Artist: System of a Down
Album: Toxicity
Released: 2001
I reeaaally wanted to put a Tool album in the top 10, but unfortunately all their stuff was either too old, or couldn’t cut it. Toxicity did. This album shot System out of the underground like the machine-gun music they put out. It also made for a great “heavy metal alarm clock” ala Jackass. Just ask anybody I went to college with unlucky enough to be the last one to rise the morning after a party. They would most likely “Wake Up!” to their hangover with a speaker blasting SOAD next to their head, possibly with the couch or chair they passed out in being shaken violently by other hungover maniacs, screaming the lyrics.
#6
Artist: Girl Talk
Album: Night Ripper
Released: 2006
Before becoming a major act at the big Festies and getting hipsters to shake their asses, Girl Talk was rocking his laptop at gutter Break-Core parties. “Night Ripper” sounds like every big pop, rap, and 80s hit, playing on the radio all at once, mangled together by someone with ADD. Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis) loops and glitches out all the songs you know every word to, whether they’re BS or legit. It’s something you can throw on at a party and everybody’s into. The why-borrow-what-you-can-steal attitude of this album completely blurred the line between “sampling”, re-mixing, and copyright infringement, and literally earned him an appointment with the Supreme Court. Taking the safer route, producers Ewun and Knick made a similar album as a side project called LudaChrist, and gave it away for free on the internet, because they didn’t want to deal with the legalities of selling it, or clearing all the 100s of samples. If you’re already a fan of Girl Talk, check out the LudaChrist mix “Bangfest” at http://www.worshipludachrist.com/ or I Worship LudaChrist on FaceBook.
#5
Artist: Kanye West
Album: College Dropout
Released: 2004
Kanye’s debut is a hip-hop classic, even though he’s still the #1 asshole of the decade. What other star could have their Mother die young and get no sympathy? “College Dropout” has got the choice selection of what Kanye does best: THE BEATS! The hits, “Slow Jamz” (ft. Jamie Foxx), “All Falls Down”,” Through the Wire”, and “Jesus Walks” as well as the lesser known cuts “Get Em High” (ft. Talib Kweli), “Never Let Me Down” and “We Don’t Care” have got soul, but still hit just as hard as the crunkest trunk bangers. This time capsule of an early stage of his career shows unusually modest lyrics: “we’re all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it”. But if there’s one thing that actually makes him a genius, it’s the ghetto-maestro production work that most MC’s don’t dare to touch.
#4
Artist: Mr. Lif
Album: I Phantom
Released: 2002
“I Phantom” is Boston MC Mr. Lif’s supercharged take on our capitalist, consumerist society. What Lif brings to the table is conscious, well thought out lyrics, straight up. “Live From the Plantation” is a track ANYONE can relate to about getting up to go to a job you hate, being condescended to, and even a daydream about flipping out on the boss. “Now I'm off to slave quarters, With a whole bunch of other people's sons and daughters, Working so they can be mothers and fathers, Laboring real hard, hoping the boss offers, More petty cash to us bums and paupers, Kissing his ass cuz they hoping they’ll prosper”. Other standout tracks are “Return of the B-Boy” where Lif goes through how he would defeat all the greatest rappers, finishing with an epic battle against himself, and “Earthcrusher” which describes a nuclear holocaust that would end the planet. As with most of the other releases on the Def Jux label, the beat production is on a soundscape of futuristic, space funk.
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