I will definitely give Tallahassee a listen based on that LM
I agree with you iYup, whenever I listen to Shine On (specifically parts I – V, I don’t care as much for VI – IX, great though it is) I find it hard to argue that it isn’t the greatest song ever. It’s certainly a remarkable achievement, and you being the jazz aficionado would it be fair to say it’s one of rock music’s absolute best examples of musicianship, a trait more frequently reserved for jazz ensembles? I also love the fingers on the glasses, the remnants of the abandoned Household Objects idea. I wrote a 2,000 word review of Wish You Were Here for creative non-fiction class last year, and got a good mark for it. I’ll be sure to post it.
NSW I eagerly await your post!
I guess my Outkast obsession began with Ms Jackson. I was either 9 or 10 years old, and at the time I got up early on Saturday mornings to watch the top 50 countdown, because back then good music still charted and it was worth watching. Even at that age I was entranced by the off-kilter, slanted beat and I could tell that the lyrics were about something a bit deeper than your usual mainstream hip-hop fare (which is one of the many reasons the ‘Kast are my favourites now). It was a massive hit in Australia. Dre’s hook is catchy as fuck and all the verses are a blast to sing along to despite the deeper subject matter and darker tone – it’s a long way from Hey Ya! I always intended to buy Stankonia, I looked at it a lot in Kmart and Target and the like, but it was tough for young kids to buy albums with the language warning stickers on the front, so I never did.
In 2003, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below came out. The Way You Move was the first single and I loved its big 808 sound, Sleepy Brown’s hook (little did I know this man had been responsible for so much good) and the horns too. I didn’t exactly understand the release. Of course, everyone very quickly fell in love with The Love Below, as Hey Ya!, Roses and Prototype were all released as singles and did very well, and I don’t recall anything else being released from Speakerboxxx. I was 12 or 13 when the album came out and somehow managed to buy a copy of the album, and I fell head over heels in love with it. Seriously, it must be one of my most-listened-to albums ever. I poured over the liner notes (another thing that makes them great – only Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, ATLiens and the-one-that-shall-not-be-named don’t have lyrics, and ATLiens has got a whole fucking comic book in lieu of words, which is a fair trade-off. Though it is perhaps the best Outkast album lyrically), studied the pictures, laughed at the skits (they’re really good! Big Boi’s then-two-year-old son Bamboo raps The Whole World on one, Dre prays to God for a “sweet bitch” and then does “the fiddler on the fucking roof” on another), tried to learn the verses… I actually made a thread way back that said “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is the greatest hip-hop album ever” which I now realise is completely wrong, it’s not even close, but it’s still very good. It was a good time in life. I remember one day I had it blasting and I was putting party pies in the microwave to eat and then I bit into one of them and was shocked, there was no meat inside. It was just inflated pastry.
That was the only Outkast album I had for a very long time. Then last year, I competed in DI7 and LM used Da Art of Storytellin’, pt. 1 on his list, and I dug it. And then I dug it some more. And came back to it every so often. Its sly, late, late-night beat (sorry, I’m not good at describing how music sounds) was enthralling. We did that in I think May/June, and we took off for America on the 20th June. It was during one of my two trips to Amoeba that I bought a whole bunch of CDs, among them, Stankonia and Aquemini. I think I listened to Aquemini first. I loved it pretty much immediately. Same with Stankonia. Soon I had ordered Southernplaya, ATLiens and Idlewild.
Aquemini is my favourite hip-hop album ever, and probably slides into my top 10 all-time. It’s just so diverse. It has everything I love about Outkast rolled into one. It’s got groovy, old-school p-funk (Slump, West Savannah, SpottieOttieDopalicious), cerebral, thought-provoking, deep bass (Aquemini, Da Art of Storytellin, pt. 1, Liberation), party songs (Skew it on the Bar-B, Rosa Parks – which has a South harmonica break for fuck’s sake), and that’s only half the record. The past 12 months, not many days have gone by where I haven’t listened to at least one Outkast song, or had another in my head. There are four tracks on Aquemini that have frequented my brain more than most – the title track, Da Art of Storytellin pt 1, Slump and SpottieOttie. There’s not a lot of hip-hop around like this. You’ve got Dre and Big Boi simply bustin’ flows in apartments, reflecting on life.
The lyrics. It was the beats that attracted me at first, but the lyrics are what have kept me obsessed. So many people complain that hip-hop is all guns n bitches, hoes n money, drugs n booze. The genre certainly doesn’t shy away from that – but Outkast take it so much deeper. Take Dre’s verse in Storytellin’:
Now Suzie Screw had a partner named Sasha Thumper
I remember her number like the summer
When her and Suzie yeah they threw a slumber party
But you cannot call it that cos it was slummer
Well it was more like the spend the night
Three in the morning yawning dancing under streetlights
We chillin like a villain and nigga feelin right
In the middle of the ghetto on the curb when in spite
All of the bullshit we on our backs staring at the stars above
Talking bout what we gonna be when we grow up
I said what you wanna be she said alive
It made me think for a minute then looked in her eyes
I coulda died, time went on, I got thrown, rhyme got strong, mind got blown, I came back home
To find lil’ Sasha was gone
Her Mumma said she with a nigga that be treating her wrong
I kept on singing my song and hoping at a show
That I would one day see her standing in the front row
But two weeks later she got the found at the back of school
With a needle in her arm baby two months due
Sasha Thumper
That’s incredible. But I can’t ever play this with mates, or even express love for it, because to them, the only purpose hip hop serves is partying, so it’s only ever Hey Ya, Roses, Ms Jackson and B.O.B. (though they are four of the band’s best songs).
It’s hard to feel bad whenever Slump is on. It has a deliciously funky beat, backed by some oooh ooh oohs and two ridiculously good verses from Dungeon Family associates Backbone and Cool Breeze to back up Big Boi. Again, it’s about life, and dope dealing, and fried chicken, and holding up your family, and frankly it sounds fun as all hell. Whenever I get in a really good mood I jump in the car and just drive around, and this is usually the first song I play.
SpottieOttieDopalicious is the most ambitious hip-hop track I’ve ever heard, maybe on a par with B.O.B. Seven minutes the studio version goes for, and, like Funky Ride on Southernplaya, it’s a bit of anomaly compared to the tracks that surround it, but it’s a mesmerising journey. It’s got these soulful, slightly dejected horns, on top of one of the funkiest, slinkiest beats you’re ever likely to hear. And there’s no rapping in sight despite the three verses. Sleepy Brown opens with an impossibly soulful, scene-setting verse, and then Dre talks us through a night at one Atlanta’s nightclubs. At first, it’s as great as always, great drinks, great music –
while the DJ sweats out all the problems and troubles of the day – great girls, but at about 3am a fight breaks out and ruins the night as people are taken to hospital. Then Big Boi brings it all home, summarising young adulthood in about a minute.
Funny how shit come together sometimes, you dig
One minute you frequent the booty clubs, the next four years you and somebody’s daughter raising your own young’un
Now that’s a beautiful thing
That’s if you on top of your game and man enough to handle real-life situations, that is
Can’t gamble feeding the baby on that dope money, might not always be sufficient
But the United Parcel Service and the people at the post office didn’t call you back because you had cloudy piss
So now you stuck in the trap, just that, trapped.
Go and marinate on that for a minute
It’s not my favourite Outkast song, maybe not even top 10, but it probably best encapsulates everything the band is to me. Don’t put a whole genre in a box (that’s not an attack on anyone in this forum).
Seriously, I could go on for much longer. I’ll just mention briefly what I love about ATLiens.
GAF was surprised I hadn’t heard this record until earlier this year. It’s his second favourite Outkast record and he assured me I’d love it and I needed to get on that shit quickly. And he was so right. It’s a fucking remarkable record, unlike any other hip-hop record I’ve ever heard. It’s not something you can blast through your speakers, and you can’t even dance to it, not really. It’s what I imagine a late-night ride through Atlanta after a shit day would be like. Dre’s lyric in the title track probably sums it up best –
no drugs or alcohol so I can get the signal clear – you should probably put out your blunts too. If you haven’t heard this album, and you are normally averse to hip-hop because of its lyrics or doofdoofdoof/oontsoontsoonts then this is a record I recommend. Even probably its most famous track – Elevators (Me & You) is a slow song. The beat is hypnotic, the hook is reserved and it is just, quite simply, Dre and Big Boi rapping to an empty room about their lives at that point. And aside from Two Dope Boyz (In a Cadillac) and the title track, the rest of the album follows that pattern. Mainstream is another highlight, and then you’ve got 13th Floor/Growing Old, which was enough to move me to tears the first time I heard it. Big Rube, Dre and Big Boi just discussing life over piano. Perfect.
I hope this thread can stick around.
there is a fucking mammoth post coming from me tomorrow and I will be sure to read and comment on everyone else's posts.
As soon as my thoughts are formed; that'll take a day at least...
