I Blame Twitter

I mean, seriously, it's just so much easier to micro-blog than to formulate something requiring actual thought. This post may contain nothing worthwhile, but I feel like I have to meet a one-blog-a-month quota or something. Like how Jay-Z puts out an album a year even if he has nothing interesting to say.

Speaking of which, have you heard The Blueprint 3? I've heard the vast majority of it. And I've listened to the first 4 or 5 tracks many many times. The reason for that is, after about 15-20 minutes, I develop this unbearable desire to listen to Hova's good shit. Enter Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint (1), and/or The Black Album.

It's unfortunate that BP3 doesn't get it done, because it is pretty sonically badass. I mean, Jay is rapping over some pretty strange beats. It reminds me of Clipse's second record, where they reportedly told the Neptunes to just bring in the weirdest shit they had on their Macbooks or whatever. Some may argue that Clipse has little to say apart from how gangsta Virginia is or how much weight they push, but at least they sound interest-ing/ed over the Neptune's more left-field beats. Jay-Z sounds like he forgot what he's supposed to be doing with a mic.

Danger Mouse should just mash up Jay's classic rhymes with BP3. That thing would eclipse The Gray Album for album-length mash-up nirvana. But one thing I can thank BP3 for is bringing my appreciation of classic Jay-Z up to appropriate levels of adulation. I've had a pretty love/hate relationship with his back catalog, most specifically with The Black Album. I have downloaded and deleted this record at least three times in recent memory. I'd dig the production and a lot of the songs, but I'd slowly tire of all the self-love. The crowds chanting 'HOVA! HOVA!' near the end of "What More Can I Say" or sound bites of his mom expounding on how the 10 lbs. wunderkind exited her birth canal like angel breath on "December 4th." It was enough to make me sick to the point where I'd lose my shit after about a month or so and get rid of the whole thing.

But, invariably, I'd get that itch to hear "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and "99 Problems" again, and I'd come crawling back. I'm such a bitch, i.e. not one of Jay-Z's problems.