My Two Cent on some music.

This is an album review. You might be thinking okay but this isn't any ordinary album review. It's an album review for the most important album of the year. Yes, you guessed it. This is an album review for 808's & heartbreak. Mind you the album cover probably gave it away. However I don't believe it is an exaggeration, 808's may not be the best album of the year but it is probably the most important. Why ? you ask. Well it's simple really, we all want to know how Kanye West follows up the magnum opus known as "Graduation". Not only that you want to know, what the hell is Kanye West doing ? Can he really make a good album with auto tune ? Who does he think he is ? Well if you care enough all these questions can be answered, all you have to do is press play.

But back to the review. I'll start off track by track like I usually do and as soon as you press play, you get what this whole album is going to be like. Say you will sets the mood and it's probably not what you expected from the leaks. The passion and direction Kanye is putting in is very blatant. However I believe this song is way too long, I actually got bored 3 minutes in and I really couldn't care less how it ended.

The next song is the whole album in one track. It has one of the best beats Kanye's ever produced ( up their but not quite touching flashing lights). It really stays true to the theme as well as giving you a proper introduction to the album.

I love heartless. The song is great, it's a story which fits almost every relationship. Anyone can listen to this song and relate.

Now what do I say about this one. I like it, Kanye sounds good to me with the auto tune aka vocal steroids. Turn your base up and this beat sounds beasty. It's possibly the most hip hop feely track on the whole album, even though in my opinion this hip hop feel ruins the track. Or maybe I'm just hating on Jeezy. This tracks aight.

Love Lockdown is okay I guess. I say that because at first I hated it, but this song is so catchy you actually can't hate it. I still don't like it but it's bearable.

The next two tracks are shit. I have nothing more to say about them maybe I'll grow to like them but some how I doubt it. They really don't fit the rest of the album once you listen to it, you'll understand what I mean.

This song to me displays how versatile this guy is. Street Lights is nice point blank .

And I'm gonna end the track by track there. You can comment on the other tracks if you wish. I'm gonna use this space to conclude my feelings about this album. I really didn't want to like this album, I really prefer Kanye rapping. So it comes off like I really like this album but I do believe it has it's weaknesses. It's really boring at times because Kanye isn't the best song writer. He repeats a lot of verses and lines or drops in a repetitive manner making the album very boring at times. Also it's by no means a hip hop album. To me it really felt like an RnB album. Kanye is new to everything he is doing artistically on this album and it really shows except in the production because he isn't new to that. It's actually a really really good album production wise. It's still not by any means Kanye's best though, I'd take the other 3 over this any day.

But due to his high standards I still have to give this album a 7/10. Guess this album wasn't that heartbreaking after all.





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Recommended Anime:

Well my "For All you Anime & Manga Fans" post was all about trying to get people to start watching Anime and reading Manga. However i noticed that most people find it really hard to concentrate when reading manga and it takes time to get into it. So in the meantime have a look at some of these series...
The reviews are a bit longish but cover all the basis...




Well First up is Darker than Black. Well where do I start with this one, it has been one hell of an adventure (literally). Darker than Black takes place in a near future world where two gates appeared, Heaven's Gate and Hell's Gate. The mysterious appearance of these gates brought with them the Contractors. Contractors are people who have entered into a contract with an unknown force and gained a unique power in return.

The animation and art style of Darker than Black are superb. Each character is completely unique and unlike some other shows with several similar looking characters, Darker than Black does an excellent job of giving each character an unique style and a winning personality. The fights of Darker than Black are done very well and are very fluid.

The soundtrack for Darker than Black is up there with my favourites of all time. An excellent mix of various genres of music. At one point it will be a jazz track, then later it will be an orchestra piece or a rock track. Overall the music is really well done and accurately depicts the scene.



Secondly, we have Black Lagoon. One of the darkest animes I've seen in my life, Black Lagoon portrays quite brilliantly the gritty and obscene lives of mercenaries for hire and the underworld of crime. Casting an academic and otherwise completely innocent person as the protagonist just makes this anime even more explicit and realistic than any other.

The story follows a team of mercenaries known as Lagoon Company, who smuggle goods in and around the seas of Southeast Asia. Their base of operations is located in... the fictional city of Roanapur in Thailand, and they transport goods in the PT boat Black Lagoon. Lagoon Company does business with various clients, but has a particularly friendly relationship with the Russian crime syndicate Hotel Moscow. The team takes on a variety of missions - which may involve violent firefights, hand-to-hand combat, and nautical battles - in various Southeast Asian locations and when not doing much, the members of the Lagoon Company spend much of their down time at The Yellow Flag, a bar in Roanapur.

The characters in this anime stay in the mind long after the anime is over. The story follows the plot-line of Rock, a Japanese salaryman kidnapped in the early episodes by the crew of Black Lagoon which provided the various main characters of Revy, Dutch, and Benny. Rock of course is the gentlest of the crew as he gradually assimilates after the various bloody mercenary jobs he undertakes. Using reasoned arguments and persuasion, he's the counterpoint to the jaded and oftentimes brutal teammates.

In the last point, specifically to Revy a hardened Chinese lady mercenary whose looks hide a merciless and cold exterior. She likes to systematically take apart the enemy and relishes gunfights. However, later she develops feelings for Rock.

The main point of this anime lies in the fact that the world is cruel, and dark. Throughout the series, Black Lagoon crew takes pay for various dangerous and very gruesome jobs, often paid for by Balalaika, the cynical lady boss of the elite Russian Mafia whose members consisted of basically "Russian SWAT".

The episodes are usually gritty and dark with plenty of disturbing themes and pulse pounding action. In this aspect, the gunfights are simply spectacular and perhaps the best in anime. It is definitely something worth seeing.



Last but not least , we have Fate stay night. This is a great show that with loads of suspense, drama, and action. From start to finish it proved to be a fantastic anime. The plot was sophisticated but not extremely complicated. It started off with a pretty basic idea; seven masters and servants fighting to obtain the holy grail, but the further into it I got the more the story started to twist and the plot got more complicated. The conclusion was very clever as every twist began to line up and the final battle ended with a bang.

Everything is well drawn and there are some real kick-ass fighting scenes. There wasn't much off the usual things you see like chibi or their heads get gigantic when they're yelling at someone. Fight scenes are great. The only problem was there were one or two occasions when some drawings didn't match the anime but aside from that it pretty good.

One thing I can say about this anime is that I never got bored watching it. I was kind of disappointed with the small amount a comedy(there are several times I found myself laughing) but it was made up for with tons of drama stuffed into the anime.

It wasn't an absolutely perfect anime but it was exceptionally great with a very interesting plot. This anime is, of course, one of my favourites and if you haven't watched it yet you don't know what your missing.

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Review For Elzhi - The Preface.

I think elzhi is the saviour of hiphop, I think he is the best raw talent in hiphop since the kid with a chipped tooth from Queensbridge. So it's no suprise that I was really eager for the preface to drop, I expected it not only to be the best album this year but the best album i've heard in the last 5 years.

So the preface drops i'm on Holiday doing some other shit so I don't hear it(hence the late review), but I get back and I finally get round to listening to it and i'm impressed it's a strong effort, a great album however it's no classic.

The beats are great. I've always loved black milks production and he doesn't fail to deliver here all of his beats have a good feel to them, but their isn't really any dark feeling beats and that's not a bad thing but some concepts that elzhi seems to be exploring on this album don't really seem to suit black milks production style (a perfect example of this would be "D.E.M.O.N.S").There's two tracks not produced by black milk aswell the one track produced by T3 is probably my favourite beat on the album.Overall the production on this album is solid and not really a problem.

Now Elzhi himself, the man of the moment is great on this album he has mastered his craft and has a style which just sounds great to listen to. The way he uses multiple rhymes and big syllables whilst still flowing perfectly is so impressive that sometimes you just listen and be like "Dayum". It's evident he puts alot of work into perfecting his rhymes.

But like I said it still isn't a classic. The beats are great and so is elzhi, however the album just doesn't coalesce. It's a very strong album but doesn't have that masterpiece feel that illmatic for example has, I guess what i'm trying to say is that the album really lacks focus. It's just 16 tracks one after another and get's a little boring at times, there's also no tracks I was like damn I have to go back to that (maybe motown 25). Don't get me wrong it's still a very good album but Elzhi could do so much better and it doesn't really live upto the expectation I had, I was expecting a masterpiece and Elzhi just delivered a very good album, this would be okay most of the time but I really want this dude to make it and to get that acclaim he really needed a classic. Alot to ask but if any new rapper can do it, it's Elzhi.

Overall a very good album and definetly worth a listen 8.5/10 Read more.