Unpopular Opinions You Hold About Music

[Spark Of Spirit]

Blood sugar Sex Magic is one of the best albums of the 90s, IMO. If you enjoy rock n roll (you don't even have to like a specific sub-genre) you will most likely love the album. As a whole, in quality and quantity it's their best work.

[Nel_Annette]

You should pick up BSSM and UMPP sometime. Most people agree that those are among their best. How do you feel about BTW?

Haven't heard By The Way either. Just the three I listed. Blood Sugar Sex Magic is the only other album they regularly sell at the record store, so I'll have have to pick that up too. Is that the album with "Under The Bridge"?

The rest of their discography would require a little trip to Amazon/eBay, I suppose.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, Under The Bridge is on it. A great song that's still full of soul.

[Avaitor]

You know that Guitar World poll I showed you guys not that long ago?

In one of the comment sections, someone called John Mayer and Frusciante equal to SRV. Uh...

[Spark Of Spirit]

You know that Guitar World poll I showed you guys not that long ago?

In one of the comment sections, someone called John Mayer and Frusciante equal to SRV. Uh...

If I grew up with them, I'd probably think the same... until I got older.

SRV is actually kind of underrated these days.

[Avaitor]

I mean, I love Frusciante. Most of his RHCP albums aren't that great, but he has a really nice tone and some great performances.

But equal or greater to Stevie? No.

Also, I don't think that MicSchenk has even been put up in this game at all. That's FUCKED UP.

[Foggle]

In one of the comment sections, someone called John Mayer and Frusciante equal to SRV. Uh...

[Avaitor]

Ew.

Do me a favor, and please vote for Gary. He doesn't deserve to lose this.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Is it just me or are most first albums by hip hop artists the best ones? Especially these days. While there are exceptions (The Beasties and Run DMC for example), it seems most tend to lose it on the second album.

There are a few reasons I feel this.




• Guest stars - Am I the only one who hates most of these? This was the worst part of Eminem's second album back in the day, for example. J5 had this issue, too. Usually the guest stars have nothing to do with the main artist and serve to do nothing but boast about themselves... on someone else's track. The point is that the first album usually has no guest artists, then after the artist makes it big, their album gets flooded with this kind of stuff and usually sinks otherwise good albums.
• Being "real" - The second album is ALWAYS darker than the first. For an extreme example of this, look at De La Soul, possibly the worst hip hop group to have a fluke first album. The first album was honest, optimistic, and understated. That was ruined by every album afterwards featuring smug whining from self-proclaimed "saviors" of "smart" hip hop.. who proceeded to write a song called Baby Phat. J5 feel into a similar trap with Power By Numbers. While a good chunk of the album is classic J5, the rest is dominated by guest stars and trying to seem "deeper" by showing how hardcore they were... which is the EXACT THING they were against!
• Coasting - "Yeah, our first album was a classic, let me remind you of how great we were on that album for 15 tracks and skits." Ugh.

I dunno, maybe that's just me, but those are my biggest issues with hip hop and rap, even the good stuff.

[Foggle]

I'm not sure I agree when it comes to modern hip hop. For a couple quick examples, Brother Ali's first (Rites of Passage) is easily my least favorite of his output and Alaskan Fishermen's second record is a lot more consistent than Fire & Ice IMO.

The classics, though? I agree 100%.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's not all-encompassing, no. It's just a weird thing I've noticed happen to a lot of hip hop artists that never seem to happen to most any other genre.

[Avaitor]

The Low End Theory might just be the best hip-hop album of all time, and it's Tribe's second.

But yeah, I do see where you're going. I really dislike what happened to De La Soul in particular. They made a brilliant first album... then Arsenio Hall decided to be a dumbass and call them "rap's hippies" or whatever, and they screwed themselves over since then.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Jurassic 5 is my all time favorite hip hop group next to Run DMC, but Power In Numbers could have used less guests and definitely didn't need the dark tracks. I Am Somebody, A Day At The Races, and What's Golden are some of their best songs, but the stuff like Thin Line and One Of Them just don't feel like J5 to me at all.

I don't know why they to prove they were "real", it was pretty obvious that they were from the get go.

That said, Power In Numbers is still pretty good, but not the classic Quality Control is.

[Foggle]

I'm completely torn between Tribe and J5 as my all-time favorite group. I just cannot put one over the other.

What do you guys think of this?

[Spark Of Spirit]

Chali 2na was my favorite J5 member, so that was pretty great. The man writes the best lyrics, they're more than flow and rhyme, there's a lot of real feeling, soul, and personality in his words.