Matt's first post.

Hello, Matt here, with my first of hopefully many posts. I'm a friend of Ozzie and Moose and they've taken the stupid gamble of letting me post on here... apologies in advance!

So I thought I'd start off with the overdone, cliched notion of a top 5 records of the moment, just to give an idea of the sort of things I'll be posting in the future; some of it will be old, some new, some hip hop, some not, some you'll hate, and some you'll hopefully enjoy. The whole point for me is to show people new music they wouldn't have heard otherwise, probably through choice, but which MAYBE they might want to play to again.

Right then. First album:
Nas - Illmatic.
Obviously from the first listen this was always going to be a favourite... Nas has it all here, engaging, storytelling lyrics, some of the smoothest delivery I've heard on any record before or since, all sitting on top of some hard beats vs vintage funk, courtesy of Premo, Large Professor, Q-tip and Pete Rock. Got me into hip hop, and will keep doing the same to others for a long time yet.

Download


Demon Days - Gorillaz.
A huge album - effortlessly moving from lo-fi pseudo hip hop (November Has Come) to euphoric, bizarre dub-soul (Demon Days)... with a fair bit inbetween. Cameos from MF Doom, Bootie Brown (Pharcyde), Shaun Ryder, De la Soul, and bunch of other unexpected people make for an intriguing first listen, which really does grow until all other forms of music seem... redundant. And as for the videos - I don't even want to know how they make cartoons that sexy and terrifying.

Download


Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
No tricks here, just a phenomenal indie record from one of the greatest, most underrated bands from the UK. Endless re-releases, missing songs, crap videos, huge egos and lawsuits SHOULD have made this a disaster of a debut - but the fact is, it flows beautifully from start to finish, Ian Brown is enigmatic yet incredibly forthcoming, and the instrumentals show what a great band the Stone Roses could, and should, have been... and for a couple of years why they were the most exciting band on the world.

Download


The Masterplan - Oasis
OK so everyone knows Oasis, but not as many people have heard their best album... forget Definately Maybe, this collection of pre-1998 B-sides is their greatest work. Noel is at his best on Half The World Away, Talk Tonight and the title track, Liam sounds halfway to articulate on Listen Up and Rocking Chair, and there are even some clues to their early punk influences in Headshrinker and Fade Away. A live version of I Am The Walrus sums up the audacity, and bravery of the record - even the Beatles never played this one live...

Download


Anthology - A Tribe Called Quest
Yeah I know, putting a best of is lame... but how could I pick from the first 3 albums!? Regardless this isn't a bad compilation; all the best songs from a career-spanning 5 discs in all the right places, and I can't turn ATCQ off at the moment so they had to feature in the top 5...

Download


Long first post! Peace.