is a great album, one which i've listened to quite a lot in the last few months. the dmx albums i've heard don't differ greatly from each other, but everything comes together nicely on this one.
so, talk about its excellence.
― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:57 (twenty-two years ago)
10 Great things about this album:
1. “One More Road to Cross”: I like the sea-shanty chorus. Dmx’s nicely textured singing voice used to good effect. Like the line “priest scared to touch me / cos he said I gave him bad vibes.” Enjoy the description of a botched licquor store robbery too.
2. “The Professional”: nice melancholy horns on the intro. Lots of twisted violent fantasies in verse 2– strangling with chicken wire, car-bombs etc. Then a sudden turn of conscience in verse 3: “I don’t like to involve women and children / a nigger got feelings / I just put em aside…/…I don’t get much sleep, my soul’s tormented / I beg the lord to forgive me…I know I’m going to hell.” The most interesting peek into DMX’s troubled soul yet. Powerful.
3. “A Lot to Learn (skit)”/”Here we go again”:
Short skit at the start where dmx advises a greedy chum to show more loyalty. /
World-weary ballad, which takes up the story in the preceding skit. Great opening: one dmx mumbles, “same old shit, dog / just a different day” while another screams “ITS NOT A FUCKING GAME!” over piano and strings. Dmx generously decides not to kill the disloyal money-grabber, instead abandons him. Disloyal money grabber proceeds to “fuck with the competition” and, unsurprisingly gets killed by dmx for this act of petulance. Great storytelling.
4. After all that gloom, things pick up nicely with “Party Up (Up in here)”. A stomper.
5. Dmx and sisqo go well together on “What these Bitches want from a nigga?”. Dmx expresses disgust at women tempting him, when they know he’s a happily married man. Pretty sickening misogyny, but sisqo’s sweet singing voice goes well with dmx’s gruff delivery. Verse 2 is just a long list of women’s names.
6. “What’s My Name?”: Scary gothic number. Have elaborated on it’s excellence elsewhere. DMX is an angry, frustrated, lonely man “I have no friends…/…we gonna get to the bottom of this shit / if it takes all night”.
7. “More to a song”: Another good mid-tempo, worldly number: a partner to “Here We Go Again”. Like the chorus line “The game is a lot bigger than you think you know / and if you think you know / then I don’t think you know.”
8. “Don’t You Ever”: DMX pulls the same stomper-follows-worldly-ballad trick that he did in the first half. This is a partner to “Up in Here”. Boisterous party anthem, good macho chorus. I like.
9. “D-X-L” – stylish, James Bond-y number. Good three-way collaboration.
10. Prayer III – No DMX record is complete without a prayer. No musical backdrop. Strangely calming to listen to. His voice cracks with emotion.
― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)