Dissect - MF DOOM's 'Madvillainy' vs. Clipse's 'Hell Hath No Fury' | LAST SONG STANDING [E5]

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

The LSS Boyz continue their journey to crown the Best Album of the 21st Century (so far) by pitting two landmarks in indie-hop history against each other: MF DOOM & Madlib’s Madvillainy vs. Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury. Every episode this season, Cole and Charles each nominate one album they feel should be in contention for the 21st century's best. Each album is discussed individually before the two albums battle head to head, where Cole and Charles argue until they can agree on the better album. The winning album from each episode advances to the season finale Royal Rumble, where the LSS boys will face off one last time until they can finally agree on the Best Album of the 21st Century.  New episodes every Tuesday. Hosts: Cole Cuchna & Charles Holmes Producer: Justin Sayles Audio/Video Editing: Kevin Pooler Video Engineer: CT Theme Music: Birocratic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome everyone to Last Song Standing. I'm Cole Kushna. And I'm Charles Holmes. And in this four season of Last Song Standing, Cole and I are debating our way through some of the best albums of the past 25 years in order to crown the greatest album of the 21st century so far, aka the last album, Skinner. Last episode, extremely contentious. Would you say more contentious than Blueprint versus Lemonade? Well, it would have been, but we copped out. It was our first ever stalemate. I had Radiohead's Kid A. You had Defunk Discovery. Both phenomenal albums. However, we do have a tiebreaker for today unless you are ready to do the right thing and just concede that Radiohead, Kid A, is the right album. I will just say we have a surprise

later. And if it goes the way I'm expecting it to go, I'm going to have a very, very long monologue about the problem with music criticism and rock centrality to music criticism at the cost of other genres that I would argue are more important to the story of the 21st century. Sound very defensive. Already. I'll just put it to you this way. You didn't go to the streets.

That's all I'll say. Order to dance. Right. Let's not belaborate, but I feel pretty good about the season. I mean, Discovery Kid A, they're both winners. So we're going to have one of those albums. We have Eminem, Marsha Mathers, LP.

We have Beyonce's Lemonade. and my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. It feels like a good list so far. It feels like a good list, but I will also say now that these episodes are starting to roll out, people are catching on. They're just like, hey, yo, how could you put Igor against Eminem? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And part of me wants to be like to everyone.

Like this, this process was just as hard for us as it was. Like, I don't think you guys actually realize we've had arguments. about what albums to pair with each other. Yeah, it's harder than you think. Today's episode, though, I feel like is a perfect pairing. Yes. And we're honoring a part of a certain subgenre of hip-hop that it's very near and dear to my heart. So, want to we read the rules real fast?

And then we'll get into the album picks. So just as a reminder, every episode, Charles and I each nominate one album we think should be in contention for the 21st century's best. Each album gets its own half of the episode where we'll make a case for why that album is one of the best in the last 25 years. Then at the end of the episode, the two albums will go head to head, and Charles and I will debate until we can agree on one winner. The winning album from each episode advances to the season finale Royal Rumble. That's where Cole and I will face off one less time, eliminating albums one by one until we can crown the greatest album of the 21st century, aka. the last album Standing, standing, standing,

actually I could have I could have asked Kev just to do that in post you know, to make it more time. Oh yeah, he'll, he'll do it. He'll work his magic. But Cole, now that that's out of the way, what albums are we nominated for today's episode? I'm going with unarguable classic,

mad villainies, MF Doom, Mad Lib, Mad Villany, just a fucking phenomenal album. And I'm going with Clips, is hell hath no fury. Whatever we cost, baby, we got answers. Line outside full of jojo dancers. Do it like the robot to headspin to Boogaloo.

Took a few minutes to convince the average boogamoo. I know what you're thinking why I call you me too. Because everything I say I got you say me too. I say I got a benz and you say me too. Oh yeah. It's like they know what's about to happen. Just keep your eye out like eye-eye capping. Is he still a fly guy?

How did you end up with mad villainy? At first, I was going to do MadVillity, but we kept, we kept kind of like, we're just like, because Mad Villany is, is an album that looms so large over hip hop. And I think after Doom's tragic passing, recipes to Doom, I think it has just grown in stature. Yeah. So we were actually, like, searching, searching, for the perfect pairing. And something that could hold its weight against Mad Villany. And a lot of people might call this recency bias.

we kind of went through a bunch of albums and it wasn't until we got to the clips where I was like, oh, this makes sense. Yeah, I mean, full of transparency, this Mad Villany was going to go against 50 cent for a long time. Yeah. That was kind of our plan

because that tells its own story in terms of the direction of hip hop. But I feel like we've honored with Eminem with Jay-Z. We've kind of honored that side of hip-hop, especially during the early 2000. So this pairing to me, honors that kind of underground, it's hard to call it underground because these guys are so popular,

but a side of hip-hop that we haven't actually got to talk about, and we'll be able to talk about it all episode, which I'm very excited about, because this is kind of where I, this is the hip-hop that I just love. Well, actually, why I think this episode makes a lot of sense, like, thematically, to your point, is when you think of Doom and you think of clips, especially in the last couple years. Because they're such big figures at this point and because they're so iconic,

I think people forget that in the early 2000s especially. Clips was left for dead. Doom was left for dead. Even when these albums were released, they didn't, Mad Filling didn't sell gangbusters. Neither did Hell Hath no Fury.

But it tells the story of A, I think, a different type of hip-hop starting to have platforms where to me these are both very pitchfork era albums where the critics of that time were like, you know, these two underground or underground-esque artists are exactly what we want to celebrate about music.

And I think what we both might be talking about is how weirdly influential both of like Doom and clips especially just became where I can't think of like when you think of Earl, when you think of Tyler, when you think of good music, when you think of ever, Everything that happened, like West goes, just everything. You're just like, oh, it is in these albums. Yeah, it's similar to the kidday discovery conversation we have in terms of influence. And I think if we're looking at the century historically, we talked about, you know, in our opening episode this season, we are focusing a lot on hip hop because hip hop is the prominent genre of the century. And just like rock music in the 20th century, you know, as it grew, as the genre became kind of the most dominant.

genre in popular music, you know, you start to see within the genre things splintering. And so you start to get subgenres. And the same thing is, to me, you know, the early 2000s where we start to see that split where as there's becomes a more commercial, of course, there's kind of always been there. But as hip hop grew, it just gave more space for the clips of the world, for the dooms of the world because there was an audience to fulfill each of these subgenres and then then you have subgenres within subgenres and so yeah you can't have that

you can't have those kind of subgenres without that without the overall genre of hip hop becoming so enormous and I would also say both of these in the same way that Kid A and Discovery are coming out at a time where the internet is like in its infancy and you can't tell the story of those albums

without the internet. Mad Villainee very famously leaked right you know and it almost grew this was an album that was not necessarily supposed to save Stones Thoreau that was not this was not the album that they were like this is going to be the one

and we might talk about the history of that but like fans heard the leak and it like slowly slowly slowly builds and I think same thing with clips where it's like we are going to talk about them getting all of their label woes and label dramas and with their mixtape series

and just pounding the pavement they became a very, both of these artists became very hipster as the clips called them Clipsters. This is a certain type of fan, especially white suburban fan that was always there

for hip hop, but I think the internet just blows it out of the water to, and, you know, to wrap it up. I think that's why this pairing to me is going to be so fun because it is telling two sides of the same coin of hipster rap in the early 2000. All right, everybody.

get into first album. We go on Mad Villain first? Yes. All right. So Mad Villany comes out on March 23rd, 2004. Two official singles, I guess you could call them singles, Money Folder, and all caps. First Week sales are unknown. This is, but, you know, where it lacks in, like, Grammy Awards and first week sales,

we already touched on. Critical reception of this thing was pretty much universal in terms of a claim. It has a 93 on Metacritic. It, you know, it's top five, top. 10 on like every hip hop greatest hip hop album of all time list to kind of continue the conversation it did remind me like returning to the you know the build up of the album the release of the album and reading about that it reminded me of discovery in a little bit because in the same way like discovery was a slow burn phenomenal album that was recognized in its time but would just continue

to grow in terms of like revere mad villainy feels similar in terms of like people like Justin probably loved it on day one, but as Doom grew, as he paired with Cartoon Network and his kind of, the iconography of Doom just continued to grow, we had this anchoring album to his career. So anyone that discovered Doom in like 2006, 2007, 2008,

they would have Mad Villing to listen to and be like, okay, fuck, this guy is just phenomenal. In the same way, if you discovered Daft Punk after Kanye West, you had this body of work in discovery, that it just anchors their entire career. And I also think what we're speaking to is that it was the children that grew up on Doom that I think the mics of the world, odd future, Mac Miller, I think you got a lot of

artists from all across the country that this time, this album meant a lot to them. And that's how I think a lot of kids even younger than us start, like, Mad Villanese becomes and urban outfitters. Right. It becomes, it becomes a poster that it was already that, but think about how crazy it is

in 2025, mad villainy is streaming more. Yeah. And is listened to more today. I think it's increased in stream. Spotify at one point did a thing where it was just like, in 2020,

it's like 75% each year, year over year increase. Is it's just insanity that like does not happen. And for an artist as weird as doom for it to happen for him is something I never could have predicted if I'm going to be 100% honest because I was a Doom kid.

I fell in love with him because of the Adult Swim album. And then I was just like, I had like cousins and everybody be like, I'll go ahead and school, like Madvility, food. And that was when I was like, oh, oh, this, hell yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Justin, do you have anything you wanted to say up front about it before you get into trivia? I mean, you're right. I had been listening to Doom for a while at that point, right?

like I had Operation Doomsday. This was the year after Vaudaville villain, the Victor Vaughn record came out, which I absolutely loved. But it was cool because Madlib had put out a bunch of, I mean, this was like the biggest Madlib record to that point too. And I think we talk about the doom, doom, doom of it all, but I'm sure you guys are going to get into it.

Madlib is on the list, you know, maybe the medium-length list of Best Rap, producers ever. Right. And this is kind of his magnanimous in a lot of ways. So, you know, it was just, it was a kind of a crazy pairing that didn't necessarily make sense if you were familiar with both of those artists up to that point. But when you heard it, it was, you know, there's a reason we're discussing it 21 years later on this episode. Yeah. And I think even at the time, I think Madler was a little bit out on hip hop. Like this wasn't, uh, Jeff Weiss has a really, really amazing piece of pitchfork where it tells the story of this album but it's also

telling the story of Stone's Throat, Mad Lib, and he was, he was making jazz records. It wasn't like he, I think he said the two people that he wanted to work with were Doom and Jay Dilla. And the Dilla record was the one that I think the label was actually counting on because at that point they had no money and it was the leak and it was a lot of things that happened that ended up making Mad Villainee the one that actually becomes. comes the record that helps save them. Yeah,

because he put out Champion Sound with Jay Dilla a few years before that. And I think it's like, there's something to be interesting to say, about what you guys said about what an artist's death can really, like, do to these records. Because, you know, that Dilla record kind of went,

like, underground heads loved it, but it didn't really blow up, right? It wasn't like, this huge thing. A lot of the DILA stuff blew up a couple years later after his unfortunate passing. I think this record, was beloved from day one, but I think it's only really increased

in its acclaim in the past five years since Word of Doom's death came out. Were you disappointed when, like, were you someone who was listening to the leak and when he re-recorded all the vocals, you're like, nah. No, no, the only track,

and I'm wrong about this now, but it's just one of those things you get used to hearing. And you can actually A-B test now because the leak, the demos, are on Spotify now. But the only track was Figaro. I really liked the sped-up Figaro. And I got used to listening that from the whatever I downloaded,

MP3s I downloaded off a Kazaa or Limewire or whatever. And I just like, I burned that on CD. I listened to that a bunch. Then when the record came on, I'm like, I don't like to slow down. But like now I listen 20 years later. I'm like, no, that was the right decision to slow that down. Hell yeah

Ready for some album trivia We are Trivia Here's a thing You did a season on this I tried to keep them fair But they might be easy I have three for you today

Three okay I got three for you actually today So and let's let's read the rules Can we forgot to do that last time And I have took a tally of the score so far Oh alright Okay so the rules of album trivia Charles and I attempt to stump each other

With little known facts about the album every correct answer is one point and whoever has the most total points at the end of the season wins a mystery prize selected by our producer Justin the total so far you are in the lead you have four points

I have three points so for the entire season yeah you guys got a study whoa I've been getting a lot of questions right yeah we've only this is the fourth episode yeah this is episode five episode five what that's a that's like a point in

Yeah, and I struggled in the beginning, and you also made them very hard in the beginning. So these are, these to me are very easy. Okay. How, you have to get both of these right. There's no half points for this question. But there's two. We're not doing half points. Okay.

How much was the budget for Mad Villany and what was Doom's advance? His advance was $1,500. Yes. Apparently there's some kind of argument with the manager when they first got to L.A. the famous story with the owner of Stone Strow was trying to keep the Dumes manager

in the hotel room Like in one corner so him and Madlib could be smoking weed and listening to beats And he's like the longer I could keep like Doom's person away from him

because they didn't have the money At this point like Stone Sturro was about to go the way of like fond of him where it was just like they were I think what

they were into like a house They didn't even have an office It was just like a house where a bunch of them stayed Yeah So you got half of it but to get the full point I need what was the actual budget.

Fuck, I don't know the actual budget. I'm going to guess 10,000. Really close. It was 13,000. I get a half point at least. No, no, no, no, no, you know half points. We're not doing half points. That was easy.

Justin, do I deserve a half point or no? He deserves a half point. No, we're not doing half points. I gave you a half point last episode. Yeah, but I've been robbed two episodes in a row. So we're not doing half points. That's bitch made shit. Wrong.

All right. I have another question. All right. This is easy, but it's also a two-parter. What two albums... I keep saying it's easy, but there's two... What two albums inspired Jeff Jenks cover for Mad Villainty? Madonna, for sure.

Madonna's 1993 self-title. And is it the King Crimson album? I need the name. I need the album name, too? Yes. I don't know. It's in the court of the King Crimson. Yes.

Can I give that to Cole? No. No. No. We are locking in for the rest of the season. Actually, I will say you get that. That is a point. I'm being mean.

That is a point. I'm not giving you a half point, but that is one point on the board. I'll take it. I'll take it. Okay. Question three. Which mad villainy contributor

ended up becoming Doom and Madlib's lawyer for a time? Stacey Epps? Another point on the fucking board. Yes. Another fucking point on the board. Good job. See, wait, why are you begging for a half point? You got two points

on the board. Okay, I'm happy. I'm not arguing. Two points, baby. I'm in the lead. All right. So, now that album trivia is out of the way, you got two on the board, we're going to the categories. For those that have forgotten, for this season of last song standing, we have

five categories to decide which album is the best. Biggest song, best song, worst song, best teap cut, and best moment. And at the end of the episode, these five categories will go head to head to determine which album we will bring in to the season finale Royal Rumble. I'm so excited. Biggest song, first category.

All caps. Shoulda let your trick hold, chick holds your sick glow. Plus nobody couldn't do nothing once he let the brick go. And you know I know that's a bunch of snow. The beat is so butter. Keep the slow cutter as he utter the calm flow. Don't talk about my mom's, yo. Sometimes you.

Wait, is this technically the biggest song? Justin, I thought this was obvious. All caps is the biggest song, right? The first single, it has that legendary video and it has the most streams. Yeah. Oh, I didn't check the streams. I would assume Accordian had more streams than this. Oh, no. Accordian is not as popular as you, I mean, it's one and more popular ones, but just to give the comparison, all caps has $214 million. Accordinging has $100 million. Whoa.

Okay, I love all caps. Yo, start us off. I mean, hard to know. I'm going to do a lot of beat breakdown because we got to honor Madlib. So I'm going to do a little beat breakdown in a second. But I feel like this is just, you know, we talked a lot about Eminem and like what makes for us,

what makes Eminem great in terms of like what kind of production we think works well with him. It's because, you know, we talked about, we liked Eminem over production that was a little quirky because it kind of offsets some of the, seriousness that he can kind of dip into a little bit too much. If you have a serious beat and he's really angry, it's just a little too much. And I feel like in the similar way, there's a really odd juxtaposition between

Doom's naturally low, baritone, growly voice and production like all caps, where it's quirky, it's literally coming from crime shows from the 70s, fictional crime shows from the 70s. The samples are, the production is sampling those. and that just creates this really interesting dichotomy of this baritone grumbly guy rapping over cartoon music essentially. And I think All Caps is like maybe the most extreme example of that on Mad Villany. But of course, Doom's doing similar things on his solo, you know, his solo records that he

produces himself. And I think All Caps speaks to what makes Mad Villainee so special is that Mad Lib, both MadLib and Doom know how to approach. production like this, which is like nine out of ten rappers or more would just like not know how to rap over a beat like this. Yeah. And yet Doom is just it just flows so perfectly together. I'm assuming that you are a fan of all caps. Who isn't? Yeah. It is not only is the rapping so good on this, but to your point, what I love about this project, what I love about this song is that Doom is such a performer. And, And I think what mad villainy does is it crystallizes the image where obviously you got Operation Doomsday, M Food, all of these other things. But I think, A, the cover, it not being drawn, it being him straight on black and white, you're seeing this, you're just like, oh, it's, this isn't a gimmick.

This is clicking. And I think there is a moment where he wraps, the beat is so butter, peep the slow cutter, as he utter the calm flow, don't talk about his mom's yo. Sometimes you rhyme quick. Sometimes you rhyme slow or vice versa. Whip a slice of nice first pie. He's like literally in that moment breaking down in a couple bars what makes him special as a rapper. And you're like, well, that's super easy to do. But I'm like, but when you listen to him, it's so fucking weird.

You're just like, where is he catching the beat? And there's internal rhymes. And there's also, to your point, the Madlib beat in the background is coming from all of these areas. But it's all, it's two things. It's purposeful. but it never feels overbaked. It never feels overthought. I was reading an Excel,

a double Excel interview that Doom was doing, and he was like talking about these records and talking about his best verses. And it's so funny where he talks about them as like, oh, that was just a freestyle. This was a freestyle or this thing just came to me. It's actually not. He was talking about all caps and what it meant.

And it was so interesting him being like, I don't know. I was just thinking about like, well, one day it's not going to be all caps, but like, he's like, I would like it to me. And I was like, oh, we think of this is like, you'd be like, yo, all caps when you say the name. As fans were like, no, yes. And to him, he's like, I don't know.

It's just sounded cool. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's another point why these guys worked so well together because they're like not perfectionist, but they're, they make perfect music. They're intentional. Intentional, but not perfectionist. And they move fucking quickly. And they're not belaboring. They're not obsessing over every detail.

It's like once the songs, like Madlib famously doesn't return to beats, he'll make the loop. and it is what it is. Once it's recorded and on a beat CD, like he doesn't fucking go back and he'll remember, he won't remember what he's sampled from,

you know? And it's like, and I feel like Doom is the same way, especially on this album in terms of like, okay, here's the one minute song. I'm not overthinking this.

I'm going to write my verse. I'm going to record the verse and we're moving on. And it's like, what I love about Mad Villany and this song, there's no hooks. You forget that this album has zero hooks

because everything is catchy. The beats are catchy. The way he, rhymes are catchy. There's little, to your point about Eminem, there's microhooks, like the all-caps moment. There's a few microhooks on this or like we think of the figaro, you know, the figaro, figaro, he has all these little quirky memorable moments, but there's no hooks on the entire album. To your point when I was on Genius, because like I always like to just like read the lyrics before we get on here, I was like, wait, where's the hook? And then I was just like, I remembered,

I'm like, no, Charles, you think that the beat is the hook. Which is like a weird thing. Like I sound like idiot saying that out loud. But I'm like, no, I've internalized this record as like, Madlib is providing such a sonic bed for these very, like, they, the rhymes seem incoherent. They are not. If you actually like look at them structurally, they are some of the best well-structured rapping you will ever see. But because he's so lackadaisical and the beats have so many different, like this cartoon, this evil cartoon, this fucking like weird Brazilian sample. this thing, you're just like, oh, no, yeah, there's hooks all over this. And there's just not.

Yeah. Okay, so let's do our first beat breakdown of the episode. This is one of my favorite beats ever. It's so cool. So the drums come from a sample from a song called Bumbin' Bus by Thunder and Lightning, 1974. And Madlib finds just this like one measure of drums that don't have any other instruments and he creates a loop out of it. So here's the original sample. Get down with the bus stop. So just that little part that has no instruments, he identifies that and then creates a loop out of it.

So add some EQ and stuff and you get this loop. So it's like, I just just find that stuff cool because like, you know he's crate digging, he's listening to vinyl and it's like, it's so, like, he must be listening to just like vinals all day long. Yeah. And to have the ear to. So here. It's like half a second.

Yep. And be like, oh shit. There's no, you know, like that's a loop. I can grab that and then grabs it. And then we have the all the music from all caps comes from an episode of Ironside. Ironside was a 70s crime drama, essentially. And so he must have been watching it on a TV because the actual sounds of the episode are in it. It's not like he got a soundtrack on vinyl or anything.

Because you can hear the talking. We're going to hear a car going by. So let me just play the original sample where all the music from all caps comes from. Okay. So you hear all the little bits in there. And so what's cool is that like all the piano and those quirky hits are all like right next to each other.

And that swelling sound that I was pointing to, that's a car driving by in the episode, right? But it sounds like an instrument like swelling up. So it really works to the effect of the beat. So he grabs this sample for the piano and then loops it. So good. And then grabs this sample for the main melody. When he put it over the drums, it's fucking just magic.

Something I'm going to be pointing out on a lot of the songs is this is the underrated part about Madlib, especially on this album. he is so good at sending up a song one way in terms of like we hear this piano first and it presents to us that's super dark and grimy right and so the last thing we're going to expect

as he's laying the tone of the track and the intro is it to switch to this and what they do nine times out of the 10 on the album if you listen for this throughout the entire album listen for the setup of the song where usually Doom is not rapping

and the moment the beat switches is when Doom comes in. So it makes this kind of grand entrance for Doom and it makes his entrance always so impactful. He does the same thing on Figaro and Meat Grindr will talk about. But it's like he's like a good producer.

He's setting up Doom. Like he's enhancing Doom's raps with the production through contrast like that which is just so cool. Hell yeah. First beat breakdown. Are you impressed? Do you like this kind of stuff?

This stuff I fucking love. This is actually when we were planning the episodes. I didn't think that we would, this wasn't something I was expecting, but like I also like this coming after like Daft Book and Radiohead because it is teaching you another way to sample. And what I, this is when I'm becoming as a child more interested in the art of it. And it's, to me, what's so funny is like there's the Rizzo way of sampling. And the stuff he's growing up in New York, which is like these Kung Fu Sha brothers move. But you have like Timbalin who was going and using like fucking Bollywood samples and it's just like it's this interesting thing where it's like oh you have Madlib on the West Coast you have Risa on the East Coast. You have people in Virginia and you have Dap Punk in France and all of this is kind of happening at the same time. 90s 2000s of just like the technology is getting better. So the crate digging is getting more and more complex. And I just love listening to this record because it's like,

you have British TV shows. You have some of the lyrics are bringing up Hannah Barbera cartoons, but then there's Hannah Barbera fucking sampled. It's just like there are parts every single time I listen to these songs where I hear shit. Then I'm like, oh, fuck, that's the first time I'm hearing. Yeah. And then you already kind of pointed to it. But the rapping on this is like so good.

Just even the opening lines so nasty that's probably somewhat of a travesty having me. Then he told the people, you can call me your majesty. So it's just internal after. internal. It's just like, he does it so effortlessly where it doesn't feel like lyrical miracle. And there's a quirkiness and an abstractness and like a surrealism to his lyrics always where you're just like, what did he say?

Is he just speaking gibberish? And then like, I did the season on this. And it's like, no, there's themes. He's, you know, there's center. He's not just rapping to rhyme. And that's why I think a lot of people who try to emulate Doom fail. Because I'm like, if he wasn't a great performer and he wasn't, entertaining and he wasn't choosing the correct beats, all of this would just be fucking mush.

Right. But because every single element works and elevates him, that's why I think mad villainy is the one people were like, because it's the moment where it's like, it might not be your favorite Doom record, but I feel like it was the moment where Doom and Madlove especially was just like, we are going to show you everything that actually makes him a genius just in case y'all like weren't fucking tapping. Yeah. All right.

So anything else? Do you want to move on? Best song? Very, very interested in where you're going to go for best. Like, I'm so interested because there's one correct choice and if you don't pick it. There's one correct choice? Yes. Even though it is very...

Justin, do you have a best song on this? It was hard. It's really hard. It's really hard. But... But you just said there's one correct choice and it's really hard. No, no, no. It's similar to, like, there's a couple choices on Hell Had No Fury.

But there's, there's one you got to do. There's one you have to pick. And if you don't pick it, I'm going to be that. Cole, what was it? Shout out accordion. Damn, I knew. I know where you're going. It has to be meat grinder.

It has to be meat grinder. Tripping off the beat kind of dripping off the meat grinder. He's niner pimping stripping, sore sweet minor. China was a neat sign of trouble with discreet digits. Double discubble it. Subtle list midgette. Border lines. Sikso.

Sort of fine tits. Don't see your pick? It was not. Accordion's my pick. meat grinder is close meat grinder is the rapping on meat grinder is fucking phenomenal

it's the best rapping of his career it really is it's it's so good meat grinder is really good it's really good it was tough though shot out of accordion we could talk about accordion but why'd you go with meat grinder I guess two reasons because I was debate these were the two that I was debating

and it came down to when I reminded myself what he's doing lyrically I'm going to do a little breakdown of just how much he's rhyming on the song. So just to Justin's point, some of the best rapping he's ever done, arguably maybe his best. And then the beat itself is just so fucking weird. Where accordion, it's more, it's of the beats on a true of, it might be my favorite beat on there, but it's like of the beats on Mad Villain, it's kind of the most traditional.

Yes. Where Meat Grindr, to me, just shows a little bit more. what makes this album click, what makes it special, what it makes it unique. Because who else is grabbing a sample from Mothers of Invention, a Frank Zappa band, then juxtaposing against the song called Hula Rock, and I can do the beat breakdown, but it was just like arguably Mad Liv's most inventive beat paired with arguably Doom's best rapping. I mean, tripping off the beat kind of dripping off the meat,

gran of heat, nata pippin, stripping, soft, sweet, minor, ease. in fucking insane. It is everything I love about rap. And it sounds good. It's like, what is he saying? I don't know. But also, like, when I just rap that, it's just like, but I'm just like,

you're going to break down these lyrics, the internal rhyme of just like, rhyming, tripping with dripping, but then he's forcing the kind of grinder, Naina. Like, it's just, you're just like, what? And it's just what I love about Doom,

this is how I can tell he's such a great rapper. is that a lot of rappers who would do this, and like as we get into the 21st century and the very hashtag flow, so much of rap, Lil Wayne was at the spearhead of this was pointing to how clever you were, where Doom never does that.

Even when he's doing rapidy-wrappy stuff, like it never feels gross. No, it's always just like, no, I'm that good. Why would I have to point to it? Listen, you'll understand. Yeah. And there's just a poetry to,

to the images and just just even when you reading it like half wrapping it it was just like it just flows it's just it's like the beat is so butter and so is this flow

okay so let me just do a quick beat breakdown because I gotta keep honoring Madlib because you know this is to Justin's point it is a true duo here so we have the first sample like I said

which is a mother invention song which I think maybe he saw on a TV ad because it was a where I got this sample source was from a TV ad. And so here's just the sample plane. Like that part is so weird, but so good. And then he pretty much does it verbatim and creates these little microloops in the intro. So, and then again, another kind of juxtaposition in terms of setting you up in this

sonic universe of this Frank Zappa song. And then just switching it to a. an entirely new thing in this Lou Howard and the All-Stars Hula Rock beat sample. So classic Madlip, he doesn't do much to it, just speeds it up, adds some EQ and stuff, but it's so good. And then one of my favorite parts is that there's not much from the Frank Zappa song on the actual beat when we get there, but there is one little sample that he does pull. And it comes at the very end of the TV ad. So let me just play the very end of the TV ad here. Do you recognize that little sound? That's in the song.

No, I know it's in the song. I don't know what it is. It's like when you see the TV ad, we can put it up. I think it's like a pig or something that's making the noise. I don't know if that's the actual pig, but that's what they put on the screen. But so now that you heard it isolated, now hear it in the beat. It's just like, but what I also love about Madlib as well is that he does. cut, like other producers would cut the quirky stuff out of the loop or like they would pick it, but they wouldn't, they wouldn't keep that in. Right. They'd be like, this is what the fuck. And he's always, whether it was the car sound where he's listening to stuff. He's like, no, no, no, this is why I'm taking this part of it. Like it. And what a lot of times when people listen to this album, they might call it like, oh, dusty or just kind of just like what is, it's hard to describe the texture. But to me, I'm just like, the beats are so good because.

they're as textured as Doom's rapping. They're as weird where it's like sometimes you were just like wait what the fuck did Doom just say? And with the beats

that point where it's like what did I just hear? What was that? Like I have never done the thing that you did where it was just like wait what's that? It was just like

that's a weird fucking part of beats man. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Then let me just go over some like some stats about the rhyming

because to your point about the opening song or the opening lyric it's like essentially almost every single syllable in this song rhymes. So when I did the episode on this, I actually counted the syllables and then found how many rhyme. There's a total of 350 syllables in the song. 318 out of those 350 rhyme. That's 91% of his verse rhymes, syllables in the verse rhyme, which is like, isn't that it's crazy?

And I just have to point out my favorite moment in the song where he says, Hatuing songs lit in the booth with the best host doing bong hits on the roof in the West Coast so but he actually makes instead of saying spitting songs like I'm spitting I'm rhyming. He actually does

the htooing sound which is like he does that multiple times we'll talk about the snot bubble pop it's just like only doom is doing this stuff and then of course like the whole thing rhymes and I love that it's described so this was I think the first song that they wrote together

There was Meat Grinder. I do believe that's correct. And so it's cool. This line I like about this line is that he's talking about him and Madlib. Haktui songs live in the booth with the best host referring to Madlib doing bong hits on the roof and the West Coast referring to the rooftop. There's pictures of them hanging out with an actual bong on this rooftop on the west coast in L.A. And then he says he's at it again, mad at the pen, which is again saying mad at the pen, pointing to Mad Lib. It's like so cool.

I love this fucking song. Are you mad that I didn't pick accordion? No, no, no. I think that this is like a great pick. The reason why, like, as a writer, I think I, accordion is the song to me is a, to me, accordion is a top 10 hip-hop song of all time. One of my favorite openings,

if not my favorite opening line of all time, like it almost makes me cry. Like, it made me cry. Like, I listened to this after he died, when he was like living off borrow time the clock ticks fast that'd be the hour they knocked the slick black like i remember when we lost dude i was like like i was just like oh my god and i just kept listening to this song and to me accordion there's always been this tragedy under doom's music where after he loses his brother after he's basically kicked not kicked

out of the industry but like his life falls apart and accordion to me is when he's he kind of like centers in on that sad part of his career because he's like this cartoon villain and food and look at all the crazy stuff he's doing. But there is a level of him trying to come to terms with who he is within this world. And it's not lost on me that he has to, the minute he puts on a mask for the industry is the minute that the industry finally takes, takes him seriously. And there's also this line that he says on accordion or this whole part of the verse where know who's the illest like ever like the greatest story told keep your glory glow golden glitter for half half these niggas that take him out the picture the other half is rich and it

don't mean shit to villain a mixture between both with a twist of liquor what is so funny to me is that there are two dooms that I know in my mind there's the doom that is so hip hop to the core when we think of what the tenets of the culture is this is someone who was a story student of the game who loves it, who was just like, if Doom was in it for the money, quote unquote, he would have made a lot of different decisions with his career. And it's like him basically being like to the industry like, I see like I see how fast you will sell out the game and this and the genre that we love. And then there's the villain side of Doom who was just in it for the money, who is literally just like, I am not coming to L.A. unless y'all pay me

my fucking advance. Like there is a reason why for years, the thing that people would talk about Doom, that's not Doom up on stage. He took the money, he ran, did it allegedly. There is a part of Doom, like, adult swim, y'all got a check. Cool, I'm doing a whole album.

And there was always artistry in it. But it is funny that like, Doom was the person who's like, look at y'all lame-ass motherfuckers who's doing anything for a check. Doom running straight to a check. Justin, am I wilding for saying that, There was always that dichotomy to do. My favorite anecdote, God, this is so funny.

It's in the DILA book, but about Doom always being out for the check, right? It's talking about at Dilla's funeral. This is in Dilla Time by Dan Charnas, fantastic book, one of my favorite music books of the past five years, maybe more. And he's retelling the story about Doom at Dilla's funeral. and he stands up and he goes, I had a dream last night and I had a dream that I should record over Dilla beats

and also Dilla came to me in this dream and he told me that I should get the money from this. So it is like and like, trust me, I've, I know from anecdotes that have been shared from people about just how much doom was about the money. And, you know, he's obviously

loves the craft. He's very good at it. But like, I would say in many cases, that was kind of the 1B to the 1A and the 1A being the money. I can't believe you guys are disparaging Doom on this podcast. We are not. We're being real. All right. Can you blow past worse songs? I feel like it's so disrespectful. There are some of the albums that we picked where I'm just like, damn, I got to talk about I know. Well, at least on this one, it's pretty clear. But Justin, did I make the right call on Meat Grinders? Is that a... Yeah, it's one of the two and it's... Look, there are a lot of good songs on this. Like, shout out Fancy Clown, shout out Rhinestone Cowboy. You're not picking it for deep cut. But like... Right, right, right, right. I'm sorry. I might be stepping on that. So, like, I'll... All right, yeah, because I have a deep cut that you're not picking, which is like my favorite.

But, yeah, no, meat grinder is a perfectly justifiable great decision. And it might... might have been mine as well. Okay, so worst song, hardcore hustle. Doom's not even on the song. Yes, that's an easy. It's easy. I don't know. It always feels a little out of place.

It's the one, it's the one flaw of the album, I guess. But also when you're listening to this album, I'm never just like, oh my gosh. Yeah. It's an experience. So it's just like, right, right. I feel like an asshole. But like, yes, if you pluck this out of the record, I do think it would probably improve it a little bit. You wouldn't miss it.

That's for sure. No disrespect. Okay, so I know what you're picking for best deep cut. It's so good. Can you guess which one I wanted you to pick? Okay, so I'm going to just,

let me just stay, I'm going to just pick Figaro. Correct choice. Patty cake, patty cake for fake. If he wasn't need a baker's man, he take her for her master's. Hit it once to shake her hand. Want some old thank you, ma'am and ghost her. She can mind the toaster if she signed the poster.

So good. Objectively correct choice. Okay, let me, knowing your taste, is it, I want to say, is it Raid? So good. This beat is so good. Yeah, the beat is so good. Again, the contrast, though, sets you up in one world. That's why I love it.

And the beat drops and doom drops at the same time, and it's like, it hits every single time. Vigero is the correct, like, objectively correct choice, but this is to me the deep cut album. Like, this is an album of just like, if you would have picked anything, I would just be like, yeah, because like, there's so, my favorite deep cuts change. I just like raid because that's probably one of my favorite beats off of it just because it's like, oh, fuck, shit, let's go. Yeah. But the rapping on figure, like you. Yeah, the rapping on figureos, immaculate. But I love that song.

Yeah, you could pick how many deep cuts could you pick? Yeah, Rinesden Cowboy. I love Great Day. Fancy Clown is phenomenal. I even like some of the quirky songs, like Operation Lifesaver, the Mint Test. I like that one too. Yeah.

But why did you go with Figuero? It's kind of the same thing with Meat Grindr, because I think both Madlim and Doom in terms of the beat paired with just what he's doing technically, lyrically is just showcasing what, it's just at them in top form, both of them together on one track.

So, Figaro is, again, kind of like, Meat Griner in terms of, like, he's doing holler rhymes in terms of, like, let's just look at the opening line. The rest is empty with no brain,

but the clever nerd, the best MC with no chain you ever heard. So three simultaneous rhyme schemes, the rest, the best, empty, MC, oh, four, with no brain, with no chain, the clever nerd you ever heard. So four simultaneous rhyme schemes in one couplet. There's 20 total words, 19 of those words rhyme. The only one that

doesn't rhyme is the word but. It's just like, so sick. And it's like classic doom in terms of the rest empty with no brain, call in competition, you know, stupid, and then calls himself the clever nerd best emcee with no chain no chain setting up this idea of figaro the figaro chain and so planting that right away but also the forgot about the cackalack

hollaback, clack, black, black blocker villainy filling me your heart shocker topa, how shit stoppa be a smart shopper what? Like come on! No one's doing it like he's so yeah I got so I think my most dissectable moment is going to be

from the figaro figureo thing because there's some stuff that I didn't really realize he was doing until I did the episode on it. But let's, let me just quickly do another quick beat breakdown because this beat is also phenomenal. So we have samples from, so Lonnie Smith in the beginning, 1966. And then another Lonnie Smith song called Janine from 1967. So that's the intro is this here. So he grabs just that, that little plucking. Makes the loop out of that.

Speeds it up a little bit. Just a perfect loop. And then the drums I couldn't find, I think there are just an original drum pattern that he made out of short little samples, but this was the best recreation I could find for it. I just love the tambourine in there. So you pair those together.

Just so good. Nothing crazy. And then, of course, we get another contrasting intro. Setting you up. Yeah. You think it's going to sound like Raid or something, right? Like it has that more, that jazz, more kind of upbeat energy. And let me just play them back to back to just, again, Doom comes in right at the beat switch that we're not expecting.

And it hits every single time. The rest is empty with no brain, but the cover nerd the best. That could just that contrast. You know what it reminds me of? What were they called? Like in the 70s, you would have like the variety shows. And so, like, what we're talking about, like those intros kind of said in. doom up and then he drops on the beat.

Sometimes it reminds me of that feeling of like, all right, we need to play some intro music so the little villain can come do a schick. And then when the curtain clears, it's like, all right, the show is started. And that's what I love about the theatricality of this record, to your point where it's like, Madlib is always think of like, all right,

how do I present basically, not a freestyle, but this like freestyle to the world in the most entertaining way. Yeah. Okay, so most dissectable moment has to go, to the part where he says, this is it, make no mistake, where my N-word go, figaro, figero.

He says, owes beats and my rhymes attack, Ascariac, all-black, like Miss Mary Mac. Wait till you see him live on the piano. Doom-Sing soprano like Uno Dosiano. My mama told me. So what's cool about this is that he's,

this is again, when you look at it closely, he's doing a lot more than you think. It's not just abstract. There's like, there's threads within this. So in this passage alone, he's,

there's three motifs essentially the main motif that's on the surface is presenting madlib and doom as if they're performing live uh that's when he says you know um o's beats in my rhymes attack a scary act all black like miss mary mac wait till you see him live on the piano doom sing soprano so we're this live act this live duo we're we're we're singing on stage essentially but then there's a thread of italian opera so figaro figaro the secondary meaning of aside from the figure figure out of chain that he lays out in the intro. Figaro, figureo, that famous aria. Comes from an Italian opera called the Barber of Seville. And so he takes that thread and he returns to it when he says, Doom Singh Soprano, referring to himself like a soprano, soprano opera singer. And Uno Dossiano is a play on Mike Check 1-2, 1-2. Because Uno Dose, I think that I said that.

right is 1-2 an Italian so when he says doom sync soprano like uno dosiano he's saying it's a play on mic check one-two-one-two the third thread is a play on children's hand-clapping games so you remember earlier in the song he says the flowmaker fatty shake patty cake patty cake so he returns to this hand-clapping motif when he says a scariac all-black like miss mary mac so miss mary mac being a famous hand-clapping game in which they say Miss Mary back, all dressed in black. However, Uno Dossiano is also a nod to another hand clapping game, and I can play a little clip of it right here. So super clever, along with Mike Check 1-2, 1-2, and singing in Italian,

he's nodding to another hand-clopping game. Right after that, he says, My Mama Told Me, which is another hand-clapping game. So it's like, just in those, like, whatever five, six lines, he's threading all those layers together. And it's like, you know, it's only until you look that close to see what he's doing. But it's like, the details are amazing. And he's internal rhymes and N rhymes. It's just like, this is guys fucking brilliant.

Not to have another clapping game. You have been dissected? Come on. That was an easy one. That was an easy one. But like, I didn't, I didn't know the Una Dosiano clapping game part. That's a deep cut. That took me a while to find because I read, it wasn't on like genius.

I don't think it was on genius. I must have read it in like a, I forgot where I read it, like maybe a forum or something. And then I found that, that was the clip that I played just from an old Cosby episode was the only recording that I can find. But that makes sense, right? I will, not only does that make sense,

I just have to shout out also one of my favorite couple lyrics that come before this. Off Pride Tikes, talk wide through scarred me, off sides, like how war fries with Starfleet, told you on some get rich shit. As he gets older, he gets colder than a witch tip what

dog all sides like how warf rides with Starfleet is a bar yeah like it's a fucking bar do you do you catch the Lion King wordplay in the previous one though

off pride so pride that's what you call a pack of lions tykes referring to Simba and then scar scar yeah he describes lips as scar meat which is this like what who does that

I'm so glad you picked this Yeah. Hell yeah. Okay. Best moment? All right. Yeah, best moment. I'm really, really interested in this.

I, maybe Jessica can help me out. I just went with the reinvention of Doom's metal mask because you can, obviously he was playing with the idea of the mask with Doomsday, wearing plastic masks, wrestling masks that he got at tour stores. But this is the first one he had was the Darth Mall from fandom met. Like he had a Darth Mall fandom menace mask. That he spray painted black or silver.

Yeah, it looked terrible. Like, fucking terrible. You can look like, you can look like. some of these. Not great. And the first metal, the first couple metal masks weren't the gladiator type shit

that we got. So Mad Villany, I believe is the cover and all the photos that they took at the bomb shelter are, I believe, the premiere of the metal masks. So,

and you can see like an early rendition of it in those pictures. We'll show it on the screen here, but you can see like the white, I think they took it, like a construction helmet that, you know, they can swivel up and down.

They took the swivel thing so that he could put the mask up and down, but you can actually see the white swivel guard or whatever it is. Like, you can see that where later versions you can't. So I'm just going with that. I don't know Justin, did I miss another moment? The leak maybe? I don't know. That was hard. Yeah, the leak was a moment. I mean, I'm not as up on the mask lore as a lot of people. I listen to music. I don't really pay attention to that. No, but I, like, I don't even know if I clocked that in real time. I'm like, obviously I recognize that this looks cooler on the cover, but I didn't, like, it wasn't like, oh my God, look at the mask.

Right. So, I don't know, man. I think it's kind of hard to build a, build the biggest moment around this one. I think so. Well, it's, it's similar to what we were talking about with Discovery, like, and that you already brought up, where it's like, as much as this project in this album is now considered, I would say for most people probably like a top 10 rap record. Yeah. Of all time. It was not that in the moment.

because it was such a slow build. It wasn't like, oh, yo, it was just like, no, like, it took a while for the Normies to get to get to this record. Yeah, yeah. All right, y'all, not only have I been dissected, but the hero has turned me into a mad villain. Because after this commercial break, I'm coming back to talk to you about one of the other greatest rap albums

to be released in the 21st century. That is Hell Hathno Fury by clips. All right, we are back, Charles. It is time for you to make the case for a very good album. Does it stand a chance against Mad Villany? I'm not sure. Don't do, all right, don't do that. Don't do that because you're adding a little sauce because I was talking some shit.

Yeah, you are. Off Mike. Hellathno Fury. Why Hellathno Fury over Lord Willing? Because I know we were really debating this behind the scenes. My personal pick was Lord Willing. That's the album that I like more. I will talk about this later.

I don't want to step on my manifesto. Okay. But I have a manifesto. Okay. I think that this is the crystallization of a moment for the clips, for Neptunes, for culture. And it was like, yes, grinding, I would have loved to talk about grinding. That's also if we're talking about, if there was any songs that could have, like, gone at, like, doom in the best song category. I think grinding was one of them.

But in terms of influence, in terms of a moment, in terms of just like a fulcrum with which all of hip hop has been orbiting for for almost 20 years at this point, it's health, Athenal Fury. Now, I will start with a little bit of album facts about it. Before we go into the quiz round. Clip's sophomore album was released on November 28, 2006. The 12 Song Project features Borel, Sumbug, Ablaiva, and Reup Gang. with production handled by the Neptunes. The album produced two singles, Mr. Me Too, and Whamp Whamp, Hell Hath and No Fury debuted at number 14 on the Billboard 200. And I was surprised at this.

This was not a lot at the time, but they sold 80K in the first week, which is it was like, oh shit, like, that's pretty solid for a group like clips. Yeah. And at the time, Hell Hath, No Fury was one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the 2000s. It got a perfect score by Double XL, Observer Music Monthly, AllMusic, uh, the Garters. The Guardian, pitchfork gave it a 9.1. Rolling Stone gave it a 4 out of 5.

I remember when Hell Haddon O'Fury dropped and the critical just raves that it received. So yes, this is a very celebrated album. If you were not around at this time, this was a moment. I remember it. And because I lived with two of my buddies

moved out and got this apartment together. And one of them was a huge Farrell fan. And we got this. got this album the day it dropped and the Mr. Me Too song we'd always recite the line uh sign my first skater because we were skateboard kids like and he was talking about Terry Kennedy um wait did I just burn an album trivia question oops all right for me that's a point of the board technically that is a point of the board I want three questions I want I want a chance for to get three points but that was that was that was I mean that was not just clips but just feral and the

Neptunes, like them incorporating skateboarding into their whole image. Don't step on my mom. Oh, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. But that was a big deal for me as a, I was a hardcore skater for like 15 years. And like when we saw ourselves kind of represented quote unquote, when skateboarding kind of became cool and for all had a big, big part of that. Like that was a big deal for us.

I was, I was there. Do you understand how much I want. I tried and I was like, I was like, this is. this ain't for me but people don't understand Babe hoodie BBC ice creams like I want like I remember like have like seeing the ice cream shoes for the first time in person and like being like my parents I'm like I need just like how much is it fuck no and they were looking they're just like this is the ugliest like actually the ice cream shoes are pretty ugly when you look at them now but I remember just

at babe I was like I need a babe pudding and I would like be online like I'm like how much is I'm like, if you don't take your ass, oh, fucking Navy, should the fuck. Did you have any babe BBC or ice cream? I wanted ice cream because of the skateboard time, but it was just not my style at the time. I don't think I could have pulled it off.

You could have, I liked the all over print. You could have pulled it off. Maybe, I don't know. I will say where even as a kid, I was just like, this looks cool in magazine spreads, but looks terrible in person,

was the all zipped up? That shit looked terrible. Yo, Justin, I know. know you had some babe. No. No, I had zero babe. Are you sure? I am positive I had zero babe.

No, I, look, most of the people that I hung around with were more into doom than they were into clips at the time. I was the one screaming about this record. I was the one beating the table saying that this is one of the best rap records that has come around in a long time and they weren't listening to me. Was there, like, was there a division in that way? back then? Like, where were they,

where clips accepted by the, like, quote unquote backpackers? Not fully, no. I think it was a little different from me because I was a DJ where a lot of people hung out with were just like producers

and rappers and they were like, you know, the heads, they were like the real hip hopio, you know, and clips wasn't quite, didn't quite appeal to them. I think like the Neptunes of it all,

even though if some of, I won't step on anything, but even if like some of the more inventive production that the Neptunes have ever done, that anybody's ever really done in rap music is happening on really both of those first two clips records, that didn't matter to them. It was just, you know,

I think the feeling was grinding was cool. These guys are pretty good at rapping. When's the last time? That was just like a straight-up pop song. When's the last time is dope? But like, they did not have that kind of love. from the people who consider themselves, quote unquote, real hip hop heads.

And that's why, like, you know, we're going to get into it. You're going to talk about, like, the hipster shit with this record, Charles, I assume. But pitchfork really, like, planting their flag for stuff like this and for Cameron and Dipset really kind of changed the conversation around those acts. Are we ready for some album trivia?

Some album trivia. Okay. I did step on my third question. Wow. So I only get it. two at bats. Audience. Should I get a half point?

Oh, you know what? I think I can come up with a third one on the fly. Let's go with the first two. Question number one. Push a T said that Mr. Me Too was originally intended for another artist. This artist didn't show up to the studio, so Push called Feral and told him Clips was stealing the song.

Who is the artist that the song was originally intended for? Fuck. I don't know this. I know who most. Most of the beats on this album were for, though. Most of the beats on this album for were Jay-Z because he was recording Kingdom Come at the time. Was Mr. Me Too, or was this a different artist?

Different artist. Fuck, who was the artist? For a half-point reduction, I'll give you a hint. Do you want a hint? Yes. The artist is mentioned on the song, Mr. Me-2. Fuck, I'm blanking that on the lyrics. The only thing I remember is Gilly to Kid

is featured in the fucking, is featured in the video. Who was it? Puff Daddy. Eeks. Pusha was actually assigned to write the song for Puff, but Puff didn't show up to the studio and then stole the song. Did he would have sounded fucking terrible.

But it makes sense, though, because when you hear the line, just last week I was out in Aspen, me and Puff hopping on the plane, both of us laughing. Is what Ferell wraps in the opening verse. I will say the reason why I forgot that they mentioned Puff on this is because, like, as I was prepping for this, and I kept listening to it, I had to black out. I was just like, oh, fuck, I'm not talking about.

about Diddy on this episode and all of the monstrous things he is accused of. But to be fair, there is a lot of Puff Daddy references throughout Pusha T's career where I'm just like, I just let me forget about this. Good question, though. Okay. Question number two, the beat for Wamp Wamp What It Do was originally given to another artist, but this artist lost their hearing. So the beat was passed to the clips.

However, when the artist's hearing return, Jay-Z asked for the beat back. That's a little hint. but clips had already recorded the song they didn't give the beat back who was the artist that lost their hearing that this originally was originally was a hit was it another rapper perhaps

wild swing biancee foxy brown these are hard these are very difficult questions no they're out there here's a quote from pushy said quote jzy suppose because this was a little bit of a controversy

uh there's this hip hop dx article is what i found on it, writing about specifically about the controversy of this beat, because I think it got out that it was supposed to be for Foxy Brown via Jay-Z. So Pushis said to hip-hop DX, J-Z supposedly came like, oh, she's back, let's get the beat back. That's where all the discrepancy came from. With us, it's no controversy. We followed the same protocol we would with any beat. We hear it, we like it, we get it from Perel. We didn't go behind anyone's back to get it. And then Malice adds, so malice, he says, the best thing that came out of all is this, was that she got her hearing back.

Just so sweet. Like Val was such a good guy behind the hard persona. Okay. Question number three was going to be this. Let's see if you actually remember the guy. On Mr. Me Too, Farrell has the line. Ice Cream Sneakers. I signed my first skater.

What skater was he referring to? What you already said Terry Kennedy, he was the black skater at the time who would go on to launch Dirty Ghetto Kids, right? No, that was Stevie Williams. DGK But Terry Kennedy Skated for Baker 3 at the time

Or Baker Wait was he running around With like Deardacken now Or no That's the other black guy Am I getting black skating You are I'm getting a lot of black skaters

Confuged There's not that many of them But my bad Yeah So Terry Kennedy I don't know Do you get a point for that I don't have a third question for you

Wow I get no points So I'm so technically I'm in the lead now Oh Compton ass Terry Yes Yes Yes, Compton asked Terry. I remember him.

Wait. Let me see. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Kennedy appeared on Bamar Jarrah's Viva Labam and Rob Deirdex, Rob Deirdex, Fantasy Factory. Oh, he did, okay. I remember this. He also made a camp.

Yes, he makes a camera and drop it like it's odd. Oh, he does? Yes. Okay. Wow. Wow. See, I knew. I remembered.

Anyway, I should get a half point. I'll give you a half point. Yeah, I'll give you a half point. Hell yeah. I'm in the lead by a half point. Point. It's getting close to the finale. Come on. I know you got, I'm going to stump you next, next episode.

But are we ready, are we ready to get into? I'm very curious where you're going. The first one's kind of obvious, but let's get into the categories starting with biggest song. Before we get into that, I would just like the floor for a moment. Okay. Mad, Mad Villany, an album that I love, one of my favorite albums of all time. I listen to it every single year. But we have to talk about the importance of clips.

This episode is not just about the Thornton brothers. It is about a time in music history that is still reverberating today. It is about fashion. It is about beats. It's about the X-C of cocaine and the fall of hubris. as you have seen throughout this season, don't laugh, go. As you've seen in this season of last song standing,

a lot of times we tend to lean on history and the type of people who write that history. And we go for the conventional albums, you know, but it's people like the clips, artists like the clips, who have to get it out of the fucking mud, who we don't respect because they write. They rap about drugs and how great it is to sell them and how great it is to make money and all of this other bullshit. But what we don't appreciate about the clips is the lyrical dexterity, the history and the emotion hidden under those layers.

And how cool these motherfuckers were. I would argue the clips were so cool in this moment that they are the most interesting. influential artist of the 21st century. Whoa. And I will prove that throughout these categories. They are influential to Wayne, Drake, Kanye and all good music, Tyler the Creator. Would you say that those are some of the biggest?

I'm not just talking about fashion. I'm talking about lyrically. I'm talking about how we rap. Push-a-T's fucking pen has penned some of the biggest. They did the fucking McDonald's jingle. We will, don't worry, I'm gonna get into, with that, we have to get into the biggest song and all I have to say,

these are the days of our lives, and I'm sorry to the fans, but them crackers aren't playing fair at Chive. That's right, the biggest song is Mr. Me Too, featuring Faro. Come on with it. Star Trek. Niggas is haters.

I'm doing deals like the majors. Ice cream sneakers, I signed my first skater. You could pay three and buy yourself some babsters. Bulletproof on the T-shirts because they hate us. First, where do we have to go with this? The history. Okay. Now, the myth of this album, the reason why I think,

outside of just how good the music was, but the fervor was, at this time, pushing malice, riding off the momentum of grinding, right? They're like, we want to do our sophomore record. So they start their follow-up recording in 2003. Unfortunately, very quickly, the record label Arista gets dissolved, which moves them to jive. Meanwhile, Star Trek Entertainment, the home founding of the Neptunes, where a lot of that music comes from, they move from Arista to Interscope. Clips eventually has to sue Jive to get out of their deal, which brings us to 2006.

So Lord Willen drops in 2002. Yeah. They're already like, hey, by 2003, 2000, we're recording. We're ready. We're ready. My biggest moment will talk about what they're doing as they're in their label dramas. But the reason I bring that up is because Mr. Me Too is a statement of purpose of y'all got us fucked up. The industry does not want us to succeed.

And the kernel of where the song starts is from the beef with low Wayne in a complex interview from 2006. I don't see no fucking clips. Come on, man. Weezy, man. They had to do a song with us to get hot, B. What happened to that boy? Who the fuck is for L? Do you really respect him?

That nigga wore babes and y'all thought he was weird. I wore it and y'all thought it was hot. Come on, man. The nigga walked around with niggas that looked like you. Y'all thought he was crazy. If I did it, y'all gonna think these niggas are killers. So, I'm... What years at it?

Do you have the year on that quote? This complex interview, I think... It was after the magazine. after the magazine cover, right? Because isn't that what prompted they asked him about Yes. Why like the babe controversy and all that? Yes, because also at this time,

Wayne is wearing a bunch of babe Like one of the times I remember it vividly is the Hustler music Video and to your point the complex cover that he was on was made. I think it was vibe. It was vibe and then he does the follow up in complex. And this to me is why Mr. Me Too is one of the most consequential references. records that dropped in the 21st century because essentially Mr. Me Too is for Ellen clips being like,

hey, yo, y'all stole all of this from us. Why were they beefing? Allegedly. Now, this is allegedly, Ebro from Hot 97, claimed that this all goes back to the Neptunes working with Birdman from what happened to that boy, which also features the clips. And if we know anything about Birdman and Cash Money, they are known for not paying artists. Allegedly. Allegedly. At this point, I think Pusha T, Malice, and Farrell had enough. I would argue. Just to make it clear that allegedly they didn't, Birdman didn't pay Farrell for the B. Didn't pay Farrell for the B. And then once Lil Wayne starts coming out in like Babe and BBC and all this shit, I think Ebro had also said that Wayne had reached out to Farrell for some like BBC and like a hookup in that way. And Farrell was like, fuck y'all. You all ain't paying me.

And what's so funny about this is you have to remember, like, to us right now, I think we're all like, this all started over who was wearing babe. And to me, that's actually not what this is about. If I'm push a tea at this moment, I remember when Lil Wayne was coming up. And Lil Wayne was a hot boy. He was running around. But this was when cash money was dissolving. And almost overnight, Lil Wayne almost refashioned something. himself as this like dope boy, Carter 2, Carter.

Like you're getting, the way he's starting to rap, allegedly gillyed a kid. Philadelphia rapper has a popular podcast now, wrote a lot of those raps for him, allegedly. But I think if you're push a tee, you're like, okay, wait. So y'all don't pay my man. Y'all don't pay the Neptunes for this beat. We collaborated with you on what happened to that boy.

Now, Lil Wayne is running around calling himself the best rapper alive, essentially copying what me and my brother have already done. this is too much. Right. We got to blow the shit up. Am I being too harsh on Wayne potentially cribbing from push to tea, J.S?

So after that, we get the, like, the Jules Santana mix tapes with Wayne, and that kind of feels like, I thought that was, like, kind of a weird move after that, but it kind of, I see where you're going.

I see where you're going with this. I can, here's the thing. I'm a Wayne fan. I, like, Wayne is one of my favorite rappers. I can understand and why the three of them were like,

we gotta put a stop to this. Now, to the music. Starts off with that classic for all four count. So sick. This beat to me, we're gonna take it for granted if you've never listened to this before.

When it dropped, it blew my fucking big off. I thought this was one of the best beats I had ever. So sick. Wait, can we play a little bit? Are y'all? Can you play?

me a little bit of like just in the beginning and a little bit of Farrell rapping. It's like, Star Trek. I remember you telling the story like hearing Kanye's beat for the first time. I remember hearing a Timbalin beat for the first time and he's sampling the little baby and the, I've never heard anything like this and like this was, I remember when this drop, specifically this song and just like it was another one of those my ears perked i'm just like tyler has a very funny quote where he says life for me is before and after i've seen this video in 06 nothing compares when i heard it i told myself this would be the first song i play in every car i get and i haven't broken that mr me too what is so interesting about this for me is that what you have to realize about the neptunes is that at this point they have the sentinel's 90% of the fucking radio

in the Billboard charts are the fucking Neptune's and the beats that they're making for these other artists are weird they are a lot they're super poppy

they are the Neptunes are one of the greatest producing duos for for a reason but to me clips unlock something

in them where the beats on hell has no fury not only sound like the future but they're almost cartoonish

in a way where it's like Like, Pushatia has described himself. He likes to rap like he's like a super villain from, like he's like a villain from a horror movie. Yeah. But the beats on this when I was going back to, I was just like, it's the same as the Doom conversation

and the Eminem conversation. There's the, that's what makes them so interesting because you, we can imagine this clip sound, the clips have a sound, right? Yes. And it's not the sound that you would expect from two guys rapping like that. And I think that if they're rapping over more traditional beats,

there's no way we are heralding. We're not talking about them in this episode today because again, it's that dichotomy. It's like there is a quirkiness to the beats, but they're quirky in a way that they're still cool. Like I hear this beat, I'm like, this is just like the coolest thing I've ever heard. This is what, this is the soundtrack to the Bay Putty.

This is part of the reason why the Bay Putty is so cool because you're pairing it with this music. And what I think is so interesting about this piece, is that it's so funny that Jayzey's making Kingdom come around this time because to me the reason why the Neptunes worked so well with clips is that push a T and malice can hear something in these beats a lot of times that the other artists can't where it's like they have a famous story of like the label laughed at them when they first heard grinded for the first time they're just like

what the fuck is this because when you just hear the beat for grinding without knowing what would come archaic like yeah there's not much going on super minimal And it's like, where's the melody? If you hear the beat from Mr. Me Too, like it sounds cool. But I could see Jay being like, how am I, yeah. How where, what's the pocket?

How do I like, what? It's an underrated thing about clips and specifically push a T because he continued it with his solo career. His beat selection is just like, one, he's pulling from the best producers, of course. But even within, he's picking beats that I feel like no one else would pick

because they are the more abstract ones. And he finds a way to get on all these interesting beats and he's done it in his entire career. And what I, and of course out of this, you get the clips, low Wayne beef, then pusha tea takes the beef further with Drake. And then Kendrick. It all can come back to that vibe cover. It all comes back to Mr. Me Too in this moment.

But what I actually think is so interesting about Mr. Me Too, and what makes it such an important song to the 21st century is that what the three of them are saying essentially and what PushaT especially has been hammering home throughout this entire since this has happened is hey yo we're the source of so much of this shit and i hate when wayne i hate when drake i hate what any other person tries to take this shit take it for credit like we weren't here and it's like when they were talking about this record it was interesting push and mouse were like us, the Neptunes, we realized that this wasn't going to be a commercial breakthrough moment. We realized that this wasn't going to sell gangbusters.

And to me, that gives them the freedom to be super fucking weird. It gives them the freedom to be like, hey, we're going to give you these raps. But also, we are going to pick the most space age Jetson beats to rap over. And we're going to prove that, like, we're the only group that can get 100% out of Pharrell in the Netsuns. And before I get to Best Song, I will just say, this is my favorite line from all of this was the malice part

where he goes want to know the time better clock us diggers about the style from the shoes to the watchers cloud hoppers tell us

like we mobsters break down keys into times selling my god stop us woo what my favorite line actually is right after

that he says you're gonna stop us not a goddamn one of you mean with the RIA we street tumblers that line is like they have these

lines that just like we street tumblers is three words but what it implies is like a rock tumbler, a rock tumbler turns rocks into gems. Their street tumblers turning dime bags, the gobstoppers,

into jewelry. Like, it's just like the economy of words. And it's just they have those little moments where it's just like they sum up everything about them and, and these just like one bar. Like they have just these perfect bars.

And that's, to me, that's one of them. But the whole thing is fucking fire. It's so phenomenal. I like, it's so funny because like you're a little bit older than me, But I'm so glad that both of us can remember, like, Mr. Me Too and trying to like describe to an audience.

Like, no, when this first dropped, when I saw the video for the first time, me and all my friends were just like, dog, I want to be down with them. Like, I remember my mom just being like, oh, if I can. And to me also, we kind of talked about the fashion, but like, it's hard to describe. Like, this is before Instagram. Yeah. This is before Twitter, Facebook, 10. TikTok, it did feel like a moment where I was like, I remember Mr. B2 dropping. And then every kid in the suburbs trying to look like this.

Like you go back, ask any of your friends who are around that time or in their 30s, 40s, like what happened after this video? Some of the worst fucking fashion. Avisu jeans, LRG, baby, C, nasty shit. Like, that shit looks terrible. Well, the thing too, like the skateboarding element is to, is perfect with this point because skateboarding traditionally

didn't the connection to hip-hop wasn't always there. I mean, it wasn't some else some you'd get hip-hop songs in skate videos and stuff, but it wasn't, at least in my mind, it wasn't Intel Ferell that you really got these worlds coming

together in a way that just never because finally skateboarders were seen as cool to not the rock, because traditionally skateboarders were kind of punks. You'd associate them with punk rock music or grunge music. But I feel like this was the time where things started to converge and really opened up skateboarding to a whole different kind of demographic.

What's also interesting, I just looked it up because in my mind, I was like, oh, these two records release very, very close together. So Lupe Fiasco's Kick Push releases April 18th, 2006. Mr. Me Too releases May 23rd, 2006. So it is just kind of this But to your point where it's like Up until this point Punk, the Anarch

experience of that grasped very, very well onto skateboarding. But once Mr. Me Too and Kick Push Yeah. This was a tie. Like all, especially black kids, like the amount of black kids

I saw pick up a skateboard because they finally could connect to it. They're like this and Tony Ox Pro Skater video game coming out at the same time. Yeah, it's like, yeah. All right. So best song, I'm going to do a little bit of a swerve.

Okay. Don't fucking pick what I think you're going to pick. I actually, originally, I'm going to say this. I'm not going to pick it. I would have been crazy if you picked this. Whamp, wamp, and the beat for wamp wamp wamp, I don't give a fuck with, like what Cole says, Wamp Wamp Wimp is one of the best neptip's beats.

No hot tub flow dropper. Since popper, you penny any niggas see I know copper. Left the game on a high no flow opera. Push you still got them keys. I can unlock. You see that watch on the sleeve All the showstopper This beat is insane

Like, Justin, can you back me up That wamp wamp is a fucking record Didn't I just text you this morning Literally wamp-wamp Jesus fucking Christ D-D-D-D-D-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-Sim. Slim thug on this shit You don't like what do you Don't like about Wamp

The beat's so sick I don't know Straight to the ball The post up Woo! Wham-wamp! What he's? do what do?

I don't know. It's good actually. I was just giving you kind of giving you shit on. You weren't outside. Oh, well, I remember watching MTV 2 just to like just to hear wamp,

way up, but I'm not going to. Okay. So, are you picking instead? I'm actually, this is now. Narratively,

I wanted because a couple of the other songs that I'm going to pick, I could get it to like my favorite favorites. Okay. But the best song in terms of just like, unlocking, I think, some of the deeper layers of this, because I think if you just listen to this album surface level, you're just like, oh, this is Coke wraps,

this is just like them stunting or whatever. But to me, Mama, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Narratively connects hell hath enough fury to Lord willing. Yeah. Skip to my loo if you're looking for a couple. Roosters in the duffle. Keep the hood screaming, cockado doodle do fuckers.

Coke by the ton rap niggas, I'm the one. With basic rhyme pattern, how to fuck you trying to. What is interesting to me about Mama I'm sorry is it's like the godfather too. It is like them being like, oh, we don't have to tell you the origin of clips anymore. We are telling you what happens when we become the rappers, when we have grinded, when we have the money. And it's so funny. Malice said at one point, yeah, people always ask me, yeah, Malice, was it not all it was

it was cracked up to be? Was the rap world not fun? He's like, oh, whoa, don't hold up. It was fun. All of this was fun. But even in a song like this where they're stunting, you're starting to get glimpses. Yeah, yeah.

Of especially malice. Being like there's a, there's lines where he's like, but it's a bigger picture Holmes trust. I didn't see it from Frankfurt to Cologne, Oslo to Sweden, from Italy's Milan to the shores of Nepali. Now I consider Ferrari and Salvador Dallies. I'm no longer local.

My thoughts are global. That's why I seen distance, son, expand your vision. What I love about that is he's stunting. He's just like, yo, I'm not in Virginia anymore. I've traveled all over the globe. I've gone to Europe. I've gone to all of these places. But he's still locating something that even in the stunting,

he's just like, even in the obnoxiousness of this, something's not right. Something's not okay. I left my family. And it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. There's a reason why I'm distant. And that's why I wanted to pick this because I'm like, you could hear this song just be like,

oh, they just rapping. They just stunt. But there's like, there's little kernels of like, something is not right. Well, even the fourth, the fourth verse malice is like pretty transparent and everything you're saying. He's, I'm sorry, grandma, for the mistakes I made. When I aired family business, how you put me in my place.

Even my baby mama, I can't look you in the face because I can't do enough. You have a symbol of God's grace. It's like, you know, that's, that to me foreshadows, like even let God sort them out. Yeah. And songs like birds don't cry or. some of the more emotional songs on the album. And yeah, there is peeking through all this entire album as Malice. You get these one or two lines where you're just like, oh, in retrospect, I see you can start

to see the splintering. And it's like when you have to think when they're traveling, when they're seeing in the world where they're connecting with fans, a lot of their friends are getting locked up. There's like there's a lot of you can go do reporting on like the people in the kind of like the clips or business and them all getting arrested. And to your point like that last verse is a perfect. example as well where it's like I don't think that it is um I think it was actually planned on their part in terms of the track listing where mama I'm so sorry tracks on to young boys so well

in terms of just like narratively where they're at so I just wanted to as like a best song be like no this is kind of why I love them but also I have to shout at my favorite push a tea lyric. Okay. With basic round, pounders how the fuck you trying to chatter A sick ass rapers got him running for their life. I philosophize about clocks of keys. Diggas call me young black

Socrates. Let's eat these bitch dropped in these quick. What? So good. Dog, Aic assic ass rapers got him running for they like Yo! Yo! What?

Stop. Stop. Yeah. Was there any other songs to you that potentially could have been in because I the songs that to me wamp wamp I was just like that's too Charles beat I love the singles well I like I mean I like the the contrast between the two picks so I love here but isn't the actually you know what I'm not I'm not gonna step on my own stuff I will tell you about what ones were in for best deep cut yeah okay worst song this is interesting because I don't

think that there are any bad songs on this record I share my worst song with Justin pre-taping and he thought I was crazy. I lost my mind when he told me what it was a Chinese New Year? No, I love that song. Trill? Yeah. Oh, no, yeah, Trill. Trill's my worst song.

I, Justin likes Trill. I don't fuck with Trill, but it's not a bad song. I would agree with that. There's no bad songs in it. The song I picked is because I think it is of a time when rappers thought that they needed a girl record. Oh, God.

Dirty money? Dirty money. Dirty money. In a carloid chose life Dirty money Dirty money Don't it's been so right Dirty money

Now let's go shopping Let's go chill In a purse and the pearls Damn dirty money In a record that is so unapologetic About what they're doing Which is like these are supreme beats From Pharrell and Neptunes

These are supreme co-craps We're not giving you none of the fluff I'm not saying dirty money is fluff I know what you mean But it gets there. It's, yeah, and it's just, it is the obligatory, like, like, girl song. Which, in their own way, I can see how they're trying to flip the cliche of it in terms of like, but what's funny to me is I'm like, as push it, he especially gets farther into his solo career, completely abandoned it. Like, he doesn't do shit like this.

Yeah. Where it's like, I would say the two knocks against Lord Willen and, and how have that few, fury, there are records of a time where you're like, you can point to. two at least one or two records on the album be like, oh. You're reaching for something. You were reaching for something. But also, we have to be real. Clips was working with Justin Timberlake. They were writing the McDonald's jingle.

They are ghost writing for a bunch of people. The thing that, like, I will keep stressing why this album is so important is that, have you ever seen, I got in trouble when I was working at MTV News for this? Have you ever seen the Drake? I think it was like some type of. show when like when I was 16 or some type of shit where he tells this story maybe we could find the video where I posted this on Twitter because I remember seeing it where Drake was such a big clips fan he bought a mic off eBay that was supposedly signed by push a tea and ballast and I remember

I like threw it up on Twitter in the middle of push a tea and drink's beef and I got to show people like where did you find that Charles did you go in the archives I was like no this is like you can find this online. These are very real thing that I remember. Drake, like, Drake was inspired by Pusha Tea. A lot of people like, what are you talking about? There's nothing. And I was like, no. I think, I don't know the exact quote, but he was like, very,

in the beginning, like, he was like, those are the guys. Like, super, he was like, those are the cream of the crop to me. There was a reason, Kanye, like, why do you think Pusha Tea signed to good? Like, Kanye was like, yeah, Pusha Tea. Yeah. He's my guy. A lot, like, we've seen a lot of the Pusha Tea

reference tracks. leak from Kanye. If you want to know who was behind a lot of them lyrics, like, it's not hard to find. The other thing, though, is Drake and Kanye are really fucking dorky guys. And Pusha T is the kind of guy who's so cool that you can just feel cool just by, like, being in proximity to. And I think that was a big thing for both. Even Drake, like, just as much as the rapping, I think he was just inspired by, like, he just

wanted to be that cool. If you want that, you can't be, right? You can never be as cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, dirty money is the one where I'm just like, acceptable. Deep cut. Not a bad song, though.

Deep cut, do you know where I'm going with this? To me, there's one choice, but I don't think you're going to pick it. You tell me what your choice is. Ride around shining. What? Listen to this fucking beat, dude. I love this beat. That's so good

I'm No, the beat alone And the greatest of porches For like a chuck wagon Cause I'm on 12 horses Do The beat alone I know the light

The hook The hook Maybe not their strongest hook But like I couldn't pick this one But it was in the running I love Hello New World

Look out world I listen to the beat And the rhyme is roll See y'all was 16 eyes Full of Hope up grams at the higher dough. The news called it crack. I called it Diet Coke.

At the same time hiding from mama dodging a drama. Fucking plenty bitches while ducking a baby mama. Hello New World. Low key, very, very just a phenomenal record. Okay. No. Okay. I know where you're going now.

I didn't pick this, but I want to give an ISO to Justin really quick. One of his favorite songs of all time. Any single time I bring up the clips, he's always like Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year. I said this to Cole earlier. Earlier, Jesus. I'm from Providence. I said that earlier.

I said this to Cole. Whenever Chinese New Year comes on, it does funny things to my brain. Like, that beat just rewires my brain chemistry. It's a phenomenal beat. The rapping on it, though. Yeah, so good. They snap on them. Yes, absolutely.

Oh, my God. But this, where I'm going, I know where you're going. It's a great pick. is one of the greatest verses I've ever heard. Keys open doors. Keys open doors. Keys open doors.

Keyes open doors. Yeah. Make your skin crawl. Press one button. Let the wind fall. Who won't stop us? Fuck the coppers. The mind of a kilo shoppers.

See in my life through the windshields of choppers. I ain't spent one rap dollar in three years holler. Two. Like, what? Who puts those sounds together? Every beat you're just like, okay, there's like, Like, like, like, sometimes it sounds like, like on multiple, like, is that a kazoo? Wait, what's that synth?

And you're just like, what's interesting about it? We keep using the word sparse is that because the beats are so fucking wonky, I'm like, if this one wonky part does not work in this beat. Yeah. This beat, it just sounds terrible. Yeah. That, yeah, it's just like, who puts, I think that's a Glock and spiel. And then like dark, like, fake choir, like, ominous. It's just like every single beat, you're just like, who pairs these sounds together?

Yes. And then writing as if they're sampling, they sound like loops, but they're just creating original parts that sound like they sampled them, which like people weren't doing back then, especially not like this. And it's just like, it's just, it's, this is, it makes every single time I listen to this, it makes my skin crawl. You have to think about how mad they were at the industry. when you hear I ain't spend one rap dollar in three years hollow.

That line is such a flex. What? It's just like it punches you in the gut. When he says, open the frigidere 25 to life in here. Okay, for one, rhyming frigidere with life in here is like fucking brilliant. But open the fridge,

to describe the coke in your fridge as 25 to life in here is just. What? Then following it up with so much white, you might think your holy Christ is near like throwing your Louis V millionaires to kill a glare ice trades nada all you see is pigeons

paid or but also the here do you understand how royalty check nigga I'd never been Coke money clean through Merrill Lynch accountant just gasp at the smell of it meet the dealer ain't a bitch reala so you ain't got a question why I push it don't feel you

knocking the fuck off this is why push it's in my top of my top of like this is such a disres like pusha t has been like i wrote in my notes this is the song that set malice to church he was like this is not saying tithe he was just like no my brother is fucking the devil incarnate i need to get away from push like this is the type of shit when you listen to it like i run up the wall i love this song they're so when they want to be they're so vicious too that's like when every time there's like a there's aside from dirty money there's not a lot of talk of like women, but every time they degrade women, it just, it like pains my soul because they're so good about being vicious and like, you know, belittling people when they do it. I'm just like, oh, that hurts, but it's so good.

And I think the thing that when I was talking earlier about celebrating this moment, because a lot of people might see this pairing and might be like, wait, why are you pairing? Hell have no fear against mad villainy. I think that this is such an important time for. For rap, I want to look at the 2006 rap albums that are coming out. We have hip hop is dead by Nas, King by Ti, food and liquor by Lupe Fiasco, Kingdom Come by Jay-Z, and then the Blue Carpet Treatment Snoop Dog, a bunch of others. But what I will say is a couple of these rappers are getting long in the tooth. This is also the year of Idlewild, Ludacris's release therapy. Kingdom Come, the less we say about that, the better. Hip-hop is dead is an album that I think was very much celebrated in the time,

but I don't know if it's aged the best. And the reason I bring up all of that is I remember in 2006, even me kind of feeling like, wait, what is hip-hop? Like, where is it going? It kind of, when Kingdom Come came out, I was just like, this is cheesy. This is like the whole forgetting. Like, Nas is like, hip-hop is down. How could you?

And obviously with T.I. is king. that to me is like, what you know about that is fucking monumental, but they're around that time, the South is coming up. And people are starting to feel, like New York as the mecca of hip hop is slowly starting to recede. And I think Clips is such a perfect group to distill. Even within that chaos, most of the records I named are not anywhere close to those rappers best. And Hell Hath No Fury to me was a moment where people like, we can still do this.

We can still rap about the same things. It's just going to take, A, elite rhyming, and it's going to take production that is going to be kind of like one, two, three steps above what y'all think it needs to be, you know? And I just, sorry, like, when I talk about music that I love, I love this album, I love keys open doors, and that leads into my biggest moment.

Now, I will be real. this biggest moment was a little bit above me in terms of age, but I remember it happening. I remember listening to the mixtapes. And it was interesting when Malice was talking about this run. Somebody asked them about the We Got It for Cheap series. This was something that they had to do out of necessity where... The mixtape run.

The mixtape run where they have to... What's funny about this is we have a celebrated clips album where Pusha T essentially has buy himself out of the death jam deal to work with the Rock Nation, and we have the same thing with Jive. And what I love about the mixtape run was it proves to you that real art rises to the top in the same way that when Doom loses his brother and he's adrifted at sea, he goes back to the basics of the foundation, and he's like, y'all can't stop me. Some people are born to do this, and clips are born to do this.

where it's like at that point, Malice had said in recent interviews for their new album, I was like, fuck mixtape. Mix tapes, we're album artists. You have to think, at this point, you work so you don't have to do the mixtapes.

You're like, mixtapes are something where you are like, I want to get on a clue mixtape. I want to do this. I want to do that. That's to get your foot through the door. And shit,

get your shit off. But once you're a major label rapper, you're like, Hove ain't dropping mixed. Like, what the fuck? Yeah. And for clips to be like, Nah, for them to see the vision where this is still early in the game, of course you have Gucci and you're going to have Wayne and you're going to have all these things.

But for a group like clips to be like we're going to take the clips, we're going to take the re-up gang and we're going to get out of the mud. We are going to take these beats and we're going to show you that we can outwrap you. That to me is one of the most influential not only mixtape runs, but influential choices that they make because when you get to my level, like when you get to when I become like, a super fan of hip hop that becomes a blueprint Walay, Kid Cuddy, currency, obviously, all of these people,

but like I'm talking about the people who come after the like the wanes and the Gucci's and the clips, they're like the only way for me to break through mixed tape, yeah. Is mixed tapes.

Like I'm talking about not right. I'm talking about two dope boys, you know, infecting my parents' computer, downloading all this shit. Clips and the way that the industry

not only treated them at this moment, but has treated them historically. They've always proven that real music will triumph. There is a reason why their new album is one of the few rap albums from this year that is sticking. And you have to think how long it took them to get that out. All of this music was old. They should have released this, like, what, a year or two years ago? Yeah.

To me, I'm just like that. Like, that is what hip hop is. You cannot stop push a tea and malice from rapping. When you listen to especially we got it cheap, volume two. Duh, they sound piss They sound like how How dare y'all stop us? SELB to Coo, roof off the drop

Neck out the top Look at me jack in the box You acting a lot You ain't big, you ain't cock And we only respect Jake Prince for rapping a lot Your rain on the top Never quote him I ain't know him

If you ain't kissed his mama How to fuck your ride for him But Justin, can you kind of like Because you were a little bit I think I was still in middle school when this is dropping? Can you kind of like paint the picture of just like how important this was just not for clips, but almost kind of like calcifying them in the hipster kind of firmament? Similar to 50, they were doing it out of a place of necessity as much as anything, right? Because

they were in a situation where they were getting jerked around by their label, right? And they needed to do this. And the music on it was so good that it became undeniable. And it went from these guys who had made grinding, and they made a pretty good record. And, you know, when's the last time kind of blew up a little. But, like, you know, there were a lot of rappers around that time. Like, Fabulous is on Lord Willen. Fabulous was a much bigger rapper. I think if you had guessed in 2002, who was going to be the artist with more lasting

potential, you would have picked Fabulous over the clips. But then they go. You are right, but never. I was never into Fab, bro. But, like, in 2001, 2002, that's not an insane thing to say. Yeah, no, Fab was the one where people were like, yo, he's the next hove. I'm like, all right, fucking relax. He was fine.

I think history is, history on a long enough timeline puts everyone where they should be, I think. And I think fabulous is where he should be. And the clips are where they should be. You just wouldn't have guessed it at that time. This run is really what solidifies it. And this is the run that gets them getting that attention from pitchfork, getting the attention from people who may not have been listening to grind in in the moment, may have not been that,

you know, they might not have bumped Lord willing like that. It really changed things for them. And I also think the last thing before we kind of like pit these both albums together is I got into music journalism with a chip on my shoulder because I was like it took white publications and white critics to get a record like this and records from Cam and Dipset and all of these people. wane the prestige that they deserved because I think what was happening is is that I remember like my grandfather got me a a subscription to like Rolling Stone at a point when like Rolling Stone wasn't whatever but I was like it was one of my first music magazines and I remember having this conscious feeling of them like wait wait why aren't there any black critics in these magazines why aren't there any black critics on these blogs reviewing this music it's

always, it's nine times at a 10, it would be a white critic or a white journalist, sometimes feeling like they were going on a safari and then being surprised at the depth of this music because it's not places that they're coming from where it's just like, I think the thing that Pushat tea and Malice have been so good at reclaiming over the years is like, no, no, no, our music was always deep. Our music was always technically proficient. We were always great rappers. It took a while for y'all to catch on. And I think that that's a battle that we're still facing, where it was just like when I was coming up during the future run

and the thug run and the Migos run and everything Migos better than the Beatles was a joke it was always a trolless joke but I think it was always born from a place of whoa whoa whoa whoa how come we can only talk about Migos or thug in ways that's not honoring

that what they're doing is so influential and is so above its time and like literally what a couple years later if the Billy Islish Cribs from it or Ariana Grande, now it's genius. But when they're doing it because they're coming from the trap or because they're coming from like Virginia hood or whatever, it's less. And I think that this to me was an eye-opening moment of like me being like an street rap, coke rap, all of this is just as important as an illmatic. It's just as important as a this or that. It's just sometimes it takes people, especially like black critics being like,

Hey, yo, we don't need the white cosine. It's cool. But Clips was always cool to me. Like, Clips was always ahead of this time. It was always, like, a foundational record for me. I just had to get that shit off because sometimes I'm like, I get it. Like, we get all the, like, perfect scores. But I'm like, it shouldn't have had to take white publications for most people to take clips seriously.

You know? Beautiful. I'm dreading this head to head. We got to go. We got to go to the head to head. He's realizing it now. We said beforehand. It's like, you got to.

win the rounds. All right, now it's time to put Hell Haffnoe No Fury against Mad Villany in a head-to-head. Remember the goal of this season to crown the best album of the 21st century so far. Right now, Charles and I must decide which of these two albums advances into the season finale Royal Rumble. To do this, we're pitting the

five categories head-to-head against each other. One point will be awarded for each category win and the most total points win. Biggest song versus biggest song. If we're going by the criteria of what was the bigger song we have Mr. Me Too versus all caps

Yes. Is this a debate or was So this is what it makes a... In the moment, I think Mr. Me Too was the biggest song. In the moment it peaked at 65 on the US Hot R&B hip hop songs. It has a lot of streams.

The music video was iconic. Now, this is where it gets tricky because I feel like we've been fudging. this where it's like usually it was easier where we could go by sales we can't really go by sales because i i usually for this i go on um r a and i was just like oh they me i was actually surprised like doom and clips don't have that many plaques oh yeah yeah all caps i want to say is probably bigger now now now mr me too was bigger then the i think the argument that i could make

is that Mr. Me Too was a more seismic record and it is just like not like us Mr. Me Too. The entire beef, Mr. Me Too. The entire story of Adidon, Mr. Me Too. All the Kanye

drink, Mr. Me too. Like there's just like, there's a level of it was just like, it is the one domino that like fell over in 2006 where I'm just like, literally waking up and having to be like, oh, Drake is still with the lawsuit. Thanks, Clips. Thanks, Mr. Me Too. Like, now, as a hip hop head, all caps is just such a fucking foundational.

I will just say streams-wise, it's kind of crazy. Mr. Me-2, and this is not, of course, a perfect metric. But Mr. Me Too, 16 million streams, all caps, 214 million streams. But what I will say, and I want to be fair, a lot of that bump might be the nostalgia of, it's a great song. I know what you're saying. You know what I'm saying? Where we lost, we lost Doom, and I do think that he was already, Matt Villany was already gaining in esteem over the years in terms of what we were talking about.

Like year over year, streams increasing. I think the death was just like in the same way with Mac Miller where I was just like, who. Yeah, right. I don't know that accounts for 200 million streams, though. It's, it's all caps. And not saying, not saying the streams is a perfect metric, but it's, it's a weird. get mad at me, I think I would, I'd still listen to Mr. Me Too, though. It's a weird one because it was clearly Mr. Me Too in the moment, but.

But I can, I can also make the, if we're looking back on the 21st century. But I can make the argument as well, if we're looking back at the 20, like, Tyler, the creator is like, if Mr. B2 doesn't drop, like, Tyler, creator of our future are not here. They're just like, there's just not. Yeah. It's a hard one, though. Usually this is the obvious category. I love them both.

This is like picking between my children. actually. Not which song had the bigger impact. Which song itself do you think has the most footprint right now? If you put it on, if you played the two back to back, what song's getting more excitement? I think it's all caps.

Now. I actually don't know. I actually, like, I think of a DJ. Like, I think a lot of the heads would be like, yeah. But if Mr. Me Too, I think people would riot. Like, I think people would riot. Hmm.

I don't know. Feels like, let's come back to this. Let's come back to this. I think best song is easy. I like, I like, my mom,

I'm so sorry. Meat grinder is one of the best. But Meekrinder is just a foundational record. Like, I, like, I'm sorry that I didn't argue more, but it just, I can't. Worse song, I'm going to just give you the point. We don't need to debate.

We don't need to debate. Wild child, sorry. Now this is where it gets interesting. Wait, actually, before, we're going to, instead of doing best deep cut, we got biggest songs still that we have to come back to. Okay, best deep cut. Before that, best moment. Best moment.

It seems easy. I think it is the mixtape run. Yeah, I mean, I didn't really have a, I didn't just didn't really have a best moment to pull from. So I guess you win by technicality. Justin, is it, should, do I need to be putting up more of a fight with this one? No. Yeah.

This is a clear win on Charles. Yeah, that's one. The mixtape run is actually, I think just... It's mixed tape run. It's... It's the BBC. Like, it is the ice cream. It's the skateboard.

It's everything. Like, to me, I did... I thought it would be cheating to encompass that. But the world that they built around this album... Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard to kind of... And them getting out of their deal coming...

Like, finally resolving that... Off the back of that mixtape run. I'll give you that. So we have meat grinder for Doom. Yep. Point for Clips on Wild Child. Point for clips on Best Moment. So clips is up to one.

All right. Best deep cut. Let's go. Figaro. Versus what did you pick for beat? Oh, Keys Open Doors. Yo, it's Keys Open Doors, bro. It's really not, though.

Figaro? It's Keyes. Who's rapping better? Who's rapping better? Push a T. Push a T. Really? Are we going to do this?

We're going to do this? We're going to do this? Yeah. Yeah. And I love, I love Figuero. I do. I do.

But keys open doors. He's a spiritual experience. It is a spiritual. Like, it is like, like, I get it. I get it.

We love, we love doom. Doom's a legend. And I get a lot of backpackers and be like, fuck you, Charles, but when we're talking about

just uncut, crap, just, just, just, just, just, the untieck.

That is keys open. Like if we play them back to back, we can do the challenge. We can play them back to back. You want to? Yeah, let's do it. Play a little bit of Figuero. Don't pretend like you're not impressed.

Come on. Okay. Now. Now. They're so good. They're both so good. Just wait for it. Come on.

Keys open doors is incredible. As a deep cut, as like a deep, truly like the heads know, the heads know. If you go to a rap fan who loves the clips and you're like, what's one of the best Pusha T versus and you throw that on? It's gonna go bananas. If you were supposedly to win this,

it solidifies Clips winning this. What did I say when I was on the last Clips episode? Clips is my favorite hip hop group of all time. I listen to them the most. Pusha T is a top five rapper to me.

What's the better album, though? maybe we just need to get out of the category. Oh, we're not doing this. No, no, no, no, no. We're not doing this. We're not doing this. This is about winning. This is about winning.

No, we could. This is about winning. Because listeners could point to the fact that we're using these categories black and white to determine the winner when maybe there should be more to it than just five categories one one to one. But it seems an interesting thing has been happening this season where technically I'll be winning the categories. Just because you're lucky. louder. Well, what? No, because I'm playing the game the way it was designed.

I am playing the game. Like, that's the ringer in me. Like, come on, bro. I could have picked keys up and doors are the best song. I'll put it on deep cut because I knew you couldn't beat it. I knew you could. I was like, there was no way I'm winning that song. I knew that.

I was like, like, I can win this though. Okay. Now, I can make you, I can actually, I can make you a deal. A gentleman's agreement. Okay. Because it's clear. that clips is going to win, even if I love mad villainy. This is an error in our system.

Do you? Because mad villainy is just the clear winner. It just is. Were you not the person when we were going back and forth on what albums could go toe to toe, you came into the group chat, you like, yo, have we thought of the cliffs? So don't, don't be fronting. Like, you wasn't like, hey, yo, it might have a chance. It's an interesting conversation, but Matt Villany.

Oh, so you set me up for an interesting conversation, but I can never win. Oh, that's how you do it. Hey, yo, dissect, listen, is you hear your man? You hear the man? It's how he reacted. It's about picking the right album. And it's funny. It's not about winning.

It's funny how I originally had mad villainy and then you had Mad Villain and now I had the clips and now I got to just lose on a technical guy. Oh, all right. You're going to pick 50. You're going to go to bat for 50. No, no, no, no. We had an argument where I was just like, wait, I want Mad Villain. Like, I want Mad Villain.

I'm like, I don't want 50. And that's why we have to just clips. Don't do that. Don't do, because here's the thing next episode. And you're still mad because I got the next, I got the next one we was like, this one's my. I'll make you a deal. I'll make you a deal.

Because you know I won. Because we could go, we could go technically Justin. All caps is, all caps is a bigger song. So give me all caps and we're at a tie. What I will say, we, we, we have recorded videos. But before we play them for who won last, we have kid A. We have Discovery.

We have hell had no fury. And we have mad villainy. How is, okay. If I give you mad villainy, I want discovery. Oh. Like, like, that's fair. Like, I can't, no, no, no, no, no. Like, we can't keep doing this.

This is interesting. Because I love mad villainy. Because I would be happy if mad villainy makes it. Because I could, like, bad villainsies. Like, damn, you're perfect. But I'd be just as happy to have the clips. Just for my clipsers get one on a, board. But pick. Big. This is interesting. Okay, so if, so we, so just to make this clear for the

listeners because maybe it's not clear for them. We have a tiebreaker to do at the end of this episode between our draw between Discovery and Kid A, which we couldn't decide last episode. We had our friends at the ringer, a couple friends at the ringer record a video that we're going to react to that we don't know. Rock critics. Rock critics. Rock. that we don't know the results to, they are going to determine the winner by their votes. I also love Kidae. Don't can we like,

I love Kadeh. These are albums we like, we love. All right, but. But now you were saying that if I concede Kidae to Discovery, that you'll concede clips to mad villainy. That would be a third.

That's the exchange. That would be a fair exchange that I would not. Is this a fair bargain, Justin, is this breaking the rules or can we do this? Is this fair? This is the, we make the rules.

Well, he's our referee. All right. so let's just let me get this clear if this I don't know if we want to call it a plea deal I don't know if we want to call it a out of court settlement this is an out of court settlement

okay for our friendship okay so what would happen is mad villainy advances and discovery advances yeah right now yeah Cole you might want to take this deal if I take the deal

can we still I want to see what they voted for. No, no, no, we're still going to play. We're still going to play it. But if you take the deal, it's like, you take the deal, and then we reveal if you would have wanted. This is a fucking devil's bargain, dude. This is a push-a-tie bargain. Kid A is my favorite album of all time.

However, however, fucking Daft Punk is literally, Discovery is right there. And I will say. If it was any other album but Discovery, I would be vouching for Kid A more. Now I'm trying to think, does Kid A really have a shot against you? in the finale? Probably not. You can redact this, but they,

we already know what's coming. Please redact like a beep. Can go against and a bunch of the, like, I don't know if they can. I think personally it can. No, no, I think personally it can. But if we're staying true

to our premise of hip hop and its importance to the 21st century, like I don't know if we can pick kid A in the finale. So part of me is like, is this the better thing? Because I just feel like if we don't pick Mad Villany, there will be a boycott.

People will stop listening to the show. They will. But also what I will say, depending upon what Kendrick album we pick, Mad Villany can go. Like, I'm not saying it will win, but Mad Villany is an interesting conversation. It really is.

Mad Villain is an interesting conversation on a couple albums where I'm like, oh, oh. Okay. You got me, Charles. I'm going to do it. I'm going to take the plea deal. I'm sorry the fucking bad villain himself

All right And I was just say Shout out Justin When I got out of here He's like bro We was just like Because I love it But I was like bro

I got to play the rule Like I got I got to get on the most of it I was like all right If I put this song here If I put this woman here I think I see it And you came extra hard with the energy

Dude sometimes like I'm a very mellow person And then when people act this way I'm just my I shut down down. So I'm just, no, but here's a thing

what people don't realize about you. You do do that. But behind the scenes, you're like, all right, all right. Well, Charles, I'm going to pick this album.

I'm like, this man set me up. This man set me to fuck up, bro. And I was tired of it. I got to use my wit. I don't have to. Because here's a thing.

Use the theatrics. I love my beautiful dark twisted fantasy too, but you're like, I can't talk about it, Drake. I was like, we have to have Drake on it.

I knew my beautiful dark twisted fantasy was going to lose. I mean, was going to win. I knew it. So to everybody out there, I've been taking,

I've been taking to L's because I'm just like, I don't know. Wait until next episode. Next episode? Yeah. Me, your album has a chance. Okay.

Your album has no chance. All right. Let's official, a sigh of relief. We are picking the right album. Mad villainy. Mad Lib and Doom. You're so happy.

But I have now conceded Kid A to Discovery. This is a podcast. This is good podcasting. You got me, Charles. You did. You got me. But let's honor what we were going to do because we had. We have two esteemed colleagues.

Rob Harvilla, host of 60 songs that explain the 90s. And Yossi from Bansplain? Yossi Salick from Bansalane, both recorded little videos casting in their vote. If they tie, if they both pick Kid A or both pick Discovery, Justin did write down his pick on a piece of paper that he will reveal. we can see that there what his pick was going to be if there was a tiebreaker so let's start with

we'll start with Rob we're going to react to the video we'll put it on the screen but here we go I'm picking Def Punk I'm picking Discovery I'm tired of talking about Radiohead tired of thinking about Radiohead

I'm tired of listening to Radiohead if you want the truth and Kid A is like my fourth fifth or sixth favorite Radiohead album at this point whereas Discovery has digital love on it and is arguably the most influential pop album for the last 20 years and it's not daft punk's fault if that influence extends to like lmf ao i'd rather listen to lmf ao than radio head at this

point honestly it's daf punk good luck to you and you know reach out any time thank you so much rob you are not only one of the hardest working critics in the world and at the ringer you are a devoted father. And I've never disagreed with you and you've always been right. So thank you, Rob, so much for taking out your time. Now can we go to Yossi? Probably to nobody on this earth's surprise. I'm casting my vote for Kid A, babe. I think Kid A was a revolution. I think the unprecedented just jump from like a completely successful album like OK computer making such a left turn. into this sort of alienating, but ultimately, like, incredibly impactful and inspirational and influential thing that was Kid A is phenomenal. I also think it was one of the first

albums that people largely experienced via the internet, if you can believe it. Well, thank you for Yasi. Also, one of the working hardest critics in people at The Ringer. You're wrong, but also thank you for taking out the time. Justin gets it. So it's a split decision. Well, now Justin. Now Justin, can you reveal live? I don't actually know what Justin's going to pick.

I know what he's going to pick. Guys, I got to be real. This is not Justin's sale song standing. And we keep running into this. And Cole, I'm really sorry. Yeah. But. So I took the deal.

You took the deal. It was actually very smart of you. I told you to take the deal. I told you to take the deal. deal. Yeah. I've been texting with a bunch of

critics over here too and it was just they said Figuero over keys open doors but they were adamant

in Mr. Me Too over all caps. So you could have walked away with nothing because I'm I'm done with having to make these decisions. Justin did call me

he's just like you guys can't throw to me anymore just don't do it you're like you guys need to fucking pick but I will say

this worked out exactly how I planned. This is my super villain plan, if I'm going to be honest with you, right? Because I was like, damn, there's a really big chance. I'm going to lose the discovery. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to be,

like, I kid you not. Last night, I was like, if I can make Hell Hapnel Fury win, even though I want mad villain you to win, I can strike a deal with him. Because I was just like, if discovery and mad villainy go, I win both.

If kid A, and madvility, I'm walking out of here like dog, dog, what the fuck have we been doing? Well, all things consider, I think this is an acceptable choice. I would have liked Cid A, I think there might be some pushback from listeners that Kitt A didn't advance, but if that's the case, though, like maybe just go listen to Discovery again because I thought Kidae was just going to swamp Discovery until I just sank back into that world. And that, it's a fucking phenomenal album.

And if our decision on this little show could cast some love. and get more people to return to discovery because it advances over kid A. Beautiful. And I also do want to be real to the listeners. When we're getting very excited, I'm not calling any of these albums bad. Like it's like I'm trying to win a like office. I'm just like we're talking about like 100s out of 100s. This is just like comparing like apples are.

I'm just like, guys, I like to win. But wow, who look at us. Look at us, Cole. Very smart for Charles. We are back. first is this the most contentious season we've had of this show where we didn't even get we didn't even get to cultural exchange because we couldn't agree oh yeah last episode yeah we didn't have culture exchange i had to go take my daughter to gymnastics practice yeah well last episode

definitely bioncé blueprint definitely i can't really it's a different exercise because we're putting the albums together two albums that we both love to you know but head to head where songs are a little bit less. I mean, you know, these are albums and this is a bigger conversation. So it's been fun, though. It's challenging me. I'm not a natural debater. I'm not a naturally loud.

And everything I'm not you are. And so like, I'm really trying my best. Here's a thing. I like, I love it as a listener, but you pull out to you like, all right, I'm about to break down. I'm like, I'm like, all right. I'm got to start yelling if I'm wish, bro. I'm just like, I got. But for, for, for.

Journal Exchange, we traded two albums that we both love. You gave me Killers Hot Fuss. I gave you Stokes, Is This It? And I will start off because I've given you this hot take and you told me that you have an opinion that I've been waiting literally like a week to hear. Okay.

Where I remember buying Hot Fuss. I love this album. People are like, you got, why is the killers in this shit? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, y'all listen to their debut album. So good. Crack. So good.

But. the thing that has always been lobbed against this album and the feeling that I had when I was a kid and even when I returned to it now is half this album is some of the best recorded music that's ever been recorded and the other hat just cannot live up to it. Not bad, but it is almost like they run out of gas halfway through and they are like doing their best to like try to get it back. So the feeling I had of re-listening now was I was like, oh, this is still true. But my love for these songs increased. because I was like, I think the killers kind of got uncool for a while. Yeah. Yeah. And now I just, going back to them, I was just like, oh, man, this is, this is a phenomenal record. Yeah, they got, because they were, what happened with a counterpart to the strokes, strokes were so effortlessly cool, uneffortlessly cool in terms of like their image, which was crafted, but it gave off like, we're not trying and that's what makes us cool. Yep. We're killers, like, they were glam and they were unabashed glam. They wanted to be rock stars.

They had the bright lights. They're from Vegas. And so in an era where we're talking about the Neptunes, we're talking about the strokes being the epitome of cool American apparel, all this stuff. Like the killer is trying to harken back to kind of this mix of glam rock from the 70s, mixed with the electro of the 80s, mixed with like Americana of like Bruce Springsteen. Just, yeah, they kind of got branded as corny during this time.

but the first five, six songs on this album are just some of the best songs of the 21st century. I mean, like, so my hot take is that one, the second half isn't as bad. So what I did was I started the album at the second half, so I didn't listen to the first five songs. And you realize actually what I think more than bad songs is a bad sequencing of this album.

They front-loaded it. way too much, which I get doing on a debut album. But if they would have just saved some of these songs and just interspersed some of the hits into, like, just a few little tweaks, I think we would be talking about this album a little bit more fondly in terms of like, yeah, because every time you bring this album back up, it is the asterisk to the album where it's like, Mr. Brightside, smile like you mean it, somebody told me all these things that are just phenomenal. know, but if they had just moved two of those songs, a little bit lower, because you get it back

with, like, Change My Mind, I think is a great song. You know, believe me, Natalie is it like really kind of starts to fall off. But, you know, everything will be all right is a perfectly fine ballad closer. Andy is your star, Andy, your star is not that bad. It's a sequencing problem more than it is. These are bad songs. So you have a sequence that you think would have worked. Like, do you have your perfect sequence for this album? I didn't do that, but all I think, I think on top I think it's the run of on top of any of your star on top

change your mind and when you get to believe me Natalie you're just like what happened so if you can just simply take either all these things that I've done or even like somebody

told me maybe not somebody told me but just just I mean the epic song that is all these things that I've done doesn't need to be the fifth song on this album after all those songs you can sequence that after on top

then go into change your mind and I think it fixes so much so but when you return do you listen to this album regularly aside from just hearing the singles everywhere still i love this album as a kid and because of the cornyness like it like that you're talking about i had internalized that this is a corny record just like because you were a kid and then i went back to i was like no no no no you actually had pretty good tastes as a because like what's funny is like i would listen to the strokes and then i would listen to the killers like they were a part of like it was like strokes arctic monkeys killers

I was listening to all the fucking, and then I was listening to a bunch of fucking bands that were like, do you remember the black kids? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, there was the black kids, there was the Virgin, Stevie on the radio I tried to get into, that was a little bit more difficult.

Grizzly bear, I listened to all the fucking shit. You want to know what killer song is one of my favorites, though, and I just want to sing it. Yeah. Are we human? Oh, all we dancing. So, too, we want to be a little,

that song, that, that, album is great. I think that's a better album start to finish. Doesn't have the highs of hot fuss, but... I'm so glad you gave me. This is a great pick. But strokes... And I'll just say, the last thing I'll say about the killers is that in this conversation of like 21st century music, I think it's important that we acknowledge the electronic influence of these, of this album in terms of like,

this is the time that rock musicians, especially of this kind of trying to do the glam rock thing, are incorporating synthesizers. Yeah. And electronic music and trying to tap into the daft punk electro kind of wave that was happening in the early 2000s. And I think that when we're going to talk about the strokes, which is a little more traditional rock, in terms of instrumentation, it's important to acknowledge that we see the influence

that we've been talking about all season in an album like this, infiltrating rock music, where the turn of the century was like, where does rock music go? We have Kada to point to about pointing certain places, but we also have a hot fuss, where we see rock bands, traditional rock bands starting to incorporate electronics,

which would only grow more intense as the century goes on. So strokes. Couldn't have said it better myself. You know, in the moment, I was not the biggest strokes fan. And this is more me being pretentious in terms of like, like, all they're doing is down strumming under the guitar. That was the big thing. Because I was like deep into like,

I was reading everything and the knock against the strokes is just like, like my brother was learning. had to like play the drums and his drum teacher would like always laugh because he would want to learn strolling's like this drumming's not like this isn't hard it's not complicated but that's actually why I always tell people I like this album because this was a on ramp for my parents listen to rock music but me having a band that I was just like this is so simple I get it and then that was me listening to like going to the Velvet Underground and just like it was like this is an album this is a perfect album to me,

but to me this is a nice entree album where you're like, if you look at what influenced them, then you could be like, oh, I can go back to the other things they're pulling from. Yeah, and on re-listen, I think all that, I just didn't appreciate what they're doing. Because when you make music this good, no matter the techniques you're using

or how musical it is in terms of technically being something proficient or brilliant, like when you make songs that are this good, you're doing something, you're doing the most important thing, which is making good songs, great melodies, things that are memorable, things that move you. So it doesn't really matter how you get there.

I think I was just being pretentious at the time. But returning to it, it's like, I see why it works. I see, I kind of regret not being into them because I feel like I missed out on, of course I knew of them, but I wasn't super into them and I feel like I should have been, you know. I mean, it's one of those things as well where I think what they did so well on this album especially, is that at a time in music where I think things were getting so complex

and things were getting so weird. Like, if you take like a, like, like, well, think about what radio head is doing, it's a lot, it's virtuosic. They're like, actually, we're gonna go back to kind of like some of the foundations of rock and roll. Yeah. Where there's a bunch of cool white boys,

who barely know how to, like, they knew how to play. They do, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, barely know how to play their instruments, you know? And it's like, Julian Casa Barg's just like, no, he can say, like, but, yeah, And you struggle a little bit. And like that opened my mind to being like, oh, no, that's what's beautiful about rock. It's like sometimes the best rock bands are not the best musicians.

They're the best at being like, no, but when we're all together, there's something like there's an alchemy that's like. Sometimes it's just taste and cute. It's just the same way like what makes a good, what makes Kanye greater, any of these people that were, any of these producers, great. It's not, it's usually, I mean, maybe daft punk cake says it's both, but usually it's not, they are, technically the best. Yeah. It is they have style, they have taste, they could curate sounds. And the strokes were that. They were just like, whether they could play the instruments well or not, it's kind of secondary to them just like knowing how to write a catchy guitar riff. That's the most important thing, not if it's wowing you, right? And I will say on subsequent records,

because I've been a strokes for them for a long time, they get to the point where they're like, we're actually going to show you that we actually know how to like play our instruments. Like, this isn't funny anymore. They get like, a lot of their and you're just like, oh shit, this is like, they are a rock band, but to your point,

they knew what they were doing. Like they knew what they were doing. But now, for this cultural exchange that we have coming up, where are you going? Part of me, I had an album

that I wanted to give you, that's from my heart. Okay. But I have an album that I think makes more thematic sense for our next episode. Okay.

Maybe Justin can help me. me out. You've already, part of me is just like, should I give you DeAngelo's voodoo, which this is, yeah, I was going to pick it for both of us. I was going to kind of pick it for myself because DeAngelo's voodoo is an album that everyone, I would, like a lot of people would say deserves to be in this conversation that we're having the season that I'm not, not totally familiar with, admittedly. So this is an album to me where it's like, it's not an album that I go, I go to, but it is a project that is woven into my life in terms of just like, this is what my parents were listening to when I was in the car. We're listening to R&B. We're listening to like, I think

the channel was like Kiss FM out of New York, like Hot 97, Power 105. Like this is, this is an album where it's like, I don't listen to it because I'm just like, this is, this was like kind of like my parents' music, my like older cousins. It is just like, I wanted to pick it because I'm just like, oh, with the R&B episode that we're about to have, I was like, damn, it would be such a fucking drag if we didn't give DeAngelo, just kind of like the love that he rightfully deserves. Yeah, and I would be, of course I know some of these songs,

but it's like, you know, R&B is not a genre of music that I'm personally seeking out a lot. And so I understand the importance of this album, but I would love to like talk about it in this exercise and, you know, giving myself an assignment. So we're on the same page. Let's do it.

All right. So cultural exchange will just be... Just a lot. Let's just do voodoo. One album, we'll just have like a nice, like, chat about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I literally was going to give it to you because I'm just like, you know, no, no, this is a perfect pairing, but I also just kind of want to listen to this.

And then also teases the next episode. A little R&B. Hell yeah. Thanks, guys.