the production across the whole album is great - some of his best shit and arch druids impressed as always. i feel like he experimented all over - bedspring king is something else lol.
Muse and Power are as smooth as it gets.
Really enjoying it overall - great counterpart to Part 1. Couple of minor gripes about the mixing on a couple of tracks where the samples drown out some bars - but this is how he wants it i guess, so that's fine.
been listening the album back to back since i got it - might rank up there with marci's best. need to let the lyrics sink in, but this is a great record.
"printing money i'm the dollar tree, they praise the god it's like idolatry"
Marc is the illest, no doubt. His last album was a little let down to me tbh.. Of course the lyrics are always great, but the beats were kinda boring at times on this one
03-15-2018, 03:58 PM
Mumm Ra
yeah this album did the opposite of grow on me. i really liked it at first but only find myself playing a couple tracks now
03-15-2018, 05:40 PM
ShaDynasty
The first Rosebudd was a letdown, with the atrocious mixing and the out of place Citizen Kane references. This one is an improvement but I think hes fell off tbh. He had a solid run for years there, and his work with Flipmode and The UN is overlooked too but with these last 2 albums somethings missing.
03-16-2018, 02:54 PM
fortyglock
^The something is a few hard hitting tracks. Reloaded had 76 and Emeralds with the hard hitting drums, which RR and RR2 lacked.
03-17-2018, 04:44 AM
rainbow
i see where you guys are coming from, but i also appreciate rm refining his music. i of course prefer rap with hard hitting percussion, which his music has lacked for a while now - but i don't think it's the same drawback for him as it is for other rappers. he's just moving more towards sonically thematic albums, and has been since Marcberg. i used to find his tracks without drums jarring, now i don't even notice it - his rapping is at the forefront of all his music now.
i wouldn't even say i prefer UN era roc simply because he made music that could have been made by a bunch of other rappers (despite the pete rock production). i'm glad that stuff exists but to the same degree i'm glad he's made a variety of stuff.
when you think about it, marcberg signalled a big change sonically for him, as did reloaded as did marci beaucoup. the same can be said of these albums. to me, both show him him trying to be as independent as possible, hence some of the mastering issues with the first Rosebudd's Revenge. As long as he keeps making music and keeps trying to push himself, i'll enjoy listening to him try to perfect the process. with each album he's simplified things and seems to be trying to crystallise his sound so that it's just the essential elements (simple samples, a focus on his rhymes and a cogent theme)
i don't think he would have made tracks like this if he was trying to reproduce what he'd done before, and i like them as much as Ridin Around, Flash Gordon, Long Time Coming, IDK, Soul Music or any other favourite tracks.
it's hard not to let expectations change how you feel about music (or films and other artforms) but i think it's obvious that when you know nothing about a musician or album and it's enjoyable, you don't feel the need to qualify that. but if you have expectations for a piece of work, you're enjoyment is always tempered by those expectations.
i'm as guilty as anyone of listening to music through a critical lens, and thinking about how it stacks up against other music, but over time i've found just listening to shit without worrying about giving it a grade or to what degree it holds my attention, makes it more enjoyable. this is much harder to do if i'm really attached to one incarnation of a musician or artist (which i why i can't stand anything wu tang have done for a decade or more.)
04-16-2018, 11:55 AM
rainbow
i know alchemist has made enough boom bap to last a lifetime, and has been intent on doing other shit for years now, but i can't help thinking about how great these beats would be with some hard drums...