15th December - Dr. Dre's The Chronic

Artist – Album: Dr. Dre – The Chronic
Released: 15^th December 1992
Sounds Like: Dre and Snoop (Snooooooopppp!) rewrite the rap rulebook

As far as rap albums go, The Chronic is the shit.

...But we've been doing all the Christmas decorating today to the sounds of Phil Spector and, I've gotta say, this is knocking me out of the Christmas mood. So I'm gonna knock it off and start dancing to 'Marshmallow World' and 'Sleigh Ride' again. 


Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       The Chronic – 1:57
2.       Fuck wit Dre Day (And Everybody’s Celebratin’) – 4:52
3.       Let Me Ride – 4:21
4.       The Day the Niggaz Took Over – 4:33
5.       Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang – 3:58
6.       Deeez Nuuuts – 5:06
7.       Lil’ Ghetto Boy – 5:27
8.       A Nigga Witta Gun – 3:53
9.       Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat – 3:48
10.   The $20 Sack Pyramid – 2:53
11.   Lyrical Gangbang – 4:04
12.   High Powered – 2:44
13.   The Doctor’s Office – 1:04
14.   Stranded on Death Row – 4:47
15.   The Roach – 4:36
16.   Bitches Ain’t Shit – 4:48

Listen to ‘Fuck Wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1SJQjoAZIE

Also released on the 15^th December:

1967: The Who – The Who Sell Out

Also released on the 15^th December:

1967: The Who – The Who Sell Out

1976: Eagles – Hotel California

9th August - Gravediggaz's 6 Feet Deep

Artist – Album: Gravediggaz – 6 Feet Deep

Released: 9^th July 1994

Sounds Like: If Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers joined forces with Eminem and Busta Rhymes
 

Gravediggaz hold exulted status as one of the pioneers of the small hip hop sub genre dubbed Horrorcore. Its proponents were famed for their horror movie soundtracks and evil fantasy lyrics (rather than for producing horrifically bad hip hop a la Vanilla Ice), with a few of the other colourful stars of the movement include Flatlinerz (named after the fantastically trashy cult movie of the near-same name) and the brilliantly named duo of Insane Clown Posse and Kung Fu Vampire.

As you may have guessed, the violence and terror promoted by these guys contained at least a pinch of cartoon, and Gravediggaz had it in spades. It’s there quite obviously in the maniacal Woody Woodpecker-esque cackle in ‘Constant Elevation’ and the even more evil laugh at the end of ‘1-800 Suicide’, it’s there in the Hammer Horror titles such as ‘2 Cups of Blood’, ‘Diary of a Madman’ and ‘Mommy, Whats A Gravedigga?’, and it’s there in the gruesome, death obsessed lyrics. The music here may be of the sort that can terrify your parents, but Frukwan, Poetic, and the more well known RZA and Prince Paul had their collective tongues at least hovering close to cheek.

Whilst it’s rare that I have two hip hop albums in a row on my Albumaday… project (and it’s unprecedented to have consecutive records that both contain the rhyming couplet “tortoise” and “rigor mortis”) it’s been an absolute pleasure to have two such interesting and experimental albums from hip hop’s golden age.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Just When You Thought It Was Over (Intro) – 0:10

2.       Constant Elevation – 2:30

3.       Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide – 3:55

4.       Defective Trip (Trippin’) – 5:04

5.       2 Cups of Blood – 1:24

6.       Blood Brothers – 4:47

7.       360 Questions – 0:33

8.       1-800 Suicide – 4:18

9.       Pass The Shovel – 3:36

10.   Diary of a Madman – 4:34

11.   Mommy, What’s a Gravedigga? – 1:44

12.   Bang Your Head – 3:24

13.   Here Comes the Gravediggaz – 3:44

14.   Graveyard Chamber – 4:57

15.   Death Trap – 2:57

16.   6 Feet Deep – 4:36

17.   Rest in Peace (Outro) – 2:01

Listen to ‘Constant Elevation’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anvDbCK_ODI

Also released on the 9^th August:

1994: Machine Head – Burn My Eyes

Also released on the 9^th August:

1996: Therion – Theli

8th August - N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton

Artist – Album: N.W.A. – Straight Outta Compton

Released: 8^th August 1988

Sounds Like: Crompton's Most Wanted

N.W.A may have courted controversy as a matter of course, releasing the firebrand single ‘Fuck tha Police’ and generally populating their music with vibrant profanities and tales of guns and hoes and rock and roll, but in truth they were a lot less humourless than their gangsta rap contemporaries such as Public Enemy. They were angry young men undoubtedly, and they showed as much on the likes opening trio of ‘Straight Outta Compton’, the aforementioned ‘Fuck tha Police’ and ‘Gangsta Gangsta’ which squared on fakers, the boys in blue and the obscene level of violence in the South Central L.A. in the late of Eighties. Ice Cube channelled this passion in a phenomenal performance in the 1991’s powerful drama Boyz n the Hood.

But what truly separated N.W.A from their peers were their lighter touches. Where Public Enemy assaulted the senses, N.W.A’s funky approach had you nodding along like the dog from Churchill. Dr Dre and DJ Yella formed a production team that has rarely been bettered in the history of hip hop, and Ice Cube plied their grooves with greatly fluid flows. Album closer ‘Something 2 Dance 2’ experiments with danceable templates, whilst ‘I Ain’t the 1’ hilariously runs the rule on gold diggers. They knowingly produced their most accessible single yet in the commercially-minded-rappers-skewering ‘Express Yourself’. Funky, fulfilling, influential stuff.

 

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Straight Outta Compton – 4:19

2.       Fuck tha Police – 5:45

3.       Gangsta Gangsta – 5:36

4.       If It Ain’t Ruff – 3:34

5.       Parental Discretion Iz Advised – 5:16

6.       8 Ball – 4:52

7.       Something Like That – 3:35

8.       Express Yourself – 4:25

9.       Compton’s N the House – 5:20

10.   I Ain’t tha 1 – 4:54

11.   Dope Man – 5:20

12.   Quiet on tha Set – 3:59

13.   Something 2 Dance 2 – 3:22

Listen to ‘Express Yourself’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u31FO_4d9TY

Also released on the 8^th August:

2007: M.I.A. – Kala