🎵 How Good Are They Really 🎵 Jay-Z

I’ve got to make it through work somehow, so lets do another one!

Here’s the thing, a respectable score for Blondie.

Artist Rating
Aretha Franklin 4.64
David Bowie 4.31
The Cure 4.28
Stevie Wonder 4.17
Nirvana 4.15
Radiohead 4.13
The Supremes 4.13
Kate Bush 4.07
OutKast 4.07
Portishead 4.03
Joni Mitchell 3.89
Bruce Springsteen 3.84
Blondie 3.73
ABBA 3.66
Kanye West 3.65
Beyoncé 3.54
Bob Marley & The Wailers 3.48
The Rolling Stones 3.09
The Strokes 3.03
Girls Aloud 2.93
Britney Spears 2.85

And now we move on, to Jay-Z

What do we reckon then?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
0 voters

Album

  • Reasonable Doubt
  • In My Lifetime, Vol. 1
  • Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life
  • Vol. 3… Life And Times Of S. Carter
  • The Dynasty: Roc La Familia
  • The Blueprint
  • The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse
  • The Black Album
  • Kingdom Come
  • American Gangster
  • The Blueprint 3
  • Magna Carta… Holy Grail
  • 4:44

0 voters

Very long single poll

  • Dead Presidents
  • Ain’t No N***a
  • Can’t Knock The Hustle
  • Who You Wit
  • Sunshine
  • Wishing On A Star
  • The City Is Mine
  • Can I Get A…
  • Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)
  • Anything
  • Big Pimpin’
  • I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)
  • Izzo (H.O.V.A.)
  • Girls, Girls, Girls
  • 03 Bonnie & Clyde
  • Excuse Me Miss
  • Change Clothes
  • Dirt Off Your Shoulder
  • 99 Problems
  • Numb/Encore
  • Show Me What You Got
  • Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)…
  • Swagga Like Us
  • D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune)
  • Run This Town
  • Empire State Of Mind
  • Young Forever
  • H•A•M
  • Otis
  • Lift Off
  • N****s In Paris
  • No Church In The Wild
  • Clique
  • Holy Grail
  • Apeshit

0 voters

Everytime I see the rankings a bit of me dies when I see joni having polled so low.

8 Likes

Gave up well over a decade ago but there are some absolute bangers in there. Never been a massive fan of his delivery, obviously a massively important figure in mainstream hip hop history but think that legacy is as much bad as good. Gone for a 3 cause I’m not really sure

1 Like

Have no idea why he’s so revered.

One in the “respect without loving” pile for me in terms of canonical hip hop artists.

Some of his really early verses are insane (his appearance on Show & Prove must have been so fucking thrilling at the time) but I’ve never completely fallen in love with any of his albums and he had his worst spell during my peak era of other artists.

Plus his stuff not being on Spotify means I can never be arsed…

5 Likes

Have never engaged with him, even though I’ve owned a good few of his albums over the years. A generous 3/5.

Given him a 3. There are a handful of his singles that I really like, and a couple of albums I enjoyed immensely but haven’t felt the need to revisit really. I just never really fully got it. Like Ant said, I’m sure if you were into hip hop when he first started you’d have been really excited by him but I just can’t get fully on with it and there is a big list of hip hop artists I’d listen to before any of his stuff.

1 Like

5 for me. When he’s on top of his game with the right production there’s not much better.

Reasonable Doubt is perfection - top 10 rap album in my eyes/ears.

Then The Blueprint and The Black Album are both 9/10s. Much more bombast and shows the breadth of his ability when set against the more classic East Coast stylings of RD.

Around that, there’s some gold mixed with some moments of inconsistency, but the highs are really fucking high.

I think as a rapper he lacks the lyrical nuance of some of his fellow GOAT contenders, and it’s interesting how he gets overshadowed on Brookyn’s Finest with Biggie and Renegade with Eminem (fuck me those Em verses :fire::fire::fire:) but on his own he’s just got the coolest smoothest flow.

Think he sums himself up perfectly on Moment of Clarity:

If skills sold truth be told
I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli
Truthfully I want to rhyme like Common Sense (But I did five Mil)
I ain’t been rhyming like Common since

He transcends the genre and he’s not only played the game to do that but he’s also shaped the whole thing.

12 Likes

The Blueprint is fantastic, and I played The Black Album to death growing up. But my interest in Jay sort of dipped and never recovered. I’m not a massive fan of his delivery, I tend to just prefer his choice of beats and hooks.

As ANT said it’s someone I respect but I find hard to love 3/5

—edit changed to 4 as I did play those 2albums to death–

I’ll share this again when we inevitably cover eminem but the way the two of them bring out the best in each other on this track is gobsmacking.

3 Likes

While we’re here; The Grey Album

  • Great
  • Good
  • Meh
  • Rubbish
  • What?

0 voters

The sort of thing where rap is used as a punchline for “real music” fans to ironically enjoy it or laugh at. Does my head in.

3 Likes

I really like how he squeezes words around and how awkward and wrong it all seems.

2 Likes

Think I said of Britney how she was an artist I was hugely aware of but had never really heard her stuff. This goes for Jay-Z too.

Do you think? I never really looked at it that way. Always found it pretty entertaining and well-executed.

I find it really endearing in this Stretch & Bob appearance when he introduces his (excellent) freestyle after going on about some party he was at that he clearly wasn’t at.

1 Like

That sort of thing tends to rankle me really. These “mash-ups” just seem laced with irony and feel like they’re smirking at how funny the idea is the whole time.

3 Likes

Think I got put off by my first exposure just being a couple of his very clichéd hip hop videos and therefore didn’t really bother with him.

No vote from me but I’m going to take advantage of this thread to cherry pick his best stuff to listen to.

Have listened to 4:44 btw and think it’s pretty great.