M-1 - Confidential

M-1's solo album sounds exactly like what it is: a solo album by one half of one of the more political rap duos to gain prominence in the past decade. Strangely, his vocals seem low in the mix, making the beats take precedent over his messages. The beats don't stick as hard as those on Dead Prez's albums, and M-1 himself doesn't have enough personality to carry an album by himself. That's problematic. What's good is that M-1 is a good lyricist, and some songs overcome the shortcomings found all over. "The Beat" is a highlight, with a pulsating production, and "Gunslinger" swings like any good Bo Diddley homage should. "Been Through" features the most R&B-indebted production and features Ghostface," which is a solid recipe for success at this point.

Passion of the Weiss - Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s

I have a lot of respect for Weiss and his bloggerly friends, and they've compiled a list of the 50 best of the decade. Worth a read if you're into hip-hop:

Passion of the Weiss Top 50 Rap Albums of the '00s: 50-1

Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is far from the best album by Sir Elton. It opens like it might be - "Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" is among the best songs of his entire career. The cavalcade of hits - "Bennie and the Jets," "Candle in the Wind," "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," might tell you the same. But it's not. It's a sprawling double-album, but it sags in the time between the first batch of hits and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting." All of it is competent, but not all of it is entirely engaging. Part of the problem is that it's transitional in nature - following the stripped down, low-key releases of his early career, John was moving in a more showy, pop-inspired direction. For what it is, it's impressive and a great listen, but Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy would prove that John was capable of much, much better as his artistry evolved.

Edan - Beauty and the Beat

A jazzy mix of psychedelia and hip-hop, with vague traces of trip-hop. Occasionally a familiar sound - say, a James Brown grunt - will penetrate the mix, but Edan's sound is all-original. It's like the strangeness of 3 Feet High and Rising without the whimsy. Sound bits, samples, voices fade in and out of the mix while the drums sound like there's a thick layer of smoke in the air with a damp kind of sound. It's a 3 Feet High and Rising for the 00s, tougher and shorter. No skits. A little bit of the weirdness of Kool Keith, but none of the spotty track record.

Ghostface Killah - The Pretty Toney Album

On Ghostface's first album for Def Jam, two things are immediately
noticeable: he leans more on a sort-of loverman persona than on a
hardened gangsta one. How can a rapper carry an entire album of
relationship songs? By having Ghostface's eye for detail, that's how.
His rapid-fire rhymes don't calm down for the hour-plus this runs, and
the beats sound fuller than on past releases, probably due to a higher
production value. If it ranks lower than Supreme Clientele or Fishscale, it's mainly for what the Burgess Merideth soundalike says on the latter: he "ain't been hungry since Supreme Clientele!"
This is all not to say that he leaves street narratives behind - "Run"
is one of the most energetic songs here, and it's a definite highlight.

Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus

"Funcrusher," indeed. El-P, Bigg Jus and Mr. Len are not your friends. Driven like few hip-hop groups since Public Enemy, they present confrontation verbally and sonically. Railing against the system, the man, and as always, wack emcees, their lyrics are packed tight with imagery and multisyllabic words. Sample lyric: "Bigg Jus mind invention the king battle of epic proportions/Lyrical intrigue, the master of contortion/Optimized computerization virus/Paradoxical acoustic sound bombing" (from "The Tragedy of War (In III Parts)"). Musically? It's not funky. They're always vaguely off-kilter, but intentionally. This isn't dance music: the beats don't make you think of a club or a party. but instead, Fight Club in a junk yard. It's a tough kind of complexity that stays rhythmic but sets itself into a niche, knives in hand. Company Flow intends to present you with a challenge, to your worldview, to your listening habits, and it's worth the effort.

Brian Wilson - Smile

How do you rate this album? Nearly 40 years in the making, it started as a Beach Boys album to follow up Pet Sounds and came out a Brian Wilson album out of nowhere Like Chinese Democracy, you have to hold it to some higher standards, right? Unlike Chinese Democracy, it far surpasses those standards, right? It's a pop masterpiece, and if you don't like it, you may want to see a doctor. Ask if your heart is made of coal. I'll grant any naysayers (whom I have never met) this much: "Good Vibrations" probably comes off better as a Beach Boys single.