GCOTD: Scar Shoulders

This conversation occurred this morning and incensed me. Not knowing/appreciating music is one thing, but one would think such ignorance would require one remove oneself from said debate. I'm not knocking Janis Joplin. I wish she was hotter, because she was probably an animal in the sack. That said, Jerry Garcia, along with the rest of the Grateful Dead, their crew, Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters the Wall of Sound, LSD, San Francisco did way more for music than Janis did. She was a lynx. But go ahead, shut yo mouth.

Backspacer is good shit

This guy (or) girl obviously loves Pearl Jam more than is considered normal so take what he says with a grain of salt. But, in principal, I agree with what he/she is saying and I am too lazy to analyze the album as much as they did so read it if you are interested (I skimmed and quickly realized they probably have a poster of Eddie Vedder on their dorm room wall). I must say if he thinks Eddie Vedder is writing lyrics to his fans he must be on some good shit.

Nonetheless, Pearl Jam's new album, Backspacer is damn good even if it is short as hell. (36 mins) I think they did that on purpose instead of filling it up with useless tracks to get a "full LP"....see self titled Pearl Jam or Vitalogy as testament to the absurdness of this approach. So each track is good as hell. Thanks to Brendan O'Brien who also produced, Yield among others (Nuggets and I will agree it is probably their best album)) the shit is just right.

So if you have 12 bucks (at Target, not sure if you can get it anywhere else), and you enjoy good music that doesn't blow goats, then a Jackal highly recommends it.

SS Music Reviews: Method Man and Redman - Blackout 2

Hi.My name's Mark.And I'm white.I live in a predominantly white neighborhood.I went to a predominantly white college. And I have predominantly all white friends.But at night, while all my white friends are asleep,I bump this.

If The Ecstatic plays out like a live show Blackout 2 plays out like a week long Mancation. It's that crazy grimy and gutter. The intro starts appropriately with a "DC make some god damn noise" paying homage to the true home of the Jackals, Red and Meth know we got the east coast on lock.

The album is exactly what you think it is, straight hip hop beats with Red and Meth going back and forth all day like, well like Red and Meth. The responsible revolutionary side of me wants more conscious MCs but Red and Meth aptly capture why I am so hooked on hardcore hip hop in the aptly titled I'm Dope Nigga. Meth flips the metaphors and similes perfectly and I'li lay it out for you here so you can get a small taste of why he says I'm dope, nigga, dirty needle stuck in the arm

Put your nose in my notebook and go and sniff you a line

I'm dope, nigga, I'm heroin in it's prime

While the game is on it's decline, bitches on my Davine

I fine rhymin easy, but I ain't easy to find

Simply put he's right. You can take the Jackal outta the Mancation but you can't take the Mancation outta the Jackal. This album's straight aural Mancation for your weekday monotony. City Lights above lays a simple beat and a catchy chorus about getting tore up under City Lights. What self respecting Jackal who likes to get awesome wouldn't put this on 11 and bass out on their way to jump start Boogers car after getting too awesome two nights prior? Not ScarShoulders that's for Jackal Damn sure. And for the gay clones out there a few tracks get more complicated with horns and live drums but really Red and Meth are keeping strictly Hip Hop for Hip Hop heads.

The official ScarShoulders rating is 4 out of 5 howls. Greatness could have been achieved by dropping the two uncharacteristically unfunny skits and 3 or 4 other tracks and adding remixes of Gotta Have It, Pimp Nuts, and Put It Down...but it's better that they didn't cause they gotta leave something for me and BallDeep to work on in the lab. Let's put it another way, when Mike GolickASpermDonorRecepticle made me want to kill everything this morning this was the first CD I reached for to get the good vibes flowing again.

If you are a gay clone or have fits of GAF behavior do not buy this album. Bonus points were awarded for Redmans barking which is very Jackal in nature. You will see no Esquire review of this album because Esquire is GAF. If Tico buys this album, plays it at home, thinks he's on Mancation, and punches a bunch of holes in his own house the author of this review is not responsible for his actions.

SS Music Review: Mos Def - The Ecstatic

Black Jack Johnson N.Y.C., R-O-C-K-I-N-G Sun and the moon, earths, stars, and planets Before song done y'all goin' all understand it


I'll be honest, I was pretty damn excited about this album. Multiple sources touted it as "his best album since Black on Both sides" and some suggested it was possibly even better than that classic LP. The whole thing plays out like a live show, and much of it I am 95% sure I saw at Rock the Bells last summer. Mos really hits his stride in track 3 produced by the highly underrated Madlib (if you don't have Liberation which him and Kweli put out for free on the web a couple years back, get it) featuring Slick Rick the Ruler. For 5 or 6 tracks Mos is in the zone (and put me there with him. I think I got popped by a big brother speeding camera I slow down for every day on the way to work. Fuck those things.) and the rim looks like an ocean, runners, fadeaways, long threes, to the rim with the contact AND ONE! ONIONS! But then like any hot shooter Mos cools off and the album rolls slowly around the world for another 5 or 6 tracks until Kweli (with an assist from J Dilla, RIP) brings him back to Brooklyn for the last two tracks (dear Jackal please give us another Blackstar album STAT!). I can see why the album received such high praise, it has a ton of what white people love about Mos Def. However Hipsters should never talk about hip hop and although Black Dante is more worldly now he's at his best when he's has Bed-Stuy locked firmly in his scope. There wasn't enough of that for my taste.

All in all it's a good offering, but really only slightly better than True Magic which me and six other OJs (Original Jackals) bought. All in all I give it 3.75 howls out of 5 with the reservation to raise it to 4 with another couple of listens.

As this review will most certainly be picked up by the AP and find its way to Mos I have a simple message for the great musician and good MC (certainly not stronger than Kweli and Slick Rick which he knows and recognizes which I do appreciate) -> You got Bed-Stuy in ya belly, Brooklyn in ya bones, stay on NYC Hip Hop and leave hipster bullshit alone!

Much love Mos. Peace.

This music review is the definitive review of this album. It is not opinion, it is fact. Any disagreement with this review is not a reflection of the author but a confirmation of the ignorance of the person with the dissenting opinion. One.