Artist: Jay-Z
Album: The Blueprint 3
Year: 2009
Grade: 2.5 pretzels
Jay-Z has plenty to be confident about. He’s a hugely successful musician who has also become one of the premier businessmen in the music industry. He overcame a rough upbringing and he’s widely respected by his peers and contemporaries. He’s even living a storybook romance with his marriage to Beyonce. I mean, how often does the strong, successful man actually end up with the strong, successful (and beautiful) woman? These things just don’t happen in real life. Going back to 2001’s masterful The Blueprint, Jay-Z has spent the better part of this decade celebrating his success through his music, and rightly so, given all that he’s accomplished. However, here in 2009, that confidence is starting to get old.
One complaint I’ve heard leveled against the original The Blueprint is that Jay-Z’s bragging and swagger comes across as a bit desperate. I’ve never bought into this, since The Blueprint feels like a completely appropriate victory lap for a man who worked very hard to get where he was. However, The Blueprint 3 definitely sounds a bit forced and flailing. For one, how many times does Jay need to remind us that his past ten albums have hit number one on the charts? While that is quite an achievement, it’s the kind of thing you only need to say once to shut anyone up. After repeating that fact upwards of five times over the course of the album, The Blueprint 3 comes across a bit like someone trying to remind people not to forget about him.
Then we have the overabundance of guest artists. Not unlike Nas’ classic Illmatic, The Blueprint (the first one) gained much strength and potency from its lack of guest appearances, with the one major exception of Eminem, whose verses on “Renegade” are too fantastic to not be included. However, The Blueprint 3 is flooded with guests, ranging from Alicia Keys all the way to Luke Steele, an Australian alt-rocker. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with guest spots, here, they bring little to a show that is almost completely about Jay-Z. Even worse, a few of these appearances are less than enjoyable, especially Rihanna’s grating hook for “Run This Town”. Kayne West also drops by on the same song, delivering some of the worst euphemisms since “My Humps”: “she got an ass that’ll swallow up a g-string, and up top…uhhh…two bee stings.” Ew.
Speaking of Kanye…one of the album’s most awkward moments comes on “D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune)”, the album’s first single. By including this vicious attack on the masculinity of rappers who are buying into the recent craze surrounding Auto-Tuned vocals, Jay seems to have forgotten that Kanye, one of the most prominent Auto-Tune abusers, produced almost half of the album’s tracks. Coupled with the fact that he comes across as a aging rapper bitching about trends that all the young whippersnappers are buying into, it’s not exactly Jay’s most biting diss song.
Despite all the surface boasting, The Blueprint 3 doesn’t sound like an album fueled by confidence. Jay-Z definitely comes across as a bit desperate and behind the times, despite trying to explicitly say that he’s not on several tracks. Also, not unlike the second entry in his Blueprint Trilogy, the music also disappoints on The Blueprint 3, especially on “On To The Next One” and “Hate”, two songs that feature irritatingly repetitive beats that rival Lil’ Wayne’s “A Milli”. The album lacks a knockout single or radio-dominating anthem. It has no identity or coherent emotional core. Basically, it’s your quintessential disappointing sequel.
One complaint I’ve heard leveled against the original The Blueprint is that Jay-Z’s bragging and swagger comes across as a bit desperate. I’ve never bought into this, since The Blueprint feels like a completely appropriate victory lap for a man who worked very hard to get where he was. However, The Blueprint 3 definitely sounds a bit forced and flailing. For one, how many times does Jay need to remind us that his past ten albums have hit number one on the charts? While that is quite an achievement, it’s the kind of thing you only need to say once to shut anyone up. After repeating that fact upwards of five times over the course of the album, The Blueprint 3 comes across a bit like someone trying to remind people not to forget about him.
Then we have the overabundance of guest artists. Not unlike Nas’ classic Illmatic, The Blueprint (the first one) gained much strength and potency from its lack of guest appearances, with the one major exception of Eminem, whose verses on “Renegade” are too fantastic to not be included. However, The Blueprint 3 is flooded with guests, ranging from Alicia Keys all the way to Luke Steele, an Australian alt-rocker. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with guest spots, here, they bring little to a show that is almost completely about Jay-Z. Even worse, a few of these appearances are less than enjoyable, especially Rihanna’s grating hook for “Run This Town”. Kayne West also drops by on the same song, delivering some of the worst euphemisms since “My Humps”: “she got an ass that’ll swallow up a g-string, and up top…uhhh…two bee stings.” Ew.
Speaking of Kanye…one of the album’s most awkward moments comes on “D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune)”, the album’s first single. By including this vicious attack on the masculinity of rappers who are buying into the recent craze surrounding Auto-Tuned vocals, Jay seems to have forgotten that Kanye, one of the most prominent Auto-Tune abusers, produced almost half of the album’s tracks. Coupled with the fact that he comes across as a aging rapper bitching about trends that all the young whippersnappers are buying into, it’s not exactly Jay’s most biting diss song.
Despite all the surface boasting, The Blueprint 3 doesn’t sound like an album fueled by confidence. Jay-Z definitely comes across as a bit desperate and behind the times, despite trying to explicitly say that he’s not on several tracks. Also, not unlike the second entry in his Blueprint Trilogy, the music also disappoints on The Blueprint 3, especially on “On To The Next One” and “Hate”, two songs that feature irritatingly repetitive beats that rival Lil’ Wayne’s “A Milli”. The album lacks a knockout single or radio-dominating anthem. It has no identity or coherent emotional core. Basically, it’s your quintessential disappointing sequel.
You don't think Empire State of Mind is a worthy single for this album?
ReplyDeleteEveryone on my floor has been blasting that song.