THE BREAKDOWN (FT. DJ SUB PAR): Big Boi - Sir Luscious Left Foot

DJ Responsible Says:

Let's just get this out of the way: "Shine Blockas" is an amazing song (Pitchfork nailed that one on their 'best of' last year). It stands out like the last M&M in a bowl full of trail mix.

But there's a lot of other good stuff on Sir Luscious. And there's a lot of questionable stuff. It's just one of those dense, throw enough ingredients into the soup kind of albums.

For whatever reason, rap albums get a free pass in this regard. If any indie band outside Yo La Tengo released an album with unnecessary tracks like "You Ain't No DJ" or obnoxious interludes like the David Blaine segment, they'd be taken down a peg. But not Big Boi. He manages to remain on the pedestal, largely because 85% of his work is somewhere between good and stellar.

Sir Luscious is only a great hip hop album in relation to the rest of the drivel out there. And it could use a final edit. But why can't more rap music be this adventurous and fun?

DJ Sub Par Says:

Lets keep this simple. Go listen to this album. It might be the best album you hear this year. It is sonically daring. Here is a classical guitar. Here is KRS-ONE reference. Is that Opera? In addition to Shine Blockas listen to "Shutterbug," 'Tangerine," and "Daddy Fat Sax" (Be warned that Big Boi is an enthusiastic fan of sex.) Also don't miss the tracks exiled from the album by legal troubles, the Andre 3000 assisted "Lookin' for Ya" and "Royal Flush."

Essential Tracks:

WORTH A LISTEN: Big Boi - Daddy Fat Sax

The Outkast half that still consistently writes verses drops this horn-heavy jam that makes cool look easy. The deep Southern voice over the chorus and the Milky Way synths justifies lines like "My ear to the streets and my eyes to the sky/I'm on another planet my nigga and you just fly."

FINALLY GOT AROUND TO...Stankonia

As the fourth highest scoring album all-time on the "Rotten-Tomatoes-but-for-everything" website Metacritic (dating back to 2000), and second only to Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose in terms of new material, Stankonia represents a quintessential listening experience for the new millenium.

As an introductory note, it's difficult to live up to such lofty expectations. I've listened to Brian Wilson's Smile, portions of Van Lear Rose, and Bob Dylan's Love and Theft, and cautiously hoped for brilliance. It never quite works out that way.

The four things that Stankonia has going for it are: 1) ambition (at 24 tracks, Outkast have crafted a hip hop opus of sorts, with every good idea they could muster stirred up into one giant pot); 2) talent (the pairing of Andre 3000's spacey horniness with Big Boi's earnest street credence still feels improbable and ordained); 3) a keen sense for the bizarre (this monster is straight up weird); 4) some amazing singles ("Ms. Jackson" kicks "Hey Ya" to the curb, "So Fresh, So Clean" and "Spaghetti Junction" impressively combine both style and substance, and "B.O.B." is manically epic).

This eclecticism is, however, both strength and weakness. Few learned from the greatest rap album of all time, Nas's Illmatic, a ten track-no skit gem. Stankonia's seven skits are mostly short and harmless, but generally unnecessary. Also, for every two winners ("We Love Deez Hoes" and "Humble Mumble," there's something skipable ("I'll Call B4 I Cum"). Then there's the incomprehensible, something like "Toilet Tisha," which is both refreshingly odd and decidedly inessential at the same time.

Thus, no verdict on my favorite Outkast album yet. Next up: Aquemini.

Stankonia - OutKast