This verse was way too crazy to be wasted on this song

So I've been seeing 50 Cent run his mouth lately about Jay never dominating the game and how Reasonable Doubt only charted at 23 blah blah blah. I know he's a troll but let's be honest for a second here, GRODT has to be one of the most overrated 'classics' in hip hop. It's a good album but mostly for the production and 50 has a talent with melodies and doing hooks. But lyrically? Very mid. I know it's not all about lyrics but I feel your lyrics need to be a little better if we're discussing classics.

Also, many of the songs didn't age well on GRODT. I'd argue that every single one of Jay's albums except MCHG, Blueprint 3 and Kingdom Come are better than GRODT.

Thoughts?

this thread wasnt allowed in hiphopheads for some reason

This was the first album I've had to do away from my new girlfriend, since I had to go back home to work over the weekend. But we both listened to it separately.

This was one of the albums I was most excited going in for, honestly, because I knew and liked a lot of the commercial singles, and because I know it's quite a divisive one amongst the community, and I was excited to see where I'd stand on it. On first listen, I'd actually say it was one of his better albums. At first, I wasn't fully sold on the album tracks - my girlfriend really liked Thank You, but for me, five songs in, I was mostly invested in the singles, which I already knew.

I've got a weird relationship with D.O.A. - it's a good beat, but I find it a little annoying. The electric guitar is abrasive but I like the trumpet. I'm really not a fan of the chorus, but his rapping was alright. Low-key, though? I realised I was enjoying the song. You can sit and analyse what's working and what's not, but at the end of the day, I feel like you can just sort of choose to lay back and enjoy a song, even if there are criticisms your intellectual brain could make. I do find it a little corny, though, when anybody dedicates an entire song to a musical style they don't like. On this album, Hov suggests that anybody who wants his old shit should buy his old album. Why doesn't he just buy albums that don't have any Auto-Tune and leave that style alone for those of us who do enjoy it?

Run This Town is good. I want to say it's “obviously” good, but again, this is one that some people think is too commercial. Rihanna is a good singer. Kanye always seems to bring his best when he's on a Jay track. I am so excited for Watch the Throne. And the beat bangs. Honestly, maybe I love it for the reasons others hate it. It feels so big, and grand, and I love an anthem. This whole album does that really well, on the singles.

Speaking of anthems, I think the best song is Empire State of Mind. Maybe it's a basic pick. To me, it feels obvious. This is one of Jay’s defining songs and if I ever get the privilege of visiting New York, this will be the song I'm bumping first. Even though there are so many songs dedicated to that city. My second choice would be City of Gods by Fivio Foreign, Kanye West & Alicia Keys, so you can decide for yourself whether my taste is valid. One thing that's always struck me, Jay’s rapping on the last verse is good. Some of the lyrics throughout the song are a little bit cheap, I suppose, but there was a time when I only really knew his singles and features and I considered this to be one of his best verses. Having explored his whole discography, I think calling it “one of his best” would oversell it a tad, but I still think it's incredibly solid for what it is.

This is where we get into some more tracks I hadn't heard before. I don't remember loving Real As It Gets, but I do remember loving On To The Next One (which I already knew). To me, this was always just another Jay-Z song, but fuck, I've never connected with that beat before. Last night, when I was listening to the album, I think I really deeped just how good the production is. One of the best beats I've ever heard. Big up Swizz.

I remember liking Off That and struggling with whether it was playlist-worthy; I'd already sort of decided that these album cuts were not it - enjoyable enough as fodder to bridge the singles together - but A Star Is Born (the only single I didn't know) changed my mind. I don't know whether the album is genuinely stronger on the back half, or whether this song just loosened me up like a pickle jar, but I started to really enjoy every track after that.

I'm a J. Cole fan, and I was expecting a good verse - not on the level of his recent feature run, but young and hungry - but I left with a song that I thoroughly enjoyed, from the beat, to the chorus, to Jay’s rapping, too. I was a little mad at my girl, who'd already listened to this album, and had heard me hyping the J. Cole feature, for not warning me that this song was so much more than that.

Every song after that could be playlist-worthy, so now I've got another album to re-dive into. Her favourite, overall (not counting the ones she'd already heard), was Venus vs. Mars, which I honestly think is a very respectable pick. The lyrics were more interesting than normal, and from this point the tracks were all more musically enjoyable, I think.

Jay kept doing this shit where he'd pick a theme for a verse and stick to it, which was nice, because it meant even if he wasn't storytelling, his verses felt like more than just random collections of bars.

I remember Already Home being really good, and I remember Hate living up to my expectations. I hadn't expected another Run This Town, and I figured that this would be the more mediocre Kanye feature, which is why they'd chosen to bury it at track 12. It wasn't another Run This Town, but hearing them trade bars was fun, and the energy was infectious. Of course the beat was good. Yet another reason why I am so excited for Watch the Throne.

The last two tracks were probably playlist-worthy - again, I'd have to relisten - but by this point in the album, I don't feel I can say much about why. They were mostly good for the same reasons, so it would be redundant to explain it, but I didn't just feel like I was listening to the same song over and over, this album gave me some decent engagement. Perhaps it's because this is the first one I've done where I was locked in, with lyrics up, instead of cuddling her. Either way, I find the radio-friendly, conventional sounds of this considerably more enjoyable than some of the bleak gangster rap from earlier on, even if the production isn't as soulful.

Young Forever is the last one I knew, and it worked really well as an outro track. I don't know how people normally feel about this song, but I heard it before the Alphaville version, which my sister loves. I think a main draw of that song is that it's quite repetitive, and you can kind of sink into it, but I find that loses my interest, sometimes, so I like this version more - Jay-Z rapping breaks up that beautiful hook nicely, and it ends the album on a reflective note. I really want to play this for my sister, and see what she thinks.

I really enjoyed this album, and would rank it as one of his stronger records (though the weakest Blueprint). It's got me a whole lot more optimistic about Magna Carter, which is my last studio album before 4:44, which my interest is already piqued for. I don't really care if this is the consensus take or not, I'd rather enjoy music even if others hate it, and now I've found a new album I can put in my rotation.