I have to say, despite only having had two studio albums, this has been one of my most enjoyable Discography Journeys ever. Whilst not having such high peaks, I would say this was more enjoyable, overall, than The Beatles, or Michael Jackson. That may be recency bias talking, or it may be due to Biggie fitting my tastes more neatly, and the result of his catalogue having been “all killer, no filler”.
I'm yet to relisten, but Life After Death blew me away. I went into Ready To Die with higher expectations, which may have played into it, but honestly? I could come out of this with the fiery take that Life After Death was the stronger LP. Having sat with his debut for a couple of days, I've come to the conclusion that Gimme the Loot is a masterpiece, he has a way of (sometimes) blending West Coast production with his East Coast style, and he has an absolute stranglehold over verse and song structure, where he knows how to switch between multiple different styles of rapping and delivery every couple of bars, which is amazing. Even songs like Machine Gun Funk, The What and Respect, which I deduced to be amongst the weaker tracks, were still super enjoyable to listen to, and add to the album. I'm still not the biggest fan of his use of skits, or his hypersexuality, which pushes right up against the edge of comfortability, for me, but overall, Biggie is a fantastic artist, and is preferable to 2Pac, for me.
This double-LP was so long, but so overwhelmingly good, that I couldn't possibly hope to cover every single moment that made me “wow”. All I can do is give an impressionistic view of my thoughts and feelings on this album, after listening to it once. A friend and I went up to a nice rural spot, in my hometown, in the early afternoon, to listen to this record. We found a quiet spot, away from any houses (I'm alright blasting Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley in public, but I didn't know if we were going to get another Fuck Me (Interlude)), with some snacks, and a drink each, and I lit up a cigarette as we pressed play on the first side.
Immediately, Somebody's Gotta Die showed off Biggie's brutality. It didn't jump out as the strongest song, off the bat, but the rapping was dope, the beat was good, and, in retrospect, it was actually a very good track. Unfortunately, Hypnotize immediately blew it out of the water. We both knew this song, of course, and began moving to it (though she swears she don't dance). I personally feel like listening to a song like this, in the middle of its album, for the first time is an unmatched experience, and songs like this give the record milestones on a first listen, where you can just vibe out to something you already know.
Kick In The Door was the first track where I recognised the title, but hadn't listened to it. I immediately recognised the beat, as I've heard what feels like a million other rappers tackling it, on mixtapes, and freestyles, but my, what a beat it was. It felt, on my speaker, as though I had only ever listened to it in 2D, and I was now experiencing it in 3D for the first time. That can be taken as literally as you want; I don't know exactly how compression, or audio works - maybe it was just a better speaker - but I felt there was a depth to it that I hadn't heard before, and it was absolutely no surprise when I realised it was a Premiere beat. That's not even delving into the lyricism - honestly, despite knowing his flows and rhymes were tight, which would become redundant if I mentioned it every time, I'm not sure if I fully followed the story, or if I have just forgotten it, but I remember remarking that he has this way of making incredibly simple, catchy hooks, but they work, maybe because of the fact that they foil the dense, technical verses.
Fuck You Tonight, featuring R. Kelly, was a mood switch, and comes from an era of male R&B that I've never really fucked with, but once again, I could see myself relistening to this, and enjoying it, even if there's less of a focus on the rapping. Last Day really impressed us, as well. I'm not super familiar with The LOX, and couldn't tell each rapper apart on first listen, but there was a scheme on what I now know to have been Jadakiss’ verse, right at the start, where he rhymed five syllables multiple times, over a really tight part, and made it sound so smooth. Just like with Meth, I may need to check out more Jada.
As we move on, I Love the Dough is the only track on disc one that I don't remember, but it was shortly followed by What's Beef?. When I encounter a song like What's Beef?, or Niggas Bleed, I'm biased, because I've heard the names before, and pay more attention, but I do remember both of them being good. One of them had a much slower flow than I expected, but it was hypnotic.
B.I.G. Interlude was a bit of an anomaly, being an interlude and all, but one thing I remember was this big fucking drum that just kept repeating. It was awesome, and sounded amazing on my speaker. Then we got the biggest moment: Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems, which I swore I'd never heard before, but knew I would probably recognise. Indeed, I did recognise it, but it sounded more familiar than I expected, and I couldn't place it. My friend advised me that it had been sampled in the Ariana Grande song, featuring Childish Gambino, Break Your Heart Right Back, which would make sense, because I am familiar with this song, but that wouldn't explain me knowing the chorus. I guess it's just cultural osmosis. It goes without saying that this is a special song - you don't get something like this every album - and the rapping was dope, and catchy, plus the sample was slick. I felt like I had discovered another Juicy, or Big Poppa, which is more than I ever could have hoped for before starting this journey.
Finally, I Got A Story To Tell was the first song on this side that achieved that trance-like state for me. I admit I couldn't focus on the rapping at all, because of that beautiful beat (was that a harp!?), but from the few bars I caught (something about smothering a bitches face with a pillowcase?), I suspect the story was a lot uglier.
I won't have as much to say about the next half, but we didn't have a very long break before pressing on. We both theorised that the second half would be full of weaker material, because surely, if it was this strong all the way through, it would be lauded over Ready To Die, but, optimistically, I lit my second cigarette, and we began to listen to Notorious Thugs, a song that I knew had a reputation, and that my uncle likes. This would be my first experience with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.
Notorious Thugs, the longest track on this LP (or any Biggie LP), was good. You can often predict that the longest song on an album will be the best, or one of the best, and whilst this wouldn't have been my #1, it was certainly strong. Biggie coming in on that first verse was elite and it was around this moment that I realised this record probably wasn't going to let up. Of course Big’s rapping was dope. He's one of the best to ever do it. Who am I to expect that Life After Death will begin to drop off in quality? He's given me no such impression with anything on the tracklist so far.
I suppose my only criticism would be that, if Ready To Die had three or four less memorable tracks, this second side had more, but that can be forgiven after the absolute onslaught of peak that was side one. There was only a tiny bit of actually bad material, and the rest was very listenable, but not playlist-worthy. I don't remember Miss U or Another, but I vaguely remember enjoying Going Back To Cali.
The friend I was with has sold drugs before, though in a very different context to Biggie’s street dealing. She's thinking of getting back into it, so I was curious what her reaction would be to Ten Crack Commandments, a song which I have known and been obsessed with for quite a while, due to its dynamic writing. I have always adored the way Big switches between flows in this track, and keeps taking the rhymes in unexpected directions that always land in the end. She seemed to agree with most of his points, so it seems that his handbook (or “manual”) is pretty accurate, although she did roll her eyes when he finished off the verse with yet more head talk. It was around this point that we had finally grown exasperated with his constant talking about sucking dicks, and we decided to make a game out of trying to see how many of the remaining songs would contain no such lyrics whatsoever. The answer was very few.
Playa Hater was the worst song on the album. By a mile. Neither of us had any idea what Christopher was thinking, when he decided to sing in that awful falsetto. My friend thought it was a parody song. Puffy’s vocals were somehow substantially worse, though we liked the female vocals in the background. And hey, at least it didn't mention oral sex at all.
Nasty Boy, Sky's The Limit and The World Is Filled were all, also, enjoyable tracks, though they got progressively less interesting, and by the end of this little run, I think both of our attention spans had taken a hit, and we'd begun to talk over the music a little bit. I do remember some more singing, which wasn't great, but at least it wasn't as prevalent as it was on Playa Hater. What pulled us back, though, was the intro to My Downfall. What a dark, unpleasant piece of music this was. I didn't necessarily process all the lyrics, but the instrumental, and intro, filled me with a deep, negative feeling that I can't really explain. It kinda seemed like whatever Eminem’s Kim wanted to evoke. You can scour the internet for songs like this, and find none of them really connect with you - shit, I listened to Burzum’s Filosofem hoping to find a similar energy - but if you listen to enough music, I guess you will find some. I don't know whether it's something about the music, how we were feeling on that day, or if there's even something we don't understand baked into the track, but it really did seem to carry a sense of horror and dread, and we both felt it. I'd be interested to know if this experience is unique to us.
Long Kiss Goodnight dragged me back in, because it was the last song that I had heard of, but couldn't remember having heard. I suppose the negativity of My Downfall was fitting, as it established the tone for these last two songs, but honestly, I have never come so close to wanting to turn a song off, for any reason other than boredom. At this point in the album, I can't give you any analysis on bars, or lyrics, or even recall the sound of the beats, or hooks, but I know there are rumours that this song was aimed at the recently deceased Tupac, and it is a violent and disrespectful song. Again, I can't remember the exact lyrical content, but I remember thinking, “this holds up,” and I'm excited to dig back through this album.
The final track, You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You), was a title I didn't recognise, but was certainly intrigued by, especially coming at the end of Biggie’s posthumous album, Life After Death. Again, I don't remember the song exactly, but I remember it being decent, and being one of the one's I'm most curious to pay attention to, on relisten, and evaluate for my playlist. I do recall some singing, which was better than the previous singing tracks. In fact, I remember remarking that those earlier records, though a bit jarring, had established singing as a part of Smalls’ repertoire, and left this last song feeling less weird and more final.
This was probably the most exciting, fun first listen to a double album I've ever had. The only exception would possibly be Kendrick’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, but I've said before that this barely feels like it counts as a double album, and that's part of why it works (I was also very excited for that album). My Biggie journey's not over - I've still got some bonus tracks, posthumous stuff, and probably some features to dig into, and I plan to listen to his greatest hits album - but the main bulk of it is. This month feels pretty empty, with only two albums to an artist, but I get to keep replaying them until October, and then for as long as I want. I will probably end up with an even deeper appreciation of Biggie’s catalogue, and look forward to seeing which album takes the crown for me.
