The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde - 1992 - Delicious Vinyl
To understand just how unique and impressive The Pharcyde's debut was, you have to go back to 1992 and realize that these guys were from the West Coast. Nothing in their environment sounded like they did. Instead they looked to the likes of the Native Tongue collective and its embracing of jazz samples, but they also looked to comedy as inspiration. Which is not to say that this is a silly album, but it's a fun one that understands the importance of timing (to both jazz and comedy) and had no trouble straddling the line between sincerity and goofing around. The record is almost entirely produced by J-Swift who did an excellent job not just with sampling, but with also crafting the jazzy piano-n-drums interludes that would give the album some solid thematic glue. There's certainly some fun (and funny) stuff here - single "Ya Mama" being the obvious point of reference (key lyric: "Ya mama got a pegleg with a kickstand"), or "4 Better Or 4 Worse" which treats Hip Hop itself (aka, Rhymalinda) as a woman to court and eventually devolves into a disturbing obscene phone call to her. But even when it's not straight silly, it's almost always fun. Take the uplifting "Soulflower" or the awesome 80's throwback "Return Of The B-Boy" for examples. And yet the group can also hit on a more serious side, whether that's fear of being pulled over for no reason on "Officer," lamenting an unrequited love on perhaps their best remembered single "Passin' Me By," or talking about the skeletons in our closets on "On The DL." This is a seriously brilliant record that seemingly came out of nowhere. And much like the cover and title indicate, it is indeed a bizarre ride, but also an exciting and fun one. Highly recommended.
Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep - 1994 - Gee Street
What started as a joke would go on to validate an entire sub-genre, whether the Gravediggaz wanted it to or not. Jaded by the record industry ("Tommy's Boy" specifically), Prince Paul decided to get some like-minded misfits together to record a concept album about horror movies and the macabre. And of course he's always had a dark sense of humor - remember his favorite movie is Blood Sucking Freaks. So Frukwon from Paul's Stetsasonic days was recruited along with Poetic and RZA who would actually see success from Enter The Wu-Tang during the recording sessions for 6 Feet Deep. It's highly likely that none involved expected this record to get much attention outside of the underground, which is perhaps why they sound like kids in a candy store. It's a thrilling, fun and violent ride that may even be an antidote to gangsta rap which had been riding around in a 6-4 doing victory laps at the time thanks to Doggystyle and The Chronic before it. The beats here are fantastic with most of the production coming from the visionary Prince Paul with a little help from his friend the RZA. "Defective Trip" samples De La Soul and turns the fun "Plug Tunin'" into a bad trip a la Altered States. "1-800-SUICIDE" is a whole track based around ways to off yourself. "Diary Of A Madman" finds the group trying to one-up each other with grim tales in an effort to plead insanity. At a key moment RZA "chews his fucking arm off" to make an escape. This is visceral stuff, but it's also a lot of fun like many a splatter-film. The production runs the gamut from gloomy minor key melodies and detuned guitars to slow, spacey atmospherics to some kind of weird electro-metal (on "Bang Your Head"), with much of the breaks being taken from the sort of jazz records you'd associate with Paul's previous work. If taken at face value, you might not know what to make of this one. But if you're in on the joke, it's a masterpiece of the macabre.
The Gravediggaz record is a great album, to be sure. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say it legitimizes an entire genre. Horrorcore was happening all over the country in various pockets at the time: Memphis, Houston, California, Detroit, and even other groups in NYC like Flatlinerz.
I feel like the album is kinda front-loaded and drops in quality after "Diary of a Madman," which I can now say is my favorite off the record. However, you can't deny the extremely unique production on the album. Prince Paul is a genius. This is a headphone record, to be sure.
TSTR wrote:The Gravediggaz record is a great album, to be sure. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say it legitimizes an entire genre. Horrorcore was happening all over the country in various pockets at the time: Memphis, Houston, California, Detroit, and even other groups in NYC like Flatlinerz.
correct, boo boo. But what I meant by "legitimize" was brought to the mainstream. Before Gravediggaz much of the overtly Horror-infused stuff was underground. After this dropped, Def Jam signed The Flatlinerz and MTV New ran a report about Horrorcore as a new genre to watch out for. So I just feel like this album took that underground thing and brought it to a much wider awareness.
TSTR wrote:The Gravediggaz record is a great album, to be sure. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say it legitimizes an entire genre. Horrorcore was happening all over the country in various pockets at the time: Memphis, Houston, California, Detroit, and even other groups in NYC like Flatlinerz.
correct, boo boo. But what I meant by "legitimize" was brought to the mainstream. Before Gravediggaz much of the overtly Horror-infused stuff was underground. After this dropped, Def Jam signed The Flatlinerz and MTV New ran a report about Horrorcore as a new genre to watch out for. So I just feel like this album took that underground thing and brought it to a much wider awareness.
Cage - Movies For The Blind - 2002 - Eastern Conference
Upon first listen to Cage's Movies For The Blind you might immediately think of Eminem. And that's fitting, as material here dates back to earlier late 90's singles released on Rawkus that would go on to start a beef between Cage and Em during the Slim Shady era. Allegations state that it wasn't long after these singles dropped that Eminem ditched the sound of his Infinite work and invented the Slim Shady persona. Nobody can say for certain if Em really was influenced by Cage, but the similarities are there. But Cage's history makes his work here all the more chilling. Being held at gunpoint by his own father, being committed to a mental institution in his teens where experimental drugs were tested on him... it makes for some gruesome listening. Where as The Slim Shady LP seemed almost fun in its violence, everything here comes off far more demented. "In Stony Lodge" makes "Brain Damage" sound light-hearted by contrast. And "In Stony Lodge" is a great example of what makes this album to amazing. Over an amazing plucked violin sample produced by J-Zone, Cage's wordplay is showcased and tells a brutal story about his stay in said facility. Of course it's hard to know where creative license takes place. Where Wikipedia says Cage was there for just over a year, in the song it's seven. But it doesn't really matter. It's the movie here that does. As the poster indicates, Cage is showing you something that you might be missing in everyday life. He claims that the mental institution was "college for my fucking rap career." This album is great because it's so dark, and so personal, yet keeps you at arms length guessing. Did Cage really survive abortion, a PCP overdose and suicide? Who knows for sure. His whole career has been shrouded in mystery in the sense that no matter how much he divulges it's tough to know who's the actor and who's the character, especially with so many nods to movies. The opening feels like a missing American Psycho chapter, "Agent Orange" quotes A Clockwork Orange. But it really doesn't matter where the script came from. It's an incredible work of nihilistic art.
