jay-z blueprint poll

u don't know

i think we already did this?

if not, "heart of the city"

I scramble like Randall with his
Cunning-ham but the only thing runnin is numbers fam
Jigga held you down six summers; damn, where's the love?

how i'd rank them, off the top of my head:

6. U Don't Know (3:19)
8. Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love) (3:43)
2. Takeover (5:13)
11. All I Need (4:28)
12. Renegade (5:37)
10. Song Cry (5:03)
4. Girls, Girls, Girls (4:35)
5. Jigga That Nigga (3:24)
13. Blue Print (Momma Loves Me)
1. The Ruler's Back (3:49)
3. Izzo (H.O.V.A.) (4:00)
7. Hola' Hovito (4:33)
9. Never Change (3:58)

sensitive thugs, ya all need hugs

alex in bmore more or less otm

might move izzo up a couple spots.

I'd put Izzo, Blueprint, and Hola Hovito waaay higher

xpost

am i the only one who likes "never change" then

no

Girls, Girls, Girls>Blue Print

Never Change

am i the only one who likes "never change" then

-- ciderpress, Friday, November 16, 2007 2:41 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i think so.

i think "hola hovito" is top 4, too.

ok i guess not.

i voted for heart of the city anyway

"Hola Hovito" is OK (definitely not my favorite Jay album but I have to admit I don't even dislike my least favorite songs), but as far as songs that defy the album's whole aesthetic/concept I prefer "Jigga That Nigga."

yeah thats otm too

Eh, I'd take "Hovito" over "Jigga" any day.

On another note

i sell ice in the winter
i sell fire in hell
i am a hustler baby
i sell water to a well
i was born to get cake
move on & switch states
cop the coupe with the roof gone & switch plates
born to dictate never follow order dickface
get ya shit straight fucka this is big jay

6. U Don't Know (3:19)
3. Izzo (H.O.V.A.) (4:00)
1. The Ruler's Back (3:49)
8. Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love) (3:43)
2. Takeover (5:13)
11. All I Need (4:28)
7. Hola' Hovito (4:33)
9. Never Change (3:58)
10. Song Cry (5:03)
12. Renegade (5:37)
13. Blue Print (Momma Loves Me)
5. Jigga That Nigga (3:24)
4. Girls, Girls, Girls (4:35)

I voted "Izzo" cos that's the anthem

I'll never get 9/11 out of Izzo

what's the connection with 9/11?

what they did to the cold crush - never forget

^ good work

lol I see that it came out on 9/11, didn't remember that

Eminem's never topped "Renegade," but I'll vote for "Heart of the City."

Yeah Alex in B's ranking is eerily close to what mine would be:

Heart of the City
U Don't Know
The Takeover
All I Need
Renegade
Izzo (H.O.V.A.)
Song Cry
The Ruler's Back
Girls, Grils, Girls
Jigga That Nigga
Hola Hovito
The Blueprint (Momma Loves Me)
Never Change

heart of the city for me

i still might vote for something other than "U Don't Know" just because the MOP remix has completely replaced the original in my mind.

2. Takeover (5:13)
8. Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love) (3:43)
7. Hola' Hovito (4:33)
10. Song Cry (5:03)
3. Izzo (H.O.V.A.) (4:00)
4. Girls, Girls, Girls (4:35)
12. Renegade (5:37)
6. U Don't Know (3:19)

^^^ awesome
vvv not awesome

5. Jigga That Nigga (3:24)
13. Blue Print (Momma Loves Me)
9. Never Change (3:58)
1. The Ruler's Back (3:49)
11. All I Need (4:28)

"All I Need" is the great underrated track on this album i think.

"jigga that nigga" is also v awesome, if only for the fake white dude voice.

1. Girls, Girls, Girls - cut by just enough humor, a love-man rap that despite the boasts is really about letting someone into your life.
2. Izzo (H.O.V.A.) - teenybopper rap, yes, but pretty great teenybopper rap - it's, you know, got a good beat, and you can bug out to it. a little plastic, though.
3. Hola' Hovito - beat is sick (is that the Dead in the background?), if a little slow. the rapping services it a little too much at first, but comes to dominate it in the second verse, not a small feat.
4. Never Change - stubbornness=individuality. Heart of the City dreams about being this pretty.
5. Song Cry - succeeding at Sinatra doesn't give you license to go flirting with Bacharach. still, song doesn't cross the line and the lyrics are great - extra points for Four Seasons brunch.
6. Blue Print (Momma Loves Me) - affecting, and builds to subtly head-nodding. i admit to liking sentimentality more than the average bear.
7. The Ruler's Back - production as much as anything else, but a suitably regal fanfare.
8. Renegade - what, you need help? ok, it's pretty great help, and the lyrical game is raised, but the (typically downbeat/kinda shitty) production's out of place and i don't buy the persona-connection.
9. Breathe Easy (Lyrical Exercise) - spare track has better rapping than some of the regular album.
10. All I Need - wait, there's rapping on this record? interesting beat, some good lyrics, but a little too slight and long.
11. Girls Girls Girls (Remix) - Girls Girls Girls + Izzo = much less than the sum of its parts, more self-centered than the original.
12. Takeover - yeah yeah yeah. it's a beef song for 14 year olds, with a plodding beat. don't make me listen to the Doors, dude.
13. Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love) - good if MOR production, but song's a little whiny and boring, and while I don't like Nas nearly as much, he's a more convincing old-school exponent.
14. Jigga That Nigga - points for rapping, i guess, but other than the "gnarly, dude" line, just a rap-by-numbers track that probably could have fit in nicely on blueprint 2.
15. U Don't Know - ok, that one couplet is great, but shut up already, Alvin. basically an annoying backing track with some dude talking on it - bring on Brownsville.

switch 9 and 10?

takeover

vvv not awesome

5. Jigga That Nigga (3:24)
13. Blue Print (Momma Loves Me)
9. Never Change (3:58)
1. The Ruler's Back (3:49)
11. All I Need (4:28)

-- The Reverend, Saturday, 17 November 2007 07:25

wow how you get so wrong

out of that group, only "jigga that nigga" is actually "awesome"

smh

The Ruler's Back on good speakers is the flyest shit ever.

All I Need = classic just for the opening 30 seconds

Never Change = man are you deaf or what

Blue Print = meh

Jigga That Nigga = god i hate that song

no 'all i need' is hot too:

"All I Need" is the great underrated track on this album i think.

-- Tim F, Saturday, 17 November 2007 13:32 (8 hours ago) Link

Jigga That Nigga = god i hate that song

why??

I didn't say those songs were bad. There isn't a bad song on the album. They just don't bowl me over with their awesomeness, that is all.

I was more responding to the Sarge

all i need is great, but the opening "fuck it, I guess I got my swagger back" is like yoga flame

"ruler's back" is okay, those horns annoy me. "never change" is aiiight, but in between "heart of the city" and "song cry" it's kinda out of it's league, and "all i need" is good not great.

"The Ruler's Back" = starting point of "Jay-Z in Vegas" sound.

All I Need is the hardest to place - I could put it as high as 5th - but if all he needs is, you know, one mic, then why are Kanye and the Chipmunks all over the album?

ok, I should have put Heart of the City a few places higher

All I Need is the hardest to place - I could put it as high as 5th - but if all he needs is, you know, one mic, then why are Kanye and the Chipmunks all over the album?

-- gabbneb, Saturday, November 17, 2007 4:13 PM (Saturday, November 17, 2007 4:13 PM) Bookmark Link

Mix up Nas & Jay-Z tunes much?

well duh it's between that and the song it precedes but i love them both pretty equally

gotta
.
.
.
project chick

that's spanish chick, french chick, indian, and black
that's fried chicken, curry chicken, damn i'm gettin fat

Would've voted for "u don't know," some days it's my fave Hov

arroz con polio

said last night that "Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love)" a better NYC anthem than "Empire State of Mind" and the guys looked at me like I'd said "Blue Magic" was J's best.

if the city of New York was an anthropomorphic figure, I'm sure it would have extended two middle fingers to Jay for "Empire".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knnIEY3bmQI

1. all i need
2. u don't know
3. song cry
4. ain't no love
5. never change
6. momma loves me
7. ruler's back
8. hola hovito
9. jigga that nigga
10. izzo
11. girls girls girls
12. renegade
13. takeover

13. takeover

wat

even if nas can forgive and forget, i never can

lol

hahaha

legends/myths believed by nas stans

I would've voted "U Don't Know"

come on the track like duh duh duhduh

ether is classic material... takeover sounds like will.i.am rap

-- and what, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:31 (7 months ago) Link

wait this is actually another one of the legends/myths believed by nas stans, right?

― Alex in Baltimore, Saturday, 19 April 2008 05:35 (5 years ago) Permalink

never was a huge fan of "takeover" either, though (i'd guess like dylan) i was kind of a big nas stan at the time they were really beefing. even now that i think jay's had the better career (probably the goat for me) i still think ether's the better song

depending what day you ask me, I might say "Takeover"'s the best rap song of the 2000s

honestly a claim like that fills me with boiling rage 10 years after the fact.

gotta
.
.
.
project chick

― k3vin k., Monday, December 17, 2012 11:51 PM (6 months ago)

remember when jay made rapping seem like fun?

least convincing song ever recorded on the topic of girls

>:[ in what way? GGG is like top 5 jay songs for me

1. jay just pulls off his paranoia about females and lowkey misogyny so much better. even on "song cry" i'm sort of feeling the part about "used to tell their friends i was ugly and wouldn't touch me / then I showed up in that dubbed out buggy...."
2. it doesn't work as a song in praise of women because jay is so disconnected and uninterested in anything but rice and racial stereotypes.
3. it's not sexy, either.
4. he never even talks about fucking these girls. what's he doing with them?
5. "what tribe you with, red dot or feather?" etc.
6. always liked the "trying girls out" kanye beat on the bonus better. throwing it away on a consequence deep album cut would have been preferable to squandering it on a hidden track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY6JklZNndA

The "trying girls out" beat is maybe my favourite capital letters Kanye Beat.

yeahhh the bonus track is incredible

i don't disagree that there are some...problems with jay's perspective on his relationships with these women, but i am human and revel in my contradictions. there's just so much joy there

"girls girls girls" is just a silly-ass song with a great chorus and some funny asshole punchlines, i wouldn't really look to it as an example of jay's thoughts 'on the topic of women' beyond just hey look what a dick he was before he settled down

sorry, i'm too hung up on authenticity. jay on girls is like jadakiss still talking about selling heroin.

>:[ in what way? GGG is like top 5 jay songs for me

and def my second favorite track

GGGs always just seemed so dumb to me.

jadakiss is an inveterate liar, he never had a car the color of aioli, sourdough bread or turkey bacon

said last night that "Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love)" a better NYC anthem than "Empire State of Mind" and the guys looked at me like I'd said "Blue Magic" was J's best.

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, July 7, 2013 9:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the most baffling comment beneath my MCHG piece was someone saying they couldn't take my opinion seriously after i'd written that "heart of the city" is my favourite jay-z song. wtf is wrong with it? people will rep for post-2004 jay-z over it? ugh.

yeah that's a pretty respectable favorite

from, like, any angle

someone said in the Yeezus thread that there exists a divide between early and late nineties Kanye; it's the same concept for J, only the marker is 2004.

yes but that's completely insane

Age + sentimentality about moments of clarity, I guess

Heart of the city ,easily my fav jay tune too.

I just overheard a guy who said that MCHG was better than Vol 1 AND Vol 3 today.

Threw out my back throwing him off a freeway obv

but yeah I like The Black Album at all but ain't no comparison between it and the first six albums.

I just overheard a guy who said that MCHG was better than Vol 1 AND Vol 3 today.

screamed a little

Gotta learn to live with regrets

Heart of the city ,easily my fav jay tune too.

― So: The Answers (or something)

Same here.

the most baffling comment beneath my MCHG piece was someone saying they couldn't take my opinion seriously after i'd written that "heart of the city" is my favourite jay-z song. wtf is wrong with it? people will rep for post-2004 jay-z over it? ugh.

― lex pretend, Monday, July 8, 2013 4:16 AM Bookmark

such a weird objection

I wouldn't get too worked up over it (not that you are!). It appears someone blew a dog whistle summoning the Jay-Z Challops Pride Parade to the comments section of every review of MCHG posted.

hell someone even went as far as saying Vol 1 is the worst Jay-Z. Christ!

for some reason that album's rep has never completely recovered from when it dropped and was jay's supposed wack sellout move. completely laughable opinion, still.

ha, that reminds me that "Who You Wit" is the first Jay-z song I heard

I thought Vol 1 was Jay's first album til about when Blueprint dropped