is still the best.

Still, if Ghost is not as good as a dead Biggie, he's miles ahead of a live Ice Cube. Cube appears on a second version of Be Easy. Oh, mutherfuckin' christ! Remember when he used to be awesome???? Or even good??????

How is Ghost through all of this? pretty great. We don't really get the surreal lyric blender of my favorite old tracks, but we do get Ghost the great storyteller. The whole thing is just one big cocaine-inspired concept album. Every song, even the awesome 'Barbershop' song seems to be part of this story. It comes at just the right time, as the drug running, women and crime have him at the breaking point. The album is like Scarface in reverse, with more heart and more soul. It starts with the big climax and just falls apart after that. Not in a bad way, in a life way.

The storytelling is phenomenal. Ghost says, "The dick snot hangin' outta his nose." It's good.

2 Comments:

Blogger Marcos Perez said...

yet to listen, but ghost hasn't disappointed yet.

11:40 AM  
Blogger Justin Fox said...

It's good, just not ridiculously good. And it has a weird Stillmatic vibe.

Will listen to Pretty Tony tonight.

12:43 PM  

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