2010 Music Review (C): Top 10 Albums

This was by far the hardest list to compile. There was so many good albums that dropped in 2010. It was an excellent year and it was tough to narrow down the list but I did the best I could. Unfortunately some very good albums (Solider of Love, Distant Relatives, Sir Lucious Left Foot, New Amerykah Pt 2) didn't make it and some that I didn't have a chance to listen to (All I Want Is You) missed my list as well.

Honorable Mention:

Recovery - Eminem
This was a very honest album for Em. He spoke about his struggles and not just the typical bad mom and baby momma stuff he usually talks about. He mixed up the album with some traditional funny clowning tracks but some serious ones showing his range. He put forth a lot of effort lyrically, which he doesn't always do. No question that when he does, its heat. This was a very good album. #respect

Still Standing - Monica
I've always liked Monica and her music. Her albums are always pretty good and this one was too. It was very emotion filled as a reflection on her life to that moment: surviving struggles, becoming stronger and being fully in love. Absolutely love "Love All Over Me" and the other songs on the album because you can feel the love through her voice.

Kaleidoscope Heart - Sara Bareilles 
Instantly became a fan when I saw her in Rhapsody commercial. She flies under the radar because of some of the higher profile piano playing songstresses but I think she is of equal or even greater talent then some of them. This a very good album, a nice follow up to her debut. Its not as strong though, probably because Sara's piano playing is not the focal point. Nonetheless I like this album, a smooth listen all the way through.

The List:

10. Love Me Back - Jazmine Sullivan
I really love Jazmine, one of the ladies of the New Guard of female R&B. Loved her debut and was looking forward to this album. Love it. Her voice is so dope and despite her age she sings about some real serious topics. Even her relationship songs aren't just the typical youthful love and heartbreak types but about struggles of relationships. I like how she's not afraid to express her flaws and fears on certain tracks, she's real honest.
My Tracks: "Excuse Me" "10 Seconds" "Famous"

9. Thank Me Later - Drake

"All of this is new to me, I'm still learning to behave and spending every dollar they encourage me to save."

Well you already know how I feel about this album, wrote a whole post on it. It's a real dope debut and easy to relate to for us youngsters reaching our new levels of "stardom." Jimmy Brooks did his thing, especially considering the hype he had going in. He handled the expectations very well, something we worry about with other members of the New Guard of Rap.
My Tracks: "The Resistance" "Unforgettable" "Light Up"

8. Passion, Pain & Pleasure - Trey Songz
Makes the list of the strength that this was my girl's favorite album from last year. Seriously though this joint was under the radar especially in light of how great Ready was, but it was hittin. Trey did his thing on this joint. The concept was dope with the 3 splits and he was a lot more smooth less raunchy on this album.
My Tracks: "You Just Need Me" "Made To Be Together" "Passion"

7. How I Got Over - The Roots

"All cried out because I grew up crying."

This joint was excellent. The Roots don't get the respect they deserve. Black Thought is so ill lyrically. I love this album and how it deals with life, struggle and motivation. Its a very reflective album, for them and for me. It made me think about tough times, appreciate making it through them and motivates me to keep going. Real powerful album.

My Tracks: "How I Got Over" "The Fire" "Dear God 2.0"

6. The Sea - Corinne Bailey Rae


"Yea it leaves a scar, so show me how to find it again, if I'm lost show me where you are"

After the self-titled debut we waited a long time for this album but only because the woman experience the death of her husband. For that reason this album differs vastly from its upbeat, happy predecessor but it reflects her emotions at the time. Its a bit gloomy and ominous but its real deep. Love is the main theme: dealing with the difficulty of losing someone you loved, but also the hope love brings. Took a while to get into because of the contrast from the 1st but certainly was worth the effort as I appreciate it it so much now.
My Tracks: "Diving for Hearts" "Are You Here" "I'd Do It All Again"

5. The Lady Killer - Cee Lo Green

"Can nonchalance be ambiance? Of course"

In December my company (#allbeige) had the holiday party and guess what was bumping? This joint. I was surprised to say the least but I thought about it and thats the best way to describe this album: Surprisingly Awesome. This album came out of nowhere and was rocking, hard. Its a great mix of songs, some real smooth ones and some to get a party poppin. Great listen all the way through. Thanks for the surprise. 

My Tracks: "Bodies" "I Want You" "Wildflower"

4. Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager - Kid Cudi

"Rage...cuz I'm paid"

This album took me a while to get into. At first it seemed a little darker than the first one but as I kept listening I realized it really wasn't. Of course Cudi still does his typical emo complaining on this one but not as dramatic as he did on the first. The emotion is why I like Cudi though, he feels safe expressing his. I respect that. I also respect the fact that he has the perfect remedy for dealing with those emotions: Raging.
My Tracks: "Mr. Rager" "Ashin Kusher" "Don't Play This Song"

3. Come Round Sundown - Kings Of Leon

This joint rocks #literally. These are some dope beige dudes. I loved there last album so I was looking forward to this joint. Its really good. I listened to this for a while, even after Kanye dropped MBDTF. Thats how much I liked it. The music is excellent with all the guitars, drums and what not (rock band stuff). I find myself playing an air guitar, air drums or being the lead singer whenever I listen to this album.
My Tracks: "Pickup Truck" "The End" "The Immortals"

2. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West

"I found bravery in my bravado"

This joint is crazy. 'Ye not only lived up to the expectations he exceeded them. No one could have imagined an album this awesome. 'Ye did some ridiculous things on this albums, mixing so many different sounds and types of music and having some great features. 3 or 4 songs could be argued as the song of the year. Many peoples pick as album of the year and certainly worthy.
My Tracks: "All Of The Lights" "Devil In A New Dress" "Gorgeous"

1. Teflon Don - Rick Ross

"F*** maintaining I gotta keep ballin"

My favorite album from 2010. I was waiting patiently for it to drop and when it did I was a lil disappointed because I had heard already heard half the album. The disappointment didn't stop me from bumping it for months though. I really like every song on it, except the last track. I like Ross's mix of foolishness and skillfulness. It was a great album. Oh yea, I saw him in concert too.
My Tracks: "Free Mason" "Ashton Martin Music" "BMF"

Top 10 Albums of 2010

Annually my boy Geoff delivers his top 10 Albums. there is always some controversy when he drops his lists because he always has a few joints that are unfamiliar to the general "fan" but his ear is strong. If it makes his list its definitely worth a listen. Nonetheless there will always be some people who question it (ME!). His response to everyone who might not like his list: "Make your own list!" I'll certainly have my own list (near future post) but until then enjoy his:

It’s that time again. On an annual basis I make a list of what I believe are the top albums of each year. I don’t do it by genre (because frankly I don’t have enough time lol) so basically I compile a list of my top 10 albums across the board based on what I’ve listened to. In all years that I’ve done this I can easily say this has been the most difficult year. In what some have labeled the greatest year of music ever (or as Mr West would say “Of all Time”) I found it extremely difficult to narrow down my list to 10 picks. Needless to say there were albums I was very passionate about that didn’t make the list..but it is what it is. So without further adieu here’s my top 10 picks of 2010. #lehgo

Top 10 (No Particular Order)

Bun B “Trill O.G”:  Bun Beata aka the King of the Trill came out into 2010 with two guns blazing. One of the most heralded MC’s in the history of southern music dropped arguably the hottest effort of his solo career, receiving 5 mics from The Source along the way. The bass heavy, Drake heavy, effort mixes the Underground King with some of the hottest talent in Hip-Hop who graciously return the favor for Bun B saving many of their albums and mixtapes. 5 mics worthy? No…Great Album? Yes! #sayitlikerawse

Top Joints:

Right Now

Put It Down

Just Like That

Cee-Lo “The Lady Killer”:  Outside of creating your favorite tune to whistle in front of your boss that they don’t know the words and/or derogatory meaning to, Cee-Lo toned down some of his weirdness to focus on making a phenomenal album. After his stint with DJ Danger Mouse forming the group Gnarls Barkley, Mr. Green became extremely comfortable experimenting with different sounds that fit his hi-pitched voice. In the process he developed into more of a singer, than the fast-spittin, syllable shiftin, rapper he was in the Goodie Mob days.  On “The Lady Killer” Cee-lo fully embraces his role as a singer creating a soul shifting masterpiece embarking Nas’s former protégé Salaam Remi & the legendary Philip Bailey from Earth, Wind, & Fire along for the ride.

Top Joints:

Wildflower

Fool For You

Bright Lights, Bigger City

Curren$y “Pilot Talk”:  To keep it simple Curren$y likes marijuana, beautiful women, and Air Jordans. On his Def Jam debut the hot spitta recycles these three topics alongside some smooth production to create the perfect soundtrack for any “late night session” Finding Ski Beatz was the best thing that could have ever happened to Curren$y’s  career and we all have Dame “Bottle Poppin” Dash to thank for that.

Top joints:

Breakfast

Skybourne

Address

David Banner & 9^th Wonder “Death of a Pop Star”:  Proving my theory that you should never make a top album list until the year is completely over, David Banner & 9^th Wonder dropped some heat right in time to end the first decade of 2000. Banner has always struggled with whether he wants to be a conscious backpack rapper, or the “Like A Pimp” crunk maniac who encourages girls to “Get down on the floor.” 9^th  Wonder’s soulful production provides the perfect backdrop for Banner to wear his preacher hat, as the duo collaborate for 10 tracks of excellence.

Top Joints:

Be With You

Silly

Strange

Foreign Exchange “Authenticity “: Gotta thank my brotha from anotha Sean Smith for putting me on to Foreign Exchange. The duo of Nicolay & Phonte from Little Brother make the ultimate “zone out music,” meaning you can put on this album & it takes you to another place. Authenticity is equally the weakest of Foreign Exchange’s trio of albums, but considering that it still made my list..what does that say about how talented they are?

Top Joints:

Eyes to the Sky

Fight For Love

Authenticity

Freeway & Jake One “Stimulus Package”: It’s not a list of mine if I don’t have a sleeper pick. The funniest part about this pick is I almost slept on the album myself. In a moment of laziness I almost scratched it off my list because I didn’t want to take an hour to relisten to the album. Needless to say I’m glad I revisited this album. Jake One provided 15 pieces of heat for Freeway to yell & rub his beard all over.

Top Joints:

Stimulus Intro

Follow My Moves

Stimulus Outro

Kings Of Leon “Come Around Sundown”: Despite producing one of my favorite songs of 2010 “Beach Side” the family band that has mastered mixing the sounds of heavy hitting choruses with haunting guitar bridges has done it again.  The band mixes upbeat jams with melancholy ballads seamlessly to form an album that even someone who doesn't regularly listen to rock music can enjoy.

Top Joints:

The End

The Immortals

Beach Side

The Roots “How I Got Over”:  Who ever knew that late night TV would be the best thing that could happen to a rap groups career? The truth is the Roots have been doing this for a while now, and their affiliation with Jimmy Fallon has taken them to a level of superstardom that they have never seen before. Thus, providing the perfect launching pad for yet another solid album that arguably should have taken the 5 mic spot from Bun B.

Top Joints:

Doin It Again

The Fire

Radio Daze

Drake “Thank Me Later” : This album just made the list..yes as I am typing this. The spot was reserved for Cudi’s Man on the Moon 2. Then I asked a lot of my friends which album they preferred since I couldn’t decide. Well the people have spoken…Jimmy Brooks  > Scott Mescudi. Hope Cudi doesn’t jump off a roof once he hears the awful news.

Top Joints:

The Resistance

Miss Me

Light Up

(By the way..has anyone discovered who Cece is and why she has an interlude?)

Now for the moment you've been waiting for. My album of the year is.......

 Damn Ye..can I finish?

Well anyway you guessed it: Kanye West-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

I’ve got to say..this was the easiest part of  my top 10 album journey. The moment I was welcomed by my baby mother Nicki Minaj’s voice I knew I was in for a ride (get it?) Anyway, Kanye as outdone himself with this album.  Blurring the lines of Hip-Hop, Pop, Gospel, African, and various other music genres, Mr. West has truly set an exciting precedent for the sounds hip-hop artists will be able to experiment with in the future.  Pardon the interruption..but Kanye may have just made one of the greatest albums of all time!

Top Joints:

Dark Fantasy

Devil in a New Dress

All of the Lights

Honorable Mentions:

Eminem “Recovery”: In what was easily the second biggest comeback of the year, Eminem came back with his best piece of work since the critically acclaimed “Marshall Mathers LP”. This actually might be my favorite Eminem album since I enjoy listening to him over a variety of production rather than just Dr. Dre, or heaven forbid his own beats. Album started off strong, he lyrically slays pretty much every track but I felt it trailed off near the end.

Kid Cudi “Man on the Moon 2”: As stated before it was between this album and Drizzy’s for my top 10. I really like what Cudi did with this album and it’s one of those albums where it gets better with each listen, unlike his debut which sticks with you after the first time you hear it. Mr. Rager produces an album that is rockin from start to finish although it’s quite unfortunate that “everything he needs hates him”

Rick Ross “Teflon Don”: I’m quite upset with Rick Ross. The bawse and self-proclaimed fat mutha**** would have easily made my top 10 if he didn’t decide to release half the album on his Albert Anastasia mixtape. To make matters worst he let the rest of the tracks leak before the album dropped so I had pretty much heard all of Teflon Don before I sat down and listened to it in its entirety. Nonetheless this is the same album that produced Free Mason, Maybach Music III, and the summers anthem “Live Fast, Die Young” Hats off to the fat man.

Well people it’s been real. Until I drop my list of 2010’s top mixtapes, keep listening to that good music.

And if you mad….tell me why you mad:

The Prescription

So I'm on vacation staycation this week so maybe I can get 1 post in a day...there are a lot of things to talk about...

Aight, so I love music. The actual music, notes and what not, as well as the lyrics. This is especially true for Hip-Hop/Rap music. I like listening to rappers who tell stories so well I feel like I'm watching them unfold. I like listening to songs and saying "damn that was crazy," either because the lyrics are crazy or because they make me think so hard. Naturally some of my favorite rappers are Jay-Z, Nas, Lupe and Fabolous (very long list) all of whom are capable of doing those things. The "new guard" of rappers is pretty adept too. J. Cole, Drake and Wale are very ill lyrically, something I really appreciate.

I was put onto Wale by my roommate in college (#shoutout @dueordie). He told me to listen to The Mixtape About Nothing and see if I liked the guy. I did and have been following ever since. After the success of that mixtape, and Back to the Feature, there were great expectations for his debut album Attention Deficit. It didn't really live up to the hype though. Although it received mostly great reviews it didn't sell well, only going gold. It was also easily forgotten amongst the other rap albums that dropped that year (BP 3, Deeper Than Rap, Man on the Moon, Loso's Way, Relapse). Recently I re-listened to Attention Deficit in preparation for finally listening to More About Nothing (#latepass). I just have to say that the album was indeed overlooked but Wale did warn us that that would happen, and even gave us something to prevent it: The Prescription.

The title of the CD let us know how Wale felt, and what I think ultimately happened, people wouldn't be able to pay attention well enough to enjoy the CD. The decline of hip-hop/rap over the past few years has been well known. It has been going away from the lyrical prowess that it was once known for, to the dance friendly, catchy beats/hooks, lets make something for the club era. Wale, aware of this, takes pride in his lyrics and dubs himself the prescription to the ills of the rap game. Proclaiming yourself as the "House" that's been needed to solve the rap game's rubic is bold and something that everyone has been doing of late, but Wale made a great claim on the track.

Pay Attention!

Don't let the pain getcha

I swear my lane will provide as a painkiller

A painkiller, a 16 of Percoset

Just let it chill Joe

That lil' burn that you feel, feel good don't it?

Just sit back and relax and take it easy

And let the beat play

Close your eyes, whoever uninspired

Pay me no mind, I put Adderol in ya eyes

Riddle them with Ritalin, attention deficit

Niggas start listenin', and what I'm givin' them

The drug that they brain need

Them niggas sick of hip-hop so they appointed me

And I invened but the IV inside of me

And ignorance was drug of choice but they OD'd

Couldn't alone leave 'em

I am the sole leader

The young soul that the OG's still believe in

And if you not convinced keep on promotin' them

I breathe life in the game, they are Kevorkian

They provokin' suicide but as soon as signed

I drew designs from consumer's minds so in time

I do it for all y'all, do it for all y'all

Don't gotta wait long

The doctor has arrived just be patient

please, please

Maybe I will Thank Him Later

Aubrey Drake Graham, or as I like to call him: Jimmy Brooks, burst on the scene last year with his incredible mixtape "So Far Gone." Ever since then we've been waiting for his career to officially start with his debut studio album. After much delay "Thank Me Later" dropped 2 weeks ago (although it was leaked a week before that). So I've been listening to the album for 3 weeks or so and I'm finally ready to write something.

I like the album, its solid from top to bottom. There really isn't a bad song on the album, I can listen to it straight through without skipping a track. On the flip side there really aren't a lot of great songs that I hit repeat for. Only two songs stands out as great ("The Resistance" and "Light Up"). The track layout is good. He spaces the "R&B" tracks out well, not really letting them accumulate together. The transitions of tracks is nice too. At the end of "The Resistance" he says "I'm in it til its over" and then "Over" comes on. Smooth. I think I would have liked an intro, simply because I love intros, (future post) but I do like "Fireworks," it let us know he's "going off."

There are a lot of features on the album. This is the path that hip-hop has taken though so it doesn't bother me. It does bother me that almost ever featured rapper had a better verse than the host lol. Really, Drake forces the artists to bring their A game, his verses were so good that they had to be better. Examples of this are on "Light Up" and "Up All Night." No ones got a Jay feature like that before, but Drakes verse was so tough, Jay had to step it up. Same with Nicki. Speaking of Jay, it also bothers me that he claimed to create a "Triple Entendre" and told us not to ask him how. What Jay? I'm going to ask you. Sorry I digress lol.

The most important thing about the album is the lyrical content. This is something that can be easily overlooked because Drake sings as well as raps which makes him "commercial". In addition the album can be confused to be more R&B than rap because of the smooth beats and singing (I made this mistake). In actually the album is fairly balanced and the lyrical content is very realistic and easy to relate to and his lyrics are deeper than they appear to be.

A common motif of Drake's recent songs (and this album) has been how his success has created more negatives than positives in his life. I joke with my friends that all he does is complain about how hard it is being famous and rich and how he hates it. After all, he's only getting what he asked for. His complaining can indeed be annoying but its refreshing to hear his concerns. Very few rappers (people) are secure with themselves to speak about their worries and fears. Drake does this throughout the album. He fears losing his friends, losing the women he loves, not fulfilling his promises, not meeting expectations, his poor priorities, being forgotten, partying too much, not working hard enough, wasting money and much more.

All of these things are easy to relate to for most of us even though we aren't nearly as famous or rich as he is. For most of us we are starting our professional lives and have reached a certain point of success (College degrees, new jobs). We are at crossroads with our friends, deciding who to keep and who to let go. We are missing the woman we love, thinking about how we messed it up with her and/or worried about losing her because of our new found success. We wonder if we will be able to live up to the expectations of us, if we are working hard enough, being appreciated for the work we do, if we have our priorities in order, if we're blowing our money, and so on. Of course another thing that we can relate to is the way he copes with all his fears/worries: partying, partying and more partying.

Thank Me Later is a very good album. Drake goes to a place that is unheard of for a debut album. His honesty is amazing. In many ways he is speaking to (and for) many of us with this album. He shares his problems with the world which lets us know that it is okay to open up and speak about our fears and worries. This is something that we could all use.

If you need any lyrical references or want to talk about the complexities of the lyrics/album hit me up.