Maldoror - She (CD, 1999)

The year is 1999. I am buying anything on the Ipecac label, especially if Mike Patton is on it. The Maldoror CD comes out and I have no idea what to expect. I buy it, listen to it twice by myself, realize that there will never be an opportunity to play the album (which is filled with blood-curdling screams and cartoon noises) when there is another human being present.

I shelve it.

I keep it because the artwork rules.

It is the only pink-cased CD I own.

It remains, to this day, a very "challenging" listen.

If you want people to leave your party, this is the CD you should put on.

Patton fanboys unite. This is more music to make sure you never kiss a girl.

"The White Tears of the Maggot"

MC Serch - Return of the Product (CD, 1992)

It must have driven Serch crazy that this record didn't make him just blow the fuck up. Because this album is great. And yeah, I'm saying that as a fan of 3rd Bass and early-90's hip hop, but this is a collection of songs that deserves to be mentioned in any conversation about the best that hip hop had to offer between '90 and '94.

Serch is out of his head with lyrics throughout the 11 songs here, and the beats (as much as I hate to admit it because they were put together by "Epic" Mazur, the Crazy Town dude) are full-on unstoppable. "Here it Comes" is one of the best lead-off tracks on any hip hop album in that decade, and Serch uses its force to barrel through the rest of the record with a momentum that doesn't relent.

While some of the tracks slow down a bit and some get a little bogged down with Serch's socially conscious gusto, it still doesn't stop him from running shit. With Serch, you know you're going to have to sit through his anti-racist tirades, and as long as you realize his heart's in the right place, they aren't too intolerable. But he always come back to the real-deal hip hop, and by the time the title track kicks in halfway through this LP, you know he's only getting started.

Shit gets even deeper in the second half, but the beats are so dope that Serch couldn't possibly hinder the rush, and he's too on point to drag it down anyway. Tracks like "Social Narcotics" and "Scenes from the Mind" almost get ahead of themselves, but Serch reins 'em in.

This is MC Serch at his peak, and I'm not sure if enough people realize that. Pick this up on the cheap and get served, foolios.

"Here it Comes"

MC Ren - Ruthless for Life (CD, 1998)

It's a damn shame that this is the only MC Ren album that I have on CD or LP. I'm pretty sure I still have my cassette copies of Kizz My Black Azz and Shock of the Hour, but I have yet to pick them up on more legit formats.

And it's not that I don't dig Ren when he's on the solo creep. I just dig him more when he's with N.W.A. When Ren made music with Dr. Dre, there was always that little something extra in both his delivery and his content. When left to his own devices he's a fine straight-up gangsta rapper, but he has trouble getting much farther than that. (For more on this phenomenon, see Snoop Dogg.) Still, dude's got a great voice and knows how to put together a song. His solo stuff just never has the same "oomph" as the shit he did with Dre.

Still, this album is good for what it is. And when Ren recruits other rappers to do guest spots with him, it seems to motivate him to step up his game a little bit. So, the tracks here with Eightball & MJG and Ice Cube are solid. And when he doesn't get too hook-heavy, the rest of the album ain't bad either. It's just rough trying to get too excited about tracks like "Who Got That Street Shit" and "Pimpin' is Free." Ren's covered the topics before, and he doesn't have a whole lot more to say about it.

Still, it's Ren. And I love Ren. So I give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Ruthless for Life"

MC Paul Barman - Paullelujah! (2xLP, 2002)

After dropping a pair of stellar 12" singles ("How Hard is That?" in 2000 and "Cock Mobster" in 2001) as quick follow-ups to his debut EP, MC Paul Barman was poised to blow us away with his long-awaited full-length. I was ready. Ready to declare it album of the year.

I couldn't do it. While Paullelujah! has moments of brilliance that served to remind me of why I was growing ever more fond of Barman as an MC, there were also many moments that just left me befuddled. The album starts strong, with the title track and "Cock Mobster," and keeps going fairly steady with the easiness of "Old Paul" and the comparative chaos of the fine "Bleeding Brain Grow."

Things get progressively disjointed after that, with Barman sounding like he's trying to squeeze his flows into beats that aren't very well suited to him. By the time the record ends, he's doing this free-form beatnik shtick that is frustratingly devoid of rhymes or any other reason to listen to it more than once.

I don't hate this record. In fact, I still listen to it from time to time. My mistake was expecting so much from it. I've learned to like it for what it is, and I actually think it sounds better now than it did when it came out. Maybe it's a testament to Barman's skills that it's taken this long to grow on me. Maybe I've just gotten over my initial disappointment with it. Either way, I'm happy that he put out a full-length at all. He's supposed to have another one dropping soon. Be on the lookout.

"Bleeding Brain Grow"

MC Paul Barman - It's Very Stimulating (LP, 2000)

When I started reading the stories in the music rags in 2000 about a Jewish kid from Brown University who had done a rap song for his thesis, hooked up with Prince Paul, and was set to drop his debut EP any minute, I was just waiting for the damn thing to come out. I was so curious about what this dude was going to sound like, what in the heck swayed Prince Paul to hook up with him, and just who the fuck he thought he was. As soon as I saw this EP, I snatched it up.

Turned out, he was something that nobody knew how to properly describe. Music critics were hoping for a new Prince Paul progeny, and got a nerdy kid who stacked rhymes on top of rhymes, always kept it smart, and sometimes got crass just for the fuck of it. Now, Paul Barman's not for everybody, but I can safely say he's for dudes like me. He doesn't take himself or his subject matter too seriously, but he takes language very seriously. His rhymes are intricate, precise, and a goddamn mouthful.

Either you get it or you don't. And I respect that. But those who poo-poo hip hop just because it's not deadly serious are the people who I can't have conversations with. But I'd love to have a conversation with Paul Barman. Because he's pro-wordplay, anti-idiocy, and he loves all the good stuff about hip hop. I can get with that.

And the fact that Princess Superstar shows up on "MTV Get off the Air Pt. 2" on this disc doesn't hurt a bit.

"The Joy of Your World"

Lync - These Are Not Fall Colors (LP, 1994)

Ah, Lync. Just one of the many NW indie rock bands that should have done so much more but probably did themselves a favor by getting in and getting out. Now they are legends. To like twenty people.

I've had this record for quite a while now, and I listen to it here and there when the mood strikes me. I didn't get into it until well after it was released, and that's a shame. But it still sounds great today. Loud, odd, messy but crazy melodic. It's hard to compare these guys to anybody, and reading on their Wikipedia page that they influenced Modest Mouse doesn't seem quite right to me. Mostly because Modest Mouse is terrible and these guys aren't.

I don't know. They sound like K Records NW rock from the mid-90's, which is exactly what they are. It's smart rock with spotty production, blistering guitars with vocals that get (intentionally?) buried in the mix, so the singer always sounds like he's straining to be heard. It's the kind of music that makes you anxious when you listen to it. In a good way.

If you see this record for a few bucks, snag that shit. My brother urged me to by this when I found it on the cheap, and he was right. It's real good.

"B"

Monie Love - In a Word or 2 (CD, 1993)

Marley Marl on the beats in '93? I'll rock that shit. Prince doing guest production on one track? I'll seriously rock that shit.

Not to make any statements that may be too rash, but Monie Love may be one of the more underrated female MCs of the 90's. Yeah, she got some love back then, but you don't hear her name come up much anymore. And it should – the lady can drop some rhymes. Of course, she was one of those up-and-comers whose career was done by the time she was 23. But, seriously: for a person that age, she's got a damn fine handle on the social issues of the time (especially those of women), and she's great at putting her concerns into words.

But, as we've learned through the years, conscious rap doesn't sell, so intelligent MCs get kicked to the curb while teenagers like me (at the time) reefed weed to Cypress Hill. We should have known better, but we didn't. I probably wasn't the ideal audience for this record anyway, but I have a fine time listening to it now. Monie's quest to save the world is probably short-sighted, but she means well, and having the benefit of listening to it 15 years later, it seems potent and overlooked. There are songs about pregnancy, songs about AIDS, songs about a woman's role in the world. It's big-time shit, and might have been too heady for the mainstream.

For that alone, she deserves respect. And for the jazzy smooth beats, Marley Marl always deserves respect. So don't clown Monie. She was down.

"Full Term Love"