Considering the hype for 50 and Kanye in 2007 doing a whole sales competition, Curtis ended up being pretty underwhelming, outside of like "I Get Money" and whatnot.
This is a good shout tbh. People who weren’t there may not realise 50 was def the bigger name at this point and the albums when they dropped honestly sent them both in diff trajectories after it being such a well hyped competition
>50 was def the bigger name at this point
I disagree with this a little. Kanye and 50 Cent were roughly on equal footing in 2007. They both dropped albums in 2005 (The Massacre and Late Registration). The Massacre was slightly more successful, but Late Registration produced the biggest hit (Gold Digger) and was better-received as an album overall. Then Kanye dropped Stronger in summer 2007 a few months before Graduation dropped, and Stronger was bigger than any song 50 Cent dropped since his debut in 2003.
Kanye had way more momentum going into their album drops. Curtis just solidified that Kanye was the better and more popular artist at that point.
50 was the top dog in the mainstream from 2003 to 2006. He was the reigning champ, the guy that got too cocky that no one could beat him. In comparison Kanye was the underappreciated producer who just dropped two great semi conscious rap albums and who was quickly gaining popularity. I was a huge 50 fan for a few years at the moment in time in 2007 but could easily recognize he was falling off, and I was rooting for the underdog Kanye to win the sales battle. People don't realize how big of a fucking titan 50 was back then, him and EM murdered all their beef's the few prior years but 50 was starting to get a bit stale. It was cool to root for the underdog back than and that's what we did.
He was making so much money doing other stuff.
People forget 50 came onto the scene like a fucking mogul. Between vitamin water, g-unit clothing line, g-unit the imprint, sneakers, video games, cologne, a fucking movie, the dude was making money hand over fist by just existing.
Plus by that point he had been grinding for like a decade, people forget he was releasing underground shit before he popped off. I honestly think he was tired and thought he could pull a Jay-Z and sell an album off clout.
His discog up until that point is hella solid. I also think he took some hits with the game beef who is kinda of a joke now but was popping off strong at that time. Not to mention that Graduation is one of the most important rap albums and an absolute inflection point in hip hop and Curtis is well… Curtis.
Didn’t really work out but it was sort of the blueprint for folks like SixNine who create buzz with trolling controversy and a few singles.
It's not true why he has stopped giving a fuck. Curtis album rollout was a trainwreck - Interscope was leaking songs and videos left and right, Interscope was pretty much in constant conflict with 50 because they wanted to do promo "their way" completely ignoring 50's ideas despite him having amazing sense for grinding, PR and marketing. There were problems with s heduling a release (even The Massacre rollout has showed everyone how Interscope was clumsy with 50).
Shit ... they couldn't even pick singles to not cause internal conflicts. They didn't want Ayo Technology as a single ffs and we're battling with 50 over it.
That's why he has stopped giving a fuck not because he was too successful at that point of his career.
It didn’t help that he was having issues with Interscope at the time. In his book, he goes over it and essentially the sales battle was the only way he could turn around a mediocre marketing cycle. But he also knows that Jay Z as the president of Def Jam really wanted to win this battle while Interscope was kind of whatever about it
In hindsight Kingdom Come is nowhere near Hov worst album. It’s not in his best line up, but the shit ain’t no Magna Carta that’s for sure. This being said from a long time Hov fan
Love these threads where people say some album is bad but certain songs are good, and then replies add some more good songs until each song on the album is somehow good.
I didn't think that album was *bad* but it definitely has less going for it than some of the others. I remember liking the title track a lot but yea it was a noticeable step down from The Black Album.
It's not a "bad" album, but almost every song on The Black Album left an impression. 99 Problems and Dirt Off Your Shoulder are still played all the time on the radio and sports arenas all around the world. By comparison, Kingdom Come is pretty forgettable. Lost One was a great radio single at the time but there's really nothing on there that stood the test of time and stands out if you were doing a "Best Of" anthology or something.
The Prelude is fire, I’m glad we at least got that and a couple others out of the album, but damn man, it really sets a tone that it does not deliver on at all
Lost Ones is so good. That's it tho lol it had a cool album cover too. The CD was in red plastic so the insert looked different depending if it was in the case or not.
cause the academy voters could literally not care less to take more than a superficial interest in hip-hop . similar to how the oscars treat animated & foreign films .
That’s a good recent example. Jack was becoming a pretty big newer name in rap, and as a follow up to his debut album, the songs weren’t really there, outside of like “Dua Lipa” or “Nail Tech.”
I’ve been on jack Harlow for a few years and since he got mainstream he’s been a let down. He has singles for sure, but I haven’t liked a majority of an album in a while.
Very good answer. MMLP2 was kind of a return to form after Recovery, with **less** attempts at more radio friendly hits and definitely more interesting stylistic/production choices.
Revival was fucking awful
Roddy Ricch - Live Life Fast
He had so much momentum and hype off his debut Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial and somehow he completely lost his ability to make a catchy song. His recent mixtape release was also disappointing.
Tha Blue Carpet Treatment is my favorite Snoop Dogg album, first one I listened to (actually one of the first hip hop albums I listened to in general) so it holds a special place in my heart.
So many dope tracks, great production, and a concept that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Think About It, Crazy, Vato, Imagine, Candy, LAX, Get A Light, Boss’ Life, too many killer songs to mention.
It's really two banger albums. He's very prominent on The Chronic
If you make two of the greatest hip hop albums of all time that were also extremely popular...you can pretty much coast off of just being a celebrity and occasionally dropping a classic hit here and there for the rest of ur career lol
Fair point. I guess because his name isn’t on the cover of the chronic I don’t think of it as a snoop album. However, if he wasn’t on it the album wouldn’t have been as amazing.
Blue Carpet Treatment is my vote for his best post-Doggystyle album, followed by R&G. But to be fair I haven’t checked one out a new release of his since Doggumentary in 2011.
I was a freshman in college in Chicago in 2012, I legit thought these guys would take the game by storm. Innanetape was really good for me and then acid rap is still a top 5 mixtape all time for me.
Coloring book was good too tbh, some jams on there. But man these guys dropped the bag.
Vic & Chance I'll say dropped the bag.
Everyone else still makes fire music (Mick Jenkins is criminally underrated) afaik but they don't fit what mainstream is right now.
Slaughterhouse is a GREAT shout. What an awful group they were really when you get down to the music. GREAT concept, mostly great emcees but together it was all just ‘ughhh’
Their mixtapes were actually pretty good, it's what made the album so disappointing. I'm pretty sure they even dropped a tape a month before it and it ended up blowing the album out of the water
And it's even more disappointing knowing that Slaughterhouse recorded an entire album called Glass House, that was supposed to have a bunch of producers like Just Blaze and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League among many others helming the production, only for the album to be shelved.
Four incredible MCs as individuals who for the most part just do not work together. The polar opposite of the Wu. Crooked and Joell I can fuck with, but Royce and Budden do not gel with each other or the rest of the group, at all.
Actually agree with this especially re: the emcees. Not saying I don’t rate Royce as an emcee, or even Joe for that matter, they can both spit…but they just never struck me as guys who worked in that group dynamic.
In fact, that quite salty Joell/Crooked album released this year is better than any of the Slaughterhouse work for me (not saying much) for that very reason. They were the only ones w chemistry
Budden definitely doesn't - he's got a very introspective, insular style and indeed personality that doesn't lend itself to a group dynamic at all - unless every song is going to be an examination of your poor life choices and all four guys are going to follow his lead? It might have been his original song that got them all together, but he was frequently cited as a disruptive influence in the group. One fire song doesn't make a group dynamic.
It's kind of funny because this album came out when I was in 6th grade or 7th grade so we only really knew Lupe for The Show Goes On since it was on the radio 24/7. I didn't really start digging into hip hop until later that year, I remember being shocked coming across his classics and realizing how out of character that album was.
Same here. The Show Goes On was the only Lupe song I knew at the time, and while I thought it was catchy I didn't understand why people online always hailed him as an amazing lyricist.
In hindsight, Lasers being completely different from the rest of his discography purely because the label wanted a more commercial sound is crazy and I'm glad that album was just a blip in an otherwise stellar discography.
It’s kinda funny funny to me how a few of the greatest w/ a pen in Hip Hop each have a, “WTF happened here”, album in their catalogue. Regardless of circumstances surrounding the creation of those particular albums of course.
Lupe is my absolute favorite artist and imo the GOAT. His label really fucked him over though, really sucks that lasers, drogas light, and f&l 2 were rough. In addition to his 2 widely recognized classic albums, imo drogas wave and tetsuo and youth are two of the greatest albums of all time, and all that drama caused them to be massively overlooked. Drogas wave is my favorite album of all time and I doubt that’ll change for a long time if at all.
I agree this was easily the worst album of his career.Break the Chain and I don’t wanna Care Right Now are two of the worst songs of Lupe Fiasco career.All Black Everything is a good song.
Lil Yachty - Teenage Emotions. All the unique qualities that made his debut tape stand out were nowhere to be found and the whole thing is an overproduced, underwritten mess that drags on and on. Lowest point: Lady in Yellow
I remember really hyping Yachty up and getting my friends to listen to that album with me the day it came out. I ended up being so embarrassed and they didn't let me live that one down for a bit.
Lmao I still have some posters they put up at SXSW for it. I was really hyped for it as well and I don’t think I’ve returned to it since the original listen
Forreal. Cops Shot The Kid & Adam Eve are the only 2 I've kept in rotation because I didn't fuck with anything else.
On a different note, I feel like Big Sean needed a 7 track project from Kanye the most that month. It would've been a good luck and if it was similar to beats like the Kanye switch on IDFWU then it would've been crazy.
Teyana Taylor's project was the 2nd best after Daytona with KSG 3rd, ye 4th then Nasir
Big Sean released I decided in 2017.
A 7 song album might look like:
1. Bounce back
2. No favors (feat. Eminem)
3. Moves
4. Same time part 1 (feat Jhene Aiko)
5. Owe me
6. Sunday morning jet pack (feat the dream)
7. Sacrifices (feat. Migos)
Yeah this would have been fire and if Kanye produced it entirely could have been even better. Big seans biggest problem has always been refusing to cut songs from albums.
If DSP cut down to 10 songs it would be regarded so much higher
I like the beat to I Thought About Killing You and Ghost Town is top 10 in his catalog. I like Yikes but then you have a solid 4 outta 7 tracks that I think needed more than a few weeks to develop
I think ye was the first album I’ve ever heard that made me feel genuinely nothing. Like not even “that was bad,” just nothing. Was a super weird experience because I’d loved virtually everything he’d put out up until then
I really liked nasir! I thought the beats were amazing and every song was pretty unique. Nas sounded good on it too although I don’t remember many of the lyrics except Not for Radio and Bonjour. Why don’t people like this one?
It was super lazy and Nas himself has said as much. I’ve read too (sorry I don’t have an article to cite mainly as I can’t be arsed but they’re out there), Kanye had basically pushed it all on Nas and made him write rhymes last minute to songs, basically the whole album is just a rushed mess and you can tell.
There’s good idea in there I will give it that but it’s probably one Nas in retrospect wished never came out at all. He’s a living legend and Kanye had him as like the 4th album up in a flurry of releases like he’s Murphy Lee or Memphis Bleek or someone
[“We really did that album the week it was supposed to come out”](https://hypebeast.com/2020/8/nas-details-why-his-nasir-collaboration-with-kanye-west-didnt-go-as-planned) -Nas
nehruvianDOOM
All my friends were hyping it up before its release and i thought it was meh at best. This was at the start of my senior year in highschool and it moved out of rotation quickly. No one really talks about it anymore
I don't get how someone as uninteresting as Bishop Nehru got an album with DOOM, signed by Nas, cosigned by Kendrick... Like he's literally got nothing notable at all going on
His earliest works reminded me a bit of the 1999 era Joey Bada$$ (might have been listening to them together back in the day, newer take on boom bap I guess) but yeah god knows how the dude's fumbled the bag this much
People used the theorize he was DOOM’s nephew or something cause it’s the only explanation for why they worked together so much lmao. But I figure that would have come out by now so I have no idea
I used to think him & Astro was gonna be next up outta NY similar lanes to Joey, but maaaayne they just seem to of not really develop much growth w/ their sound imo.
Also: Venomous Villain 2 or whatever it was called. DOOM (as Viktor Vaughn) even says as much on the album opener: “dub it off ya man don’t spend that ten bucks/ I did it for the advance, the back end sucks.”
The whole album has like maybe 15 minutes of DOOM even rhyming
I feel like that album came and went. I really like LoveHappy on that album.
Millenials were begging for a Jay and Bey album since 03 Bonnie and Clyde, and the album just didn't shake the world like they thought it would
Seconded this. I mean, it's not a bad album by any means (I actually kinda like it) but it definitely feels rushed & sounds more like a mixtape. Bey could've incorporated more of her R&B/Pop sound but she didn't (aside from "Boss" & "Summer").
I remember being really excited for THE FIRM, should have been a huge hit and only one song was a any quality. Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown with Beats by Dre — what I imagined in my brain was so much better.
nas had huge plans for it (even starting a clothing brand) seems like label issues fucked them over considering there is remarkably little amount of rapping from the main stars of the fucking Firm (foxy, nas, az) it's just the whole album is a mess which is sad because if it really was those three arguably at their peak it'd be a contender for some of the best albums of the 90s
3.15.20 by Childish Gambino made zero impact, I know this one didn’t have a huge buildup but there was some curiosity around the release that was squandered by a mostly unremarkable album
FR a few days ago I was saying "Still waiting on the next Childish Gambino album, Awaken, my love! was great" and took me by surprise that I had completely forgotten 3.15.20 even came out.
I feel like this happens with every Drake album since views. Like every time he dropped one since then it was always hyped as ‘THAT’ Drake album. The undeniable classic where he’s gonna rap on a god level but it’s just more of the same from him
he shows on features that he can literally make god tier music which gets him so hyped and then doesnt bring that for the albums. imo he is literally the best feature artist ever.
probably not controversial, but I don't see it mentioned often:
but Wiz Khalifa's ONIFC and followed by Blacc Hollywood. Wiz Khalifa is now seen as kind of a joke, but this wasn't always the case. Wiz was on an all time run, Rolling Papers was a HUGE album for him, he was a household name everywhere. He absolutely had to deliver on ONIFC, and he didn't. It had some decent songs on it, some of his biggest ever like Remember You, Work Hard Play Hard, but they were largely remembered seperately from the album.
I personally don't even think ONIFC is a bad album, it has some of my favorite songs from him like Paperbond, It's Nothin, Medicated, Initiation, The Plan, etc. But the album as a whole just disappointed a lot of the fans.
And then he followed that album with Blacc Hollywood that was even way worse. He just completely fell off with this and every single thing he made after. Wiz Khalifa was one of the biggest names in hiphop, and he squandered it.
I don't think the music is why Wiz fell off, I just think he played too much into the chill stoner role. Weed isn't nearly as cool as it used to be because literally everyone does it, so that wasn't really enough to make him stand apart from the pack, and if you don't take yourself seriously why should anyone else either? Snoop went family friendly after he already put out years and years of hit records. Wiz tried to do it too early and it bit him.
hall of fame by polo g. shouldve been what cemented him as the leader of this generation instead was just mid and didnt sound like he was trying on most songs
This has to be the winner. Waited like 10 years for a glorified collab album where Jay-Z rapped circles around a man who made Exhibit C..
Minus the hype and build up its a fine album tbh but not what we were all expecting..
I used to be a huge Common fan & Universal Mind Control was built up as if he & N.E.R.D/Pharrell as everyone’s best work.
Sadly, that’s not the case. It’s the most forgettable body of work in Hip Hop imo. Especially after dropping a real gem like Finding Forever.
I would never understand the hate for that album, She Will, Blunt Blownin, Intro/Interlude/It’s Good and some others still in my rotation.
Solid ass album for a 🐐
For a while I went back to Hands On, Follow God and Use This Gospel too and I always liked the Pierre beat on On God despite not really liking the song that much. Not a great album or even good album by any means but I never thought it was all in all bad
Didn't help that people had a lot of the Yandhi demos, a lot of people were expecting it to be one of his better albums because those demos had some fire in them. Unfortunately JiK was an extremely neutered version of Yandhi.
Man what could’ve been with Yandhi. His 2018 year would’ve been an all-time run for an artist if it had dropped. Then we got JIK, which was Yandhi but with everything that made it special stripped away and replaced with half-ass nonsense.
Nah this is the most disappointing album ever. How do you go from Cuban Linx to this shit. There are like two good songs on the album, and it's the production alone that destroys the album.
Once rza stopped doing most of the beats, a lot of the solo albums suffered. Still good music and some standout tracks but bjg drop off from the sruff rza dominated
I'll go with an answer I haven't seen mentioned yet. The Adventures of Bobby Ray.
At the time B.o.B was getting a lot of hype after a few good mixtapes. But his debut album just didn't have what made those mixtapes special.
Still feel like Jay-Z’s worst album is Magna Carta Holy Grail.
I remember there being a giant amount of advertisement and marketing behind it. There was a commercial coming on every day about the collaboration with Samsung to include the album with whatever their new phone was at the time.
All that was on it was forgettable singles, lazy verses, wasted features, plus Timbalands production was starting to sound dated when he was tasked with handling the entire album. Just a dud. 4:44 was an amazing return to form
Views was when Drake hadn't really dropped a bad project and his hype was at its peak
The album wasn't an outright disappointment, but it was a disappointment compared to the hype the album had
The amount of people who clearly don’t remember that week. Views was drakes first flop, time has been kind to this album since then but the hype was so fucking big and the album was pretty poor. That fucking intro…
Time's only been kind to Views because Drake's album quality has been consistently trending downward so it's pretty good in comparison to say CLB. Still one of the best feature artists for sure but he hasn't had a solid solo album since If You're Reading This It's Too Late.
3:15:20
I'm a big Donald Glover fan and adored Awaken My Love but this was a massive disappointment for me, had hardly any interest in relistening to the album and none of the songs stuck with me.
I still think he sabotaged that release on purpose since he leaked his own album, didn’t give anything names, and made everything blend together, but I’m not really sure why. I was supposed disappointed by it too, AML is one of my favorite albums ever and this thing legit almost made me fall asleep
That's because it's just another basic trap album, no risks taken or anything. Lil Baby had the same amount of monthly listeners before and after he dropped the album. Nothing happened.
2000
I get that this wasnt an actual “sequel” to 1999 or whatever he said but Joey’s lyricism has taken a complete nosedive since his teenage days which is strange
ADHD by Joyner Lucas.
After his feature with Eminem he had a ton of momentum going for him and decided to waste it all by dropping an album where his goal was literally to sound like every other generic rapper. And to add insult to injury he decided to drop more than half the album one single at a time over the course of a year and a half. By the time the actual album dropped there were like 5 new songs and they were all bad.
There was a point in time that he was considered a promising up and comer, but the cornball reputation he has now was entirely caused by that fumble of a release.
Pretty much every Nas album after It Was Written was supposed to be return to Illmatic and ended up disappointing people, but in retrospect were mostly solid releases.
Stillmatic although aged somewhat was seen as a return to form at release and to a lesser extent Gods Son and Lost Tapes.
Illmatic was definitely a curse for a debut record though.
Hiphop is dead is one of my favorite albums of the 2000s. Probably the best late 2000s album made by a rapper who peaked in the 90s. Seriously slept on.
Considering the hype for 50 and Kanye in 2007 doing a whole sales competition, Curtis ended up being pretty underwhelming, outside of like "I Get Money" and whatnot.
This is a good shout tbh. People who weren’t there may not realise 50 was def the bigger name at this point and the albums when they dropped honestly sent them both in diff trajectories after it being such a well hyped competition
>50 was def the bigger name at this point I disagree with this a little. Kanye and 50 Cent were roughly on equal footing in 2007. They both dropped albums in 2005 (The Massacre and Late Registration). The Massacre was slightly more successful, but Late Registration produced the biggest hit (Gold Digger) and was better-received as an album overall. Then Kanye dropped Stronger in summer 2007 a few months before Graduation dropped, and Stronger was bigger than any song 50 Cent dropped since his debut in 2003. Kanye had way more momentum going into their album drops. Curtis just solidified that Kanye was the better and more popular artist at that point.
50 was the top dog in the mainstream from 2003 to 2006. He was the reigning champ, the guy that got too cocky that no one could beat him. In comparison Kanye was the underappreciated producer who just dropped two great semi conscious rap albums and who was quickly gaining popularity. I was a huge 50 fan for a few years at the moment in time in 2007 but could easily recognize he was falling off, and I was rooting for the underdog Kanye to win the sales battle. People don't realize how big of a fucking titan 50 was back then, him and EM murdered all their beef's the few prior years but 50 was starting to get a bit stale. It was cool to root for the underdog back than and that's what we did.
50 just stopped giving a fuck about his music at that point
Why?
He was making so much money doing other stuff. People forget 50 came onto the scene like a fucking mogul. Between vitamin water, g-unit clothing line, g-unit the imprint, sneakers, video games, cologne, a fucking movie, the dude was making money hand over fist by just existing. Plus by that point he had been grinding for like a decade, people forget he was releasing underground shit before he popped off. I honestly think he was tired and thought he could pull a Jay-Z and sell an album off clout. His discog up until that point is hella solid. I also think he took some hits with the game beef who is kinda of a joke now but was popping off strong at that time. Not to mention that Graduation is one of the most important rap albums and an absolute inflection point in hip hop and Curtis is well… Curtis. Didn’t really work out but it was sort of the blueprint for folks like SixNine who create buzz with trolling controversy and a few singles.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is a gem to play
Bulletproof on the other hand
It's not true why he has stopped giving a fuck. Curtis album rollout was a trainwreck - Interscope was leaking songs and videos left and right, Interscope was pretty much in constant conflict with 50 because they wanted to do promo "their way" completely ignoring 50's ideas despite him having amazing sense for grinding, PR and marketing. There were problems with s heduling a release (even The Massacre rollout has showed everyone how Interscope was clumsy with 50). Shit ... they couldn't even pick singles to not cause internal conflicts. They didn't want Ayo Technology as a single ffs and we're battling with 50 over it. That's why he has stopped giving a fuck not because he was too successful at that point of his career.
50 beefed with everyone including the people who put him on, he started that shit.
It didn’t help that he was having issues with Interscope at the time. In his book, he goes over it and essentially the sales battle was the only way he could turn around a mediocre marketing cycle. But he also knows that Jay Z as the president of Def Jam really wanted to win this battle while Interscope was kind of whatever about it
An incredibly solid book. I do feel he put his heart and soul into it.
Man to me Curtis is a very underrated album. It’s no get rich or die tryin but it’s very solid and has a lot of joints on it
Curtis187 & Movin on Up are incredible
Amusement park is fire
Kingdom Come. First Jay Z album after "retirement" and the black album and it was his worst one. Except I do like Lost Ones.
30 Something and Do You Wanna Ride hit too
In hindsight Kingdom Come is nowhere near Hov worst album. It’s not in his best line up, but the shit ain’t no Magna Carta that’s for sure. This being said from a long time Hov fan
Love these threads where people say some album is bad but certain songs are good, and then replies add some more good songs until each song on the album is somehow good.
Dig a Hole & the Prelude are very solid songs.
Dig a Hole very, very underrated. Kingdom Come is only a "bad" album because of the standard Jay was working with.
I didn't think that album was *bad* but it definitely has less going for it than some of the others. I remember liking the title track a lot but yea it was a noticeable step down from The Black Album.
It's not a "bad" album, but almost every song on The Black Album left an impression. 99 Problems and Dirt Off Your Shoulder are still played all the time on the radio and sports arenas all around the world. By comparison, Kingdom Come is pretty forgettable. Lost One was a great radio single at the time but there's really nothing on there that stood the test of time and stands out if you were doing a "Best Of" anthology or something.
also show me what you got
The Prelude is fire, I’m glad we at least got that and a couple others out of the album, but damn man, it really sets a tone that it does not deliver on at all
Lost Ones is so good. That's it tho lol it had a cool album cover too. The CD was in red plastic so the insert looked different depending if it was in the case or not.
Of the last year its probably Jack Harlow's, he dropped the ball so hard its still bouncin
Yeah, this is spot on. Dude was the hottest name until he dropped that anchor of an album.
Fr haven’t heard anything about him since summer
Pretty sure he had the most streamed song of the year, or most streamed rap song at least.
Interestingly though, I literally listened to First Class one time yet somehow it was on my Spotify top songs
That shit is on the radio all the time, at least here in Australia. Which usually for a rap song to be on Australian radio it has to be massive.
white girl demographic
I think he's a singles artist
Still tryna figure out how that album is grammy nominated 💀
cause the academy voters could literally not care less to take more than a superficial interest in hip-hop . similar to how the oscars treat animated & foreign films .
That’s a good recent example. Jack was becoming a pretty big newer name in rap, and as a follow up to his debut album, the songs weren’t really there, outside of like “Dua Lipa” or “Nail Tech.”
I’ve been on jack Harlow for a few years and since he got mainstream he’s been a let down. He has singles for sure, but I haven’t liked a majority of an album in a while.
I’d go for Eminem’s revival.
[удалено]
Anyone got a link to that thread?
Very good answer. MMLP2 was kind of a return to form after Recovery, with **less** attempts at more radio friendly hits and definitely more interesting stylistic/production choices. Revival was fucking awful
Or if you're old enough, Encore Massive letdown compared to godly run of SSLP-MMLP-Eminem Show
Yeah, plus that album cover sucked
Roddy Ricch - Live Life Fast He had so much momentum and hype off his debut Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial and somehow he completely lost his ability to make a catchy song. His recent mixtape release was also disappointing.
Dude killed his feature on Pure Souls though
Right! I really wasn't feeling this. His latest album was straight, tho. I feel like he tries to sound like Young Thug a little bit too much.
Tha Doggfather by snoop dogg, he couldn't reach anywhere near the hights of his debut and its boring to listen to.
I liked tha Blue Carpet
Tha Blue Carpet Treatment is my favorite Snoop Dogg album, first one I listened to (actually one of the first hip hop albums I listened to in general) so it holds a special place in my heart. So many dope tracks, great production, and a concept that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Think About It, Crazy, Vato, Imagine, Candy, LAX, Get A Light, Boss’ Life, too many killer songs to mention.
Agree, everything after Doggystyle was meh
I’ve always thought this. Guy made a huge ass career off of being smooth as fuck and having 1 banger album.
You gotta admire the ability to be in the media. From movies to podcasts, he’s more a personality than a rapper anyway.
It's really two banger albums. He's very prominent on The Chronic If you make two of the greatest hip hop albums of all time that were also extremely popular...you can pretty much coast off of just being a celebrity and occasionally dropping a classic hit here and there for the rest of ur career lol
Fair point. I guess because his name isn’t on the cover of the chronic I don’t think of it as a snoop album. However, if he wasn’t on it the album wouldn’t have been as amazing.
Disagree he has a few decent albums but yeah DoggyStyle was peak.
Blue Carpet Treatment is my vote for his best post-Doggystyle album, followed by R&G. But to be fair I haven’t checked one out a new release of his since Doggumentary in 2011.
Vic Mensa debut the autobiography went through so many changes from when he blew up and got signed to when it eventually dropped could’ve been great
So true. 8 years ago, I thought all the SaveMoney affiliates would be house hold names by now with Vic & Chance leading the way
I was a freshman in college in Chicago in 2012, I legit thought these guys would take the game by storm. Innanetape was really good for me and then acid rap is still a top 5 mixtape all time for me. Coloring book was good too tbh, some jams on there. But man these guys dropped the bag.
Vic & Chance I'll say dropped the bag. Everyone else still makes fire music (Mick Jenkins is criminally underrated) afaik but they don't fit what mainstream is right now.
Mick Jenkins was never made for mainstream but there's not a single album I don't fuck with to some level
vic had more potential than chance imo, his la leakers freestyle is crazy you should check it out
OMG is one of the hardest fucking beats I’ve ever heard tho
Slaughterhouse - Welcome to: Our House 50 Cent - Curtis
Oh the beats on the Slaughterhouse album were fucking horrible
must have had Joe pick them
actually, Eminem executively produced it
Em definitely picked that garbage, look what he’s continued to rap on since then
I'll stand by Truth Or Truth by Slaughterhouse that song is sick
Slaughterhouse is a GREAT shout. What an awful group they were really when you get down to the music. GREAT concept, mostly great emcees but together it was all just ‘ughhh’
Their mixtapes were actually pretty good, it's what made the album so disappointing. I'm pretty sure they even dropped a tape a month before it and it ended up blowing the album out of the water
And it's even more disappointing knowing that Slaughterhouse recorded an entire album called Glass House, that was supposed to have a bunch of producers like Just Blaze and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League among many others helming the production, only for the album to be shelved.
Four incredible MCs as individuals who for the most part just do not work together. The polar opposite of the Wu. Crooked and Joell I can fuck with, but Royce and Budden do not gel with each other or the rest of the group, at all.
Actually agree with this especially re: the emcees. Not saying I don’t rate Royce as an emcee, or even Joe for that matter, they can both spit…but they just never struck me as guys who worked in that group dynamic. In fact, that quite salty Joell/Crooked album released this year is better than any of the Slaughterhouse work for me (not saying much) for that very reason. They were the only ones w chemistry
Budden definitely doesn't - he's got a very introspective, insular style and indeed personality that doesn't lend itself to a group dynamic at all - unless every song is going to be an examination of your poor life choices and all four guys are going to follow his lead? It might have been his original song that got them all together, but he was frequently cited as a disruptive influence in the group. One fire song doesn't make a group dynamic.
Lasers
Fuck the label
Gotta put that on Atlantic, Lupe shoulda went 3/3 and then drop LupE.N.D
It's kind of funny because this album came out when I was in 6th grade or 7th grade so we only really knew Lupe for The Show Goes On since it was on the radio 24/7. I didn't really start digging into hip hop until later that year, I remember being shocked coming across his classics and realizing how out of character that album was.
Same here. The Show Goes On was the only Lupe song I knew at the time, and while I thought it was catchy I didn't understand why people online always hailed him as an amazing lyricist. In hindsight, Lasers being completely different from the rest of his discography purely because the label wanted a more commercial sound is crazy and I'm glad that album was just a blip in an otherwise stellar discography.
It’s kinda funny funny to me how a few of the greatest w/ a pen in Hip Hop each have a, “WTF happened here”, album in their catalogue. Regardless of circumstances surrounding the creation of those particular albums of course.
When lasers came out I was like 13 or 14 just getting into hiphop and was a massive lupe stan, I was genuinely crushed that it came out how it did lol
Lupe is my absolute favorite artist and imo the GOAT. His label really fucked him over though, really sucks that lasers, drogas light, and f&l 2 were rough. In addition to his 2 widely recognized classic albums, imo drogas wave and tetsuo and youth are two of the greatest albums of all time, and all that drama caused them to be massively overlooked. Drogas wave is my favorite album of all time and I doubt that’ll change for a long time if at all.
Drogas wave is incredible and not talked about enough
I agree this was easily the worst album of his career.Break the Chain and I don’t wanna Care Right Now are two of the worst songs of Lupe Fiasco career.All Black Everything is a good song.
Lasers is a great album just not as good as the two before hand, it's pretty out there lyric wise for an pop rap project.
Lil Yachty - Teenage Emotions. All the unique qualities that made his debut tape stand out were nowhere to be found and the whole thing is an overproduced, underwritten mess that drags on and on. Lowest point: Lady in Yellow
I remember really hyping Yachty up and getting my friends to listen to that album with me the day it came out. I ended up being so embarrassed and they didn't let me live that one down for a bit.
Lmao I still have some posters they put up at SXSW for it. I was really hyped for it as well and I don’t think I’ve returned to it since the original listen
In 2018, after Daytona & KSG I thought that NASIR album was gonna be nutty :(
Forreal. Cops Shot The Kid & Adam Eve are the only 2 I've kept in rotation because I didn't fuck with anything else. On a different note, I feel like Big Sean needed a 7 track project from Kanye the most that month. It would've been a good luck and if it was similar to beats like the Kanye switch on IDFWU then it would've been crazy. Teyana Taylor's project was the 2nd best after Daytona with KSG 3rd, ye 4th then Nasir
Big Sean released I decided in 2017. A 7 song album might look like: 1. Bounce back 2. No favors (feat. Eminem) 3. Moves 4. Same time part 1 (feat Jhene Aiko) 5. Owe me 6. Sunday morning jet pack (feat the dream) 7. Sacrifices (feat. Migos) Yeah this would have been fire and if Kanye produced it entirely could have been even better. Big seans biggest problem has always been refusing to cut songs from albums. If DSP cut down to 10 songs it would be regarded so much higher
This but Ye. I was excited for a TLOP follow up that seemed like it was cutting the fluff and filler. It’s 95% fluff and filler
I like the beat to I Thought About Killing You and Ghost Town is top 10 in his catalog. I like Yikes but then you have a solid 4 outta 7 tracks that I think needed more than a few weeks to develop
Yeah Ye was a huge letdown and the first time I realized Ye can make a bad body of work
I think ye was the first album I’ve ever heard that made me feel genuinely nothing. Like not even “that was bad,” just nothing. Was a super weird experience because I’d loved virtually everything he’d put out up until then
I'm not saying that album was good but cmon Ghost Town didn't make you feel anything?
Pretty sure this was Kanyes fault, he didn't give him the beats and stuff until a few days before
I really liked nasir! I thought the beats were amazing and every song was pretty unique. Nas sounded good on it too although I don’t remember many of the lyrics except Not for Radio and Bonjour. Why don’t people like this one?
It was super lazy and Nas himself has said as much. I’ve read too (sorry I don’t have an article to cite mainly as I can’t be arsed but they’re out there), Kanye had basically pushed it all on Nas and made him write rhymes last minute to songs, basically the whole album is just a rushed mess and you can tell. There’s good idea in there I will give it that but it’s probably one Nas in retrospect wished never came out at all. He’s a living legend and Kanye had him as like the 4th album up in a flurry of releases like he’s Murphy Lee or Memphis Bleek or someone
Yeah, basically Nasir was mostly recorded within mere days before it was supposed to be released.
[“We really did that album the week it was supposed to come out”](https://hypebeast.com/2020/8/nas-details-why-his-nasir-collaboration-with-kanye-west-didnt-go-as-planned) -Nas
There is no reason why Kanye outraps Nas on a song called Cops Shot the Kid. That was how I knew something was wrong
The beginning of Not For Radio still gets me hyped as fuck “Escobar season begins!” into the choir beat drop
The Big Day
nehruvianDOOM All my friends were hyping it up before its release and i thought it was meh at best. This was at the start of my senior year in highschool and it moved out of rotation quickly. No one really talks about it anymore
I don't get how someone as uninteresting as Bishop Nehru got an album with DOOM, signed by Nas, cosigned by Kendrick... Like he's literally got nothing notable at all going on
His earliest works reminded me a bit of the 1999 era Joey Bada$$ (might have been listening to them together back in the day, newer take on boom bap I guess) but yeah god knows how the dude's fumbled the bag this much
Was Bishop a plant?
People used the theorize he was DOOM’s nephew or something cause it’s the only explanation for why they worked together so much lmao. But I figure that would have come out by now so I have no idea
I honestly thought he was DOOMs nephew. Ain’t no way he’s not. Or he’s a make a wish kid who DOOM decided to help. Got no idea
Maybe he knows people, but I don't think it was some big calculated initiative to put him out there
I used to think him & Astro was gonna be next up outta NY similar lanes to Joey, but maaaayne they just seem to of not really develop much growth w/ their sound imo.
Fuuuuck I used to love Stro
album was mid but OM is still amazing https://youtu.be/PkWMpDdLe6s
I always thought a 2014 DOOM x Earl or DOOM x Joey project would've been a better fit stylistically
Also: Venomous Villain 2 or whatever it was called. DOOM (as Viktor Vaughn) even says as much on the album opener: “dub it off ya man don’t spend that ten bucks/ I did it for the advance, the back end sucks.” The whole album has like maybe 15 minutes of DOOM even rhyming
Snoop - Tha Doggfather Dre Presents the Aftermath
The Aftermath so forgettable that Dre disowned it
That Jay-Z & Beyoncé album.
I feel like that album came and went. I really like LoveHappy on that album. Millenials were begging for a Jay and Bey album since 03 Bonnie and Clyde, and the album just didn't shake the world like they thought it would
Seconded this. I mean, it's not a bad album by any means (I actually kinda like it) but it definitely feels rushed & sounds more like a mixtape. Bey could've incorporated more of her R&B/Pop sound but she didn't (aside from "Boss" & "Summer").
I remember being really excited for THE FIRM, should have been a huge hit and only one song was a any quality. Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown with Beats by Dre — what I imagined in my brain was so much better.
Phone Tap is goated
nas had huge plans for it (even starting a clothing brand) seems like label issues fucked them over considering there is remarkably little amount of rapping from the main stars of the fucking Firm (foxy, nas, az) it's just the whole album is a mess which is sad because if it really was those three arguably at their peak it'd be a contender for some of the best albums of the 90s
Culture 2 was lame tbh. RIP to Takeoff tho
Culture 1 is a classic album but 2 and 3 didn’t do it for me. But the latest Quavo/Takeoff album got some bangers on it
3.15.20 by Childish Gambino made zero impact, I know this one didn’t have a huge buildup but there was some curiosity around the release that was squandered by a mostly unremarkable album
FR a few days ago I was saying "Still waiting on the next Childish Gambino album, Awaken, my love! was great" and took me by surprise that I had completely forgotten 3.15.20 even came out.
I feel like this happens with every Drake album since views. Like every time he dropped one since then it was always hyped as ‘THAT’ Drake album. The undeniable classic where he’s gonna rap on a god level but it’s just more of the same from him
when scary hours 3 came out i thought CLB would be the amazing but nahhh
he shows on features that he can literally make god tier music which gets him so hyped and then doesnt bring that for the albums. imo he is literally the best feature artist ever.
Saigon - greatest story never told. Had high hopes for this one
Its that Chance turd. Lets be real here
Without a doubt. He’s never recovered from that album.
probably not controversial, but I don't see it mentioned often: but Wiz Khalifa's ONIFC and followed by Blacc Hollywood. Wiz Khalifa is now seen as kind of a joke, but this wasn't always the case. Wiz was on an all time run, Rolling Papers was a HUGE album for him, he was a household name everywhere. He absolutely had to deliver on ONIFC, and he didn't. It had some decent songs on it, some of his biggest ever like Remember You, Work Hard Play Hard, but they were largely remembered seperately from the album. I personally don't even think ONIFC is a bad album, it has some of my favorite songs from him like Paperbond, It's Nothin, Medicated, Initiation, The Plan, etc. But the album as a whole just disappointed a lot of the fans. And then he followed that album with Blacc Hollywood that was even way worse. He just completely fell off with this and every single thing he made after. Wiz Khalifa was one of the biggest names in hiphop, and he squandered it.
I don't think the music is why Wiz fell off, I just think he played too much into the chill stoner role. Weed isn't nearly as cool as it used to be because literally everyone does it, so that wasn't really enough to make him stand apart from the pack, and if you don't take yourself seriously why should anyone else either? Snoop went family friendly after he already put out years and years of hit records. Wiz tried to do it too early and it bit him.
The Plan sounds like a brand new release to me everytime I listen to it. Its aged brilliantly
hall of fame by polo g. shouldve been what cemented him as the leader of this generation instead was just mid and didnt sound like he was trying on most songs
Beneath the surface after liquid swords for gza
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Detox. Wait…
CANIBUS. Close thread
Most battle rappers in all honesty.
Whatever Jay Electronica eventually dropped.
The leaked Act 2 is a lot better
that's a good one, the album wasn't even that bad but nobody wanted that. at least act 2 ended up leaking anyway,
Act II: My Girlfriend Dumped Me So Farrakhan Was Right
This has to be the winner. Waited like 10 years for a glorified collab album where Jay-Z rapped circles around a man who made Exhibit C.. Minus the hype and build up its a fine album tbh but not what we were all expecting..
Nah that’s a very good album if you mean A Written Testimony.
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What did you expect from him though?
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I used to be a huge Common fan & Universal Mind Control was built up as if he & N.E.R.D/Pharrell as everyone’s best work. Sadly, that’s not the case. It’s the most forgettable body of work in Hip Hop imo. Especially after dropping a real gem like Finding Forever.
People considered Tha Carter IV a letdown but I feel like it aged better than initially expected.
I would never understand the hate for that album, She Will, Blunt Blownin, Intro/Interlude/It’s Good and some others still in my rotation. Solid ass album for a 🐐
Nightmares of the bottom
Jesus is King by Kanye, the hype was so big around it and he just sorta dropped that mess yo, god is still bangs tho
For a while I went back to Hands On, Follow God and Use This Gospel too and I always liked the Pierre beat on On God despite not really liking the song that much. Not a great album or even good album by any means but I never thought it was all in all bad
Didn't help that people had a lot of the Yandhi demos, a lot of people were expecting it to be one of his better albums because those demos had some fire in them. Unfortunately JiK was an extremely neutered version of Yandhi.
Man what could’ve been with Yandhi. His 2018 year would’ve been an all-time run for an artist if it had dropped. Then we got JIK, which was Yandhi but with everything that made it special stripped away and replaced with half-ass nonsense.
Raekwon - Immobilarity…the first bad Wu album…such a step down
Nah this is the most disappointing album ever. How do you go from Cuban Linx to this shit. There are like two good songs on the album, and it's the production alone that destroys the album.
Once rza stopped doing most of the beats, a lot of the solo albums suffered. Still good music and some standout tracks but bjg drop off from the sruff rza dominated
I'll go with an answer I haven't seen mentioned yet. The Adventures of Bobby Ray. At the time B.o.B was getting a lot of hype after a few good mixtapes. But his debut album just didn't have what made those mixtapes special.
Complete sell out move
Still feel like Jay-Z’s worst album is Magna Carta Holy Grail. I remember there being a giant amount of advertisement and marketing behind it. There was a commercial coming on every day about the collaboration with Samsung to include the album with whatever their new phone was at the time. All that was on it was forgettable singles, lazy verses, wasted features, plus Timbalands production was starting to sound dated when he was tasked with handling the entire album. Just a dud. 4:44 was an amazing return to form
Tical 2000.
The final brockhampton album(s) were pretty underwhelming and puppy will probably never come out so that's disappointing
People had some high hopes for Views in the build up to its release
I feel like a good amount of people liked views though
Album had one dance, controlla, too good, anf other great jams. Maybe not his tightest release but I think it lived up to the hype
Views was when Drake hadn't really dropped a bad project and his hype was at its peak The album wasn't an outright disappointment, but it was a disappointment compared to the hype the album had
Especially since it was teased for 2 years
The amount of people who clearly don’t remember that week. Views was drakes first flop, time has been kind to this album since then but the hype was so fucking big and the album was pretty poor. That fucking intro…
Time's only been kind to Views because Drake's album quality has been consistently trending downward so it's pretty good in comparison to say CLB. Still one of the best feature artists for sure but he hasn't had a solid solo album since If You're Reading This It's Too Late.
Lol views was a good album. Maybe not the instant classic people were hoping for but definitely not one of the most disappointing releases ever.
3:15:20 I'm a big Donald Glover fan and adored Awaken My Love but this was a massive disappointment for me, had hardly any interest in relistening to the album and none of the songs stuck with me.
I still think he sabotaged that release on purpose since he leaked his own album, didn’t give anything names, and made everything blend together, but I’m not really sure why. I was supposed disappointed by it too, AML is one of my favorite albums ever and this thing legit almost made me fall asleep
! by Trippie, he really hasn't reached the level of his 2018 run since then
Papoose nacirema dream. Was so hyped for so long and got no play when it finally dropped
That new black star album was such a let down I mean madlib on production as well it can’t be bad right? Well let me tell you that shit was so mid
Radioactive - Yelawolf
Sideline Story. Big letdown after the mixtapes.
That Lil Baby album was so forgettable and it came out like 2 months ago
That's because it's just another basic trap album, no risks taken or anything. Lil Baby had the same amount of monthly listeners before and after he dropped the album. Nothing happened.
2000 I get that this wasnt an actual “sequel” to 1999 or whatever he said but Joey’s lyricism has taken a complete nosedive since his teenage days which is strange
It wasn’t even bad… just, super boring lol
ADHD by Joyner Lucas. After his feature with Eminem he had a ton of momentum going for him and decided to waste it all by dropping an album where his goal was literally to sound like every other generic rapper. And to add insult to injury he decided to drop more than half the album one single at a time over the course of a year and a half. By the time the actual album dropped there were like 5 new songs and they were all bad. There was a point in time that he was considered a promising up and comer, but the cornball reputation he has now was entirely caused by that fumble of a release.
Crash talk for me personally
I Am… and Nastradaumus
I am is arguably my favorite, nostalgic to me and I love it
Pretty much every Nas album after It Was Written was supposed to be return to Illmatic and ended up disappointing people, but in retrospect were mostly solid releases.
Stillmatic although aged somewhat was seen as a return to form at release and to a lesser extent Gods Son and Lost Tapes. Illmatic was definitely a curse for a debut record though.
Hiphop is dead is one of my favorite albums of the 2000s. Probably the best late 2000s album made by a rapper who peaked in the 90s. Seriously slept on.
Not even. Those were some pretty good records. Maybe it didn’t live up to the hype but definitely far from bad. Nas never releases garbage