BEA's Year-End List #1: Piñata

Anonymous · 2015-02-10T11:55:34-05:00

Nah, fuck that shit, here's your #1 Piñata by Freddie Gibbs & Madlib Freddie & Gibbs and Madlib's collaborative tour de force "Piñata" is- oh fuck it you already know what it sounds like And so, for what feels like the hundredth time, I sit down to write something about Piñata. There isn't much left to say. You know that Gibbs is probably the most mature gangsta rapper since Scarface. You know that Madlib's stoned, unquantized beats are hazy and psychedelic and dripping in soul. You know that 'Thuggin'' is the best rap song since 'Shook One pt. II'. And you know that I adore Piñata. So I'm just gonna leave that there. It's my album of the year, and probably would be in most other years too. When the best rapper around meets one of the greatest producers of all-time, magic should happen, but it doesn't make it any less magical when it does. Simply put this album is fucking incredible. Fucking incredible. I mean shit, this is serious AoTY material, for sure. It's a beautifully realised ode to a bygone era, a time when the gangsta reigned supreme. These stoned soul and psychedelic blaxploitation soundscapes are as lush and as vivid as the real-life tales they soundtrack, vulnerable and paranoid but handed to the listener straight, sans regrets. It may initially seem relatively small-scale in its scope, but scratch beneath a surface made up of violence, pussy and weed and you'll find a record that says so much about what it is to be human, from wrestling with the fear of becoming irrelevant ('Deeper'), to coming to terms with parental differences and trying to be your own person ('Broken'), learning that sometimes your friends will let you down ('Real'), to looking back and realising that everything you've seen made you the person you are today, for better or worse ('Knicks'). It's a labyrinth of rare soul samples (layered atop one another in such a way that it's often impossible to know where one ends and the next begins), flawless flows that call to mind everyone from Bun B to Kool G. Rap to 50 Cent to Tupac, and "street knowledge" in the truest sense - wisdom gleaned from becoming a man in America's murder capital. It is a shining example of what hip-hop can accomplish without trying to compromise or conform to somebody else's rules, a record so stoically stubborn in its refusal to pander to anybody's wishes that it forces the listener - with a quiet, frightening confidence and the threat of "gun-to-mouth resuscitation" - to bend to its will. A masterpiece. The more I play Pinata, the more it's looking like album of the year. P.S. Stay tuned, more to come tomorrow

Goto page Previous 1 2 34

View previous topic :: View next topic

mickilennial The Most Trusted Name in News Profile
Detroit

So, on this focused listen I'm really digging this now.

RepoMan

sp4cetiger wrote:

Following up on my earlier post, color-coding the list by my tastes:

Overall chart candidates
Great
Good
Average
Bad or couldn't finish

1. Pinata
2. Pom Pom
3. Black Messiah
4. Meshes of Voice
5. Burn Your Fire for No Witness
6. More Than Any Other Day
7. Plowing Into the Fields of Love
8. Perfect Hair
9. LP1
10. Syro

I don't know how much of that is BEA's influence vs. my natural tendencies, but that's pretty damn good. Note that the Quietus list would be pretty green too, but I still need to hear a few of those records.

By contrast, my feelings about Pitchfork's list are much more colorful

1. Run the Jewels 2
2. LP1
3. Lost in the Dream
4. Syro
5. Ruins
6. To Be Kind
7. Benji
8. It's Album Time
9. Pom Pom
10. Our Love

I'll take a stab at this to without the pretty colors since my laptop's trackpad isn't behaving after I spilt some ice tea on it & using my iPad while praying for its recovery. 🙏

Chart worthy/exceptional ( in order)
Benji
Piñata
Pom Pom
Ruins
Syro
Black Messiah
Meshes of Voice ( Especially the first 7 songs or so)
To Be Kind

Great but nothing revelatory
Burn your fire
More Than Any Other Day
Plowing The Fields
RTJ2

Good aural candy but probably won't listen to too much
Lp1
Our Love

Meh
Lost in the Dream

Sucks balls
It's Album Time

Future listening
Bus driver

So let's see how this breaks down...

CHART WORTHY/EXCEPTIONAL
BEA: 6 ( listening to Busdriver as I do this & pretty sure it will land here w/ repeat listens)
Pitchfork: 5

GREAT
BEA : 3
Pitchfork: 1

GOOD
BEA: 1
Pitchfork: 1

Meh
BEA: 0
Pitchfork: 2

So besides having a more interesting & unanticipated top ten, it contains more exceptional/ great albums while avoiding any stinkers at all.

19loveless91 mag. druž. inf Profile

The list is mostly made of albums that I generally like, but not quite as much as some (or as much as I wanted to). Pom Pom is maybe the only one I really wasn't big on...
Favourites are Black Messiah (easily in my personal top 5) and Ought (top 10), and the most pleasant surprise is Perfect Hair, also one of my favourite hip hop albums of the year. An interesting list in any case...

Skinny birdman_handrub.gif Profile

RepoMan wrote:

Meh
Lost in the Dream

Sucks balls
It's Album Time

Correct.
_________________
2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.

paladisiac = music Profile
Denver

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

_________________
fav artists NOW | ALL-TIME favs | i listen 2 more music than u so u don't have 2!

zdwyatt Profile
Madison WI

Aw yis. I can't remember a more divisive album among my rap fan friends. Everyone agrees that Madlib is on point, but some people can't get behind Gibbs, whether it's his flow or his subject. But damn if I didn't just keep coming back to this one all year. The combo just works.

Mercury Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call Profile
St. Louis

Just dropping in to kindly correct skinny and repo about Lost In The Dream as it is a downright FABULOUS album! Yay for Lost In The Dream!!!!
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

mickilennial The Most Trusted Name in News Profile
Detroit

Mercury wrote:

Just dropping in to kindly correct skinny and repo about Lost In The Dream as it is a downright FABULOUS album! Yay for Lost In The Dream!!!!

Yes, I quite liked it as well.

Saoirse

Maybe this is why Lost in The Dreams ruffles so many feathers- every discussion about 2014 albums ends up being in some form about The War on Drugs.

And yeah Pinata is very good, a strong hip-hop album where the terrific production and rapping complement, rather than overwhelm, the other beautifully.

New topic Closed

Topic Posters
All times are GMT
Goto page Previous 1 2 34

Page 4 of 4

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Topic	Author	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Sticky: Year Change Notices	baystateoftheart	Music	160	09/12/2026 07:13 albummaster
Sticky: The BEA Games Hall Of Fame	Guest	Tournaments	47	05/31/2016 23:16 cestuneblague
BEA's Year-End List #2: Pom Pom	Guest	Music	37	02/10/2015 06:09 HoldenM
BEA's Year-End List #9: LP1	Guest	Music	35	02/04/2015 03:41 junodog4
BEA's Year-End List #6: More Than An...	Guest	Music	6	02/06/2015 03:11 Hayden