Commentary on two albums

[vitaminman]

Hey,

A friend of mine came round with two albums I had never heard before, Ludacris' Word of Mouf, and Cam'ron's Come Home with Me.

Ludacris: Boring. His last album had Southern Hospitality which had that cool hoover sound running around in the background and great rythm, none of the tracks on the new album came even close. Move Bitch is just silly, when I heard that one I turned the cd player off and got myself a drink.

Cam'ron: Man, I LOVE that track Welcome to New York City, it's got a great lead riff, corny 80's metal samples and nice balanced mixing. I don't care much for lyrics in general, but someone out there will be moved by them. Losing Weight also had a great vibe to it, again whoever mixed it did a great job of balancing the kick with the sub bass. Practically every track on it had great sounds and good mixing, I only wished that whoever programmed it had been a little more inventive than simply looping the same 4 measures OVER and OVER on each track while the vocalists did their thing.

What I miss in modern hip hop is the structure that was found in early tracks from the late 80's and early 90's. Granted they weren't grandiose opuses or anything, but there was at least a difference between the choruses and verses, programmers seemed to spend a little more time masking the samples they were illegally using and using nice layers of sounds from their samplers and synths.

Nowadays every track seems to have the same 4 measures over and over and over with nothing to change up the track except to mute the drums or bass or something. It's as if instead of progressing to find the perfect beat and improving on it, they load sounds off the latest sample cd onto whatever flavor of MPC or ARS they have in the studio and loop it for 4 measures while some kid who eats too much sugar gets behind the mic and gets the pop shield all wet.

My two cents.

Nick

 

[Fade]

LOL, you're on point!

Today's beats are too repetitive. I've made beats like that but the ones I'm most proud of are the ones where I just go off, not thinking about any patterns.

What's your background, vitamin? You seem to be posting huge ass posts with intelligent answers!

 

[Briellz]

Speakin of cam'ron..I seen him perform here at the mall of america yesterday. The dude is dope...I like his style!

 

[J-UK]

I have both those albums, I think that the Ludacris one is better than camrons though both of the albums are not great. I do not like Camrons album at all. I bought it cause I liked that oh boy song and then I think there is about 3 or 4 good songs and Camrons lyric are not too good either. I agree with you on your thoughts about todays production.

 

[vitaminman]

Fade,

I've been into electronic music for a long time now, mainly techno/trance stuff, and a friend of mine who is into hip hop has asked me to make an attempt at recording a hip hop album. I've got a studio at home with all the usual gear, both types of music basically use the same stuff to make their sounds, so it shouldn't be too hard.

I don't have too much hip hop in my collection of vinyls and cd's except for some of the older stuff from the 80's which I used to listen to in high school, so the newer stuff is all very new to me. I made a search on the web to find a community of 'modern' hip hop producers and programmers, Illmuzik was the first one that I came across after seeing the link on one of the MPC sites. I'm trying to find out what techniques and equipment you guys all use so that I can learn about production and make an honest attempt at putting together something that's better than what you hear on the local radio stations.

Unfortunately I've been pretty disappointed by what I've heard that's in the charts, a few tracks stand out from the rest: Nore has a cool track with an Arabic flute and pulsing bassline, the new Eric Sermon track with that girl singing in the foreign language kicks ass, the Cam'ron tracks I mentioned in another post are really good, and the tracks from the last Destiny's Child album rule. I'm sure that there are others out there, I just have to do my homework and find the good stuff.

Older stuff I keep handy in my cd/vinyl collection are pretty much anything done by Eric B. and Rakim, Ice-T (especially Power and OG), and the remaster of Efil4zaggin (NWA) have been, for the most part, the staple of my hip hop diet for the past 10+ years.

On a professional note I've had a couple trance tracks released on vinyl here in the states and on a couple cd compilations in France and England, I've earned enough off those in contracts and licenses to buy a few more synths and pay off some bills; I neither own an Escalade nor a mansion like the guys you see on Cribs, nor do I ever plan on making that kind of money off my music : )

Thanks for the kudos on my 'huge ass posts', I figure it's better to write something than to write nothing at all, especially when you're on a forum!

Nick

PS: Je vois que vous etes de Montreal...etes-vous francophone?

 

[Briellz]

Yo J-Uk...

You don't think Just blaze did some nice production on his album?

 

[J-UK]

Hey Briellz, I do think that Just Blaze did do some nice production on the Camron album but good beats can't hide behind boring lyrics, flows and bad hooks, I expected more from him. I think the best beat on that album is Dead or Alive by Kanye West, and in my opinion I think that Just Blaze is a bit over-rated at the moment.

 

[Briellz]

Over-rated? WOW..thats the first time I heard something like that. If thats the case...then the Neptunes are over rated. I can't even count how many songs they have on the radio....matter of fact...they control the radio! LOL

 

[J-UK]

Hey Briellz, yeah, the Neptunes are definately over-rated but they have put out a lot more original and catchy stuff and are not afraid to try something a bit different. I do like Just Blaze but I just think he is getting too much props for his beats when in my opinion he hasn't put out that many amazing beats.

 

[Briellz]

Ok....Every man has to respect one's opinion.

 

[Prophet]

I think that you are right when you say rap is repetitive. But people are idiot and buy it because that is the populus. You talk about rap back in early days when there was way to experiment. Now for success, there is formula. Verse chorus verse, repeat repeat repeat!

Neptunes are not over rated. I think you suffer from Nietszchean complex! Kidding.

 

[Briellz]

Ever since I started producing...I didn't care what kind of lyrics were being spittin...Im all for the beats.

Personally I think the neptunes are over rated...You hear there sound all over the radio/TV. They've been hot ever since they came out with Noreaga's song...I forgot what it was called though. Man..thats goint back like 2-3 years...AND THERE STILL HOT!

 

[Prophet]

You say "Move Bitch" is silly when it is one of the most popular rap songs now? I think you are silly because you must realise this music is made for common people who do not want introspect ideas in music. It has good beats and is catchy. Ludacris had many singles off album, which are all actually stupid. But most record buying public is stupid, so it has an audience. Most people forget, to make popular music, you have to move down to the intelligence of population.

Cam'ron has only two songs that sell album. Oh Boy and Hey Ma. Hey Ma is the only reason album sold. Losing weight is standard and boring. Yes album may be mixed good but bad production on rest of songs make it stupid.

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

If I moved down to the intelligence of the population majority, I would be making country music.

Nick

 

[Prophet]

Funny, but I think of rap music as country music for the young generation. All the subjects are the same in both music if you analyse it. Love, violence, wanting better material things. No, but I don't speak about horse riding!

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

I live in Phoenix AZ, country music is HUGE here. Not with the kids, but with the adults who have lots of money and like to buy cd's. Plus all the country festivals, bars, etc., it's probably not a bad industry to get into.

Although I personally don't care for country music, I really like the way the talent divides their work: one person writes a song, another person sings it, and another group of people play the music for it. That way, everyone gets credit (although usually it's just the singer who becomes famous).

All the kids here listen to hip-hop or rap-metal stuff, and they just spend hours downloading it of ptp sites.

Nick

 

[Briellz]

vitamin.....in Phoenix, they were always playing hip hop when i was down there. i also went to a lot of hip hop concerts as well!

:booty:

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

I'm not saying that they don't have hip hop here...but maybe these two words will help describe the scene:

Country Thunder.

It's a four day festival of country music, roping, tobacco chewing, and dust. There is nothing like that for hip hop here in the valley.

Power 92 is the 4th most popular station here, behind 2 rock and 1 news stations.

I'm going to the Eric Sermon show tomorrow night, a friend got me some tickets and I've never been to a live hip hop performance before! I'll keep you all posted.

Nick

 

[Briellz]

Country Thunder....LMAO!

 

[Fade]

Yeah let us know about Erick Sermon! I've never seen him live, but I've been to tons of other rap shows. Oh the memories (even the bad ones, LOL).