Album Spotlight: Tech N9ne - Everready (The Religion)

Hey look, it's Tech N9ne!  It's the rapper that you're all probably sick of by now!  Heck yeah, the stuff that only I'm still cool with right now!  I mean, I know that probably most of you aren't really into rap, and that those of you who are might be annoyed that this is one of the only rappers I listen to, but bear with me.  It's a really good album.

Artist:  Tech N9ne (and guests)

Genre:  Rap
Language:  Mild to Strong, varies per track.
Themes:  Sex on some tracks.

This is, in my opinion, one of Tech's strongest albums.  That being said, I've only heard 4 of his albums, but that's enough to pick a favorite.

There are songs that I love more than all the rest, but I'll give you the full list of favorite tracks later on.

First off you need to listen to the song No Can Do.  It's hook is just Tech singing "Y'all can't f*ck wit us" is a digitally lowered voice and while you may not like that so much, it makes for a really catchy song.  It's a driving song with a good beat, good for working out and such.

Next we've got Jellysickle.  The beat for Jellysickle just kinda bumps along and with the background vocals it gives a cool fun vibe to the song.  I also really like the higher synth line, it's a synth tone I just really like.  E-40 is featured on this song and what he adds just bumps this song up from good to great.

Now we've got Bout Ta Bubble.  This song is really bouncy and thus, enjoyable.  I don't know why I love this song so much, I just do.

Caribou Lou is a song about drinking a drink so strong that you lose your entire evening. Being the nice guy he is, Tech even hints at the recepie for you. It's half a bottle of 151, 1 cup of Malibu Rum, the the very vague step of "fill the rest of the jug with pineapple juice."  It's a really strong drink obviously enough, so if you're gonna try it make sure to be careful.

My Wife, My Bitch, My Girl is a song that just amuses me.  I don't know what it is, but maybe it's the lead up from it's intro track talking like he's on some sort of game show.

Finally we have Welcome To The Midwest.  I love the beat to this song, what with the acoustic guitar line it has and all.  Also I like the Sinatra-esq chorus.  All in all it's a very enjoyable song.

Alrighty then, let's hit up a track list and give it a listen!  The double stars are what I already talked about, and the single stars are my other favs that just didn't quite make the cut.

Riot Maker*

No Can Do**

Welcome To The Midwest**

Bout Ta Bubble**

Jellysickle**

Caribou Lou**

Hood Connection (skit)*

My Wife, My Bitch, My Girl**

Come Gangsta*

My World*

The Rain

The Beast

Album Spotlight: Limp Bizkit - Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water

New blog feature, the Album Spotlight!  This is basically an album review, but for older releases that I missed originally, wasn't born yet, or that I just didn't have a blog at the time.

Yeah, I know, Limp Bizkit sucks.  You know what though, I don't care.  This album is really good in a lot of ways, from general musicianship, to the production quality, even down to the novelty factor.

Let's start out with the guests on the album.  We've got the remix of Rollin' that's subtitled "Urban Assault Vehicle" featuring DMX, Redman, and Method Man.  When I first heard this song I flat out hated it because of the way it's slower than the usual Rollin'.  This wouldn't be an issue, but rather than retake any of Durst's lines, they just slowed them down to match what they needed which sounds really bad in a couple areas.  If you listen all the way through though you'll see that it's a great song.  The flow that the 3 rappers have is fantastic and 100% worth listening to the track for.

The other guest is Xzibit on the track Getcha Groove On.  It's a very different sound from the rest of the album and very worth hearing just for Xzibit.  I'm not familiar with his usual material yet, but he fits in this song like a glove.

Standout track wise it's got a couple really good ones.  I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the song Hot Dog since it has the dubious honor of saying f*ck a total of 48 times over the course of it's play time.  It also lifted it choruses from a couple Nine Inch Nails songs, which is actually really cool.

Also you've gotta hit up the regular stuff like the singles My Way, My Generation, and Rollin'.  There may have been some others, but I'm not familiar with the popularity of anything but these two.  Both are good and catchy, but there's still other tacks that are as good or better.

Full Nelson reminds me of a Rage Against The Machine type song.  Not too much actually sounds like it, but near the end when he mentions building an empire and some of the intro guitar stuff seems a bit like it.

Livin' It Up is a driving song that is a bad song to listen to while driving because it talks about living life in the fast lane.  Maybe you aren't like me, but if a song talks about going fast I tend to drive faster.  Unfortunate face about what I do I suppose.

I straight up love the bass line in The One.  It's constant 16ths in the beginning sound really tight, and in general it's a generally enjoyable sound.  It's smooth, it's got nice musical harmonies going on, and more importantly it's clean so I can put it on my work playlist.

Hold On sounds a lot like an Alice In Chains song, so I automatically like it a lot.  The vocals are doing things that I didn't think Fred Durst was actually capable of, aka sounding good.  Seriously, give it a listen and tell me that it's not really nice.