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Tag: Q-Tip

  • GG’s Top 10 Albums Of 2008

    I will never pretend to be the complete music connoisseur that others on this site are. I like certain styles of music and will continue to buy those styles all year round. I’m the guy who bought LL Cool J’s latest album even though I expected it to be trash (and it was). I will give new artists a chance only if they are suggested to me by people I know and trust. You can say I’m in my own musical bubble. Thus, my top 10 albums are very much in the pop/R&B/hip hop genres and even in those genres, you won’t find any surprises. With that kind of introduction, how can you not want to read this list?

    10. Day26 – Day26

    Diddy’s new New Edition was probably a bit overrated coming out because their musical debut was marketed through the television show Making The Band, but I think they have a chance to succeed as long as Diddy sticks with him. Diddy has shown that he’s willing to drop members of the group like he did in Danity Kane. But I think these guys have the right chemistry necessary in today’s fickle music world. Not to say that they’ll become legendary, but I think they have a chance to make a few more albums. On their debut, they show definite promise. Give me more Co Star, Got Me Going, and Exclusive and I think I’ll continue buying their records.

    9. Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak

    It’s really a crime that I have to score Kanye’s latest album so low. It’s creative, inventive, emotional, introspective, and he should get credit for stretching his boundaries. But the singing is terrible. The song writing is good in spots though terrible in others. The production is top notch and you won’t catch everything unless you listen closely and with headphones. But I can’t get over the overuse of Auto-tune and simple bad singing.

    8. Brandy – Human

    Though I think she’s naked without the likes of Wanya and Mase around her, I do still like Brandy. With this album she opens up a lot about relationships of yesteryear and there’s a lot that I can relate to, including the song Long Distance. Having been in a long distance relationship myself, she taps into all the emotions you go through when you love someone who doesn’t live close to you. Right Here (Departed) and The Definition are also really good songs.

    7. John Legend – Evolver

    This is one of the few albums that I liked far more when I heard it the first few times than I do now. There’s something about Legend with this third album that slightly bothers me. His last album was near perfect and I guess I expected too much from him. Green Light was a fun single with Andre 3000, but It’s Over with Kanye West was a miss. There is definitely good stuff on this album including Everybody Knows, Cross The Line, and I Love, You Love, but what’s missing from this album is the non-skippability his last album had. I found myself skipping through the album a lot more than most albums on this list. I kept telling myself, “But this is John Legend.” But it didn’t work. I still skipped.

    6. Q-Tip – The Renaissance

    Being a huge fan of A Tribe Called Quest, this album was right up my alley. There’s just something about Tribe. Q-Tip has always been an original kind of MC and you can’t paint him into any corner. Many former hip hop fans came out of the woodwork and just loved this album. And the reason for that? This album is fun. I want you to find a more fun song this year than Move.

    5. Raphael Saadiq – The Way I See It

    When this album came out, Money Mike said that the reason he likes it is because he’s supposed to like it. I feel somewhat the same way. However, it can’t be the only reason I like it. While this album has the old Motown feel all over it, it’s not only for that reason either. I guess I just like the throwback vibe to the simpleness of music. I’m a sucker and a half for a nice slow jam and Oh Girl does it for me.

    “I promise I won’t let you down
    I’m gonna make you so proud
    I’ll keep you here next to mine
    And I’ll be everything you need
    Believe me girl”

    Usher's album - Here I Stand
    Usher’s album – Here I Stand
    4. Usher – Here I Stand

    I spent much of 2008 telling Mike how disappointed I was with Usher’s new album and here it sits at number four on my list. And then I got it. The gaudy dance singles are missing. He’s still on the freaky tip a bit too much for my taste. But what you see is individual growth. You can hear it in Moving Mountains and even in the interlude to his son, Prayer For You Interlude. I think the gem is the hidden track Will Work For Love.

    “Excuse me you two, got love to spare?
    Search my whole heart, ain’t none in there
    Pardon me sister, I’m on my last
    Don’t have no love, that’s OK, God bless”

    3. Robin Thicke – Something Else

    Robin Thicke came out of the box strong with Magic and stayed strong with The Sweetest Love. In a perfect world, Dreamworld would blow up and be a strong single for 2009, but somehow I don’t see that happening. What this album suffers from is too much of the same. You hear the same Thicke for much of the album, which is fine for those who can sit there in the zone with him. Thankfully, I can.

    2. The Roots – Rising Down

    This isn’t anything new. I think the last three Roots albums that were released were either my first or second favorite hip hop album of the year. They are definitely the most consistent hip hop act going and you could argue that they are the most consistent performer in all of music when it comes to quality. Though they missed with Birthday Girl (I still liked it), they hit huge with Rising Up which is probably one of my five favorite songs of the year.

    1. Ne-Yo – Year Of The Gentleman

    I’m sold. I always wondered if he was going to be the type of recording star that he could become or if the fact that he writes a lot of material for others would cause him to never have that one great album. Well, in only his third try, he’s found that great album. It’s one of the best relationship albums I’ve ever heard. He hits on a bunch of different angles in love and loss and love again. There are even two bangers in Closer and the Michael Jackson-esque Nobody to fit around all the love and heartbreak. I keep coming back to this album when I get tired of new music and I imagine it will be in heavy rotation come 2009 as well. In The Way has a special tug on my heart.

    “Baby the world keeps getting in the way
    With you is where I wanna be, but it just won’t let me
    Cause it keeps getting in the way    ”

  • SonicClash Best of 2008: Greg’s Turn

    Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone. Our own Greg Harrell has passed on his own indie-tastic list of his favorites of 2008. Have a look-see, won’t you?

    20.) Atmosphere – When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold

    19.) The Verve – Forth

    18.) Raphael Saadiq – The Way I See it

    17.) Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line

    16.) Coldplay – Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

    15.) Robyn – Robyn

    14.) Bloc Party – Intimacy

    13.) The Streets – Everything Is Borrowed

    12.) Shearwater – Rook

    11.) ohGr – Devils in my Details

    10.) The Mars Volta – The Bedlam In Goliath

    Were it not for a handful of shitty songs, this would easily be album of the year. “Metatron” is the greatest thing anybody recorded in 2008, and when this record’s on, it’ll give you seizures. Seriously, Curtis Mayfield could’ve written “Goliath” after a weekend of dropping acid in the desert. Occultist prog-rock doesn’t get any better.

    9.) Sigur Ros – Med Sud I Eryum Vid Spilium Endalaust

    This record is every bit as “Sigur Ros” as anything these crazy Icelandic bastards have done in the past: meaning it sounds very much like pop music from some beautiful alien civilization. Still, the band decided to throw in a few curveballs, and it definitely sounds much…earthier than anything else they’ve done, probably because the sweeping electric guitars of yore have been replaced with acoustics. Surprisingly, they pull the folky direction off beautifully. The sweet ballad “Illgresi” has made it onto just about every mixtape I’ve burned this year, “Gobbledigook” is a gleeful sprint through the woods, and the angelic explosion of “Ara batur” is just paralyzingly beautiful. I don’t know what the hell world these guys inhabit, but I’d sure like to visit it someday.

    8.) TV on the Radio – Dear Science

    Depending on whose reading this, you either have no idea who the fuck TV on the Radio is or you’ve had the brilliance of this record shoved down your throat so many times that you’re completely sick of it. So yeah, TV on the Radio experiments with dance / disco / afro-beat / new wave, everybody loves it and I’m already sick of talking about it.

    7.) Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak

    I wasn’t as scared of this record as a lot of people were. I dug “Love Lockdown” from the get go, and figured if anyone could make a great record out of the autotune it would be Kanye. Sure enough, he proved me right. If for whatever reason you haven’t heard this yet, “808s & Heartbreak” finds Mr. West going a more somber route. Yeah, there’s singing; yeah, there’s heartbreak; yeah, there are 808s too incidentally enough. I don’t know if this as radical as some people have made it out to be, seeing as there are at least four great singles on this album, but whether you love the man or hate him, you’ve gotta respect his artistic daring. I mean, how many times has Kanye reinvented his style now? Exactly. I don’t really know where to place the sound of this record: somewhere between the “walking through the streets at night contemplating what an utter failure your life has become” sound of Burial’s last record, the catchier side of Depeche Mode and the more Eurocentric songs from “Graduation.” It’s a hell of a statement, and nobody other than Kanye West could’ve possibly made it.

    6.) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

    Imagine “Highway 61 Revisited” plowed into the Doors’ self-titled record. “Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!” is the result.

    5.) Beck – Modern Guilt

    Beck writes a bunch of apocalyptic songs and gets Dangermouse to provide some colorful and vaguely psychedelic beats. Naturally, the result is brilliance.

    4.) Q-Tip – The Renaissance

    The only legitimately great hip-hop record released this year (“808s” is a little too leftfield to qualify as hip-hop exclusively). Q-Tip does something that not too many pioneers of the genre are willing to do: he looks forward instead of trying to plagiarize himself. The result is an excellent hip-hop medley, sometimes jazzy, sometimes soulful, always electrifying. Tip puts everybody doing this to shame so astoundingly, and so effortlessly, it’s almost humbling.

    3.) Portishead – Third
    Speaking of leftfield comebacks, holy shit this record is amazing. Considering that trip-hop (which isn’t really a genre but let’s pretend it is for a sentence) has essentially been left to fester in a ditch, I can’t say I was expecting Portishead to pull off a masterpiece. But lo and behold they did. Beth Gibbons sounds as lovely as ever, and the other two guys still know how to convert dank and despair into beauty. From the shimmering “Hunter” to the bubbling “Rip” to the foggy “Small,” there’s not a bad song here. Proof that your musical idols aren’t always content to just sit on their asses and exploit their legacies.

    2.) Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

    The sound of a white wolf pawing at the moon. Music don’t get much sadder and wintry than this.

    1.) Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

    How the hell have these guys not blown up yet? Seriously, “Grounds for Divorce” alone should have made them a household name. Well, unless Judd Apatow decides to use one of their songs to promote his next movie, I guess these guys are gonna have to remain a secret. “The Seldom Seen Kid” goes everywhere: one track you’re soaring through space, the next you’re getting stretched through a funhouse mirror. One minute you’re sitting on top of a skyscraper, the next you’re walking past a friend’s grave. And so on. Guy Garvey is an absolutely brilliant songwriter, and the lyrics wash through you as if the feelings were your own. As a singer, he’s capable of evoking both the tenderness of Chris Martin and the swagger of Peter Gabriel (who I guess could be tender too but…um…). If you’ve yet to hear this, then look up the dazzling “Mirrorball.” If that song doesn’t move you then I don’t want to share the same…planet as you. Get out.

  • Q-Tip Returns To Maraud Your Eardrums Once More With The Renaissance

    In the 9 years since his solo debut, Amplified, former A Tribe Called Quest frontman Q-Tip has gone through some serious label issues. His planned second album, Kamaal the Abstract, was shelved by Arista Records right before its’ release for being uncommercial, while various other album titles and release dates have come and gone. Tip, meanwhile, has kept himself busy by working as a club DJ, occasionally hosting VH-1 specials, reuniting with his Tribe brethren for a couple of tours, and apparently dating Oscar-nominated actresses (see Kidman, Nicole) and pop divas (Jackson, Janet).

    Finally, The Renaissance, Tip’s long-awaited official sophomore effort, has arrived, and much to my surprise, it’s an excellent effort. After the blatantly club-centric sound of Amplified, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this album, but Q-Tip does an admirable job of keeping the album danceable while maintaining a left-of-center vibe that matches up admirably with some of Tribe’s best work. It’s an album befitting Tip’s status as a hip-hop elder statesman while not sounding “old-school”. Most importantly, Q-Tip remains true to himself, featuring not one concession to modern-day popular hip-hop and not even any guest rappers.

    One thing that makes The Renaissance special is that Tip did most of this album with a live band and produced almost every track on the album himself. The one notable exception is the propulsive Move, a track that’s sure to get people bumrushing the dance floor. Produced by the late J. Dilla, it reconstructs a Jackson 5 Dancing Machine sample until it’s rendered almost unrecognizable.

    More typical of The Renaissance‘s vibe is the first single Gettin’ Up, a sunny love song with an easygoing vibe. In addition to doing all of the rhyming on this album in his signature nasal voice, Tip also sings most of the choruses on this album and has a pretty serviceable singing voice. He won’t blow you away with his emcee skills, but his rapping has always been more about vibe than “oh sh*t, did you hear what he just said??”.

    Other highlights on The Renaissance include Dance on Glass, on which Tip references his own high-water mark Midnight Marauders and then creates a song that would have fit perfectly on that landmark album. The mellow We Fight/Love features Raphael Saadiq on vocals and is more immediate to me than anything on Raphael’s current The Way I See It album. Tip is at his lyrical best here, dedicating a verse to a couple in romantic tumult while his second verse turns political, discussing the conflict of a soldier. Life is Better is Tip’s tribute to hip-hop history. Tip shouts out just about every important rapper over a funk-laced groove and a chorus by Norah Jones, who appears to be channeling her former classmate Erykah Badu on this song. Either that, or I didn’t realize how similar the two sounded until now.

    The Renaissance‘s emotional center is the album’s final track, Shaka. Tip pays tribute to his deceased friends (and his deceased father) without sounding mournful. It’s the type of celebratory send-off that most folks hope they’re sent into the next lifetime with.

    There’s not one bad track on The Renaissance, although one would hope that after 9 years, enough good material would be amassed to make a good album, right? Q-Tip serves us with a pleasant surprise here, making an album that harkens back to the glory days of A Tribe Called Quest (although Phife Dawg’s presence is missed) with a contemporary flair. It’s good enough to wipe the bad taste of Tip’s solo debut out of any listener’s mouth, and goes a long way towards restoring the good name of a hip-hop icon.