Vinyl Me Please Rap & Hip Hop

The issue with a lot of the VMP ROTMs is even ignoring the skits these albums are LONG, so it's hard to do a very singular no stop listen since it's around 70-80 minutes and full of bloat and skits (ending a side with a 30-60 second skit doesn't work for me unless you are Kendrick).. most of these albums had a lot of tracks so you thought you got a lot from your cd and you were almost expected to do at least a couple skips, not possible on vinyl
 
duke86fan said:
The issue with a lot of the VMP ROTMs is even ignoring the skits these albums are LONG, so it's hard to do a very singular no stop listen since it's around 70-80 minutes and full of bloat and skits (ending a side with a 30-60 second skit doesn't work for me unless you are Kendrick).. most of these albums had a lot of tracks so you thought you got a lot from your cd and you were almost expected to do at least a couple skips, not possible on vinyl
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TBF, the bloat you're speaking of is a issue you have with the albums. So, I wouldn't say it's "the issue". Perhaps 90's to early-aughts (when skits we're almost a staple) hip hop isn't for you as an album experience?

I, personally, have no issue with skits. Most albums don't have interminably long skits and some have become so ingrained in the experience of the album that they would feel empty (less of an artistic statement) without them.

I will submit this for your consideration: you may be a victim (of your own perpetration) of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In so much, that you, at some point, convinced yourself you don't like skits; or that you don't have the patience to sit down for a long listen. So, now if you see a run time of >X or lots of skits you immediately dismiss the listening experience. Now, this may not be the case at all. But it's something to consider. Sometimes we adopt a viewpoint and continue to hold it, even if we don't periodically reevaluate. I thought cole slaw was gross as a child. I'm glad I tried it as an adult!
 
Lord Diaper Baby said:
TBF, the bloat you're speaking of is a issue you have with the albums. So, I wouldn't say it's "the issue". Perhaps 90's to early-aughts (when skits we're almost a staple) hip hop isn't for you as an album experience?

I, personally, have no issue with skits. Most albums don't have interminably long skits and some have become so ingrained in the experience of the album that they would feel empty (less of an artistic statement) without them.

I will submit this for your consideration: you may be a victim (of your own perpetration) of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In so much, that you, at some point, convinced yourself you don't like skits; or that you don't have the patience to sit down for a long listen. So, now if you see a run time of >X or lots of skits you immediately dismiss the listening experience. Now, this may not be the case at all. But it's something to consider. Sometimes we adopt a viewpoint and continue to hold it, even if we don't periodically reevaluate. I thought cole slaw was gross as a child. I'm glad I tried it as an adult!
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I don't know, very few skits are what I could call artistic statements and 90s-00s hip hop suffered from the "every album has to be 78 or 79 minutes" syndrome. I grew up in that era and they were overlong then.
 
wmeugene said:
I don't know, very few skits are what I could call artistic statements and 90s-00s hip hop suffered from the "every album has to be 78 or 79 minutes" syndrome. I grew up in that era and they were overlong then.
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Yes that's when I grew up. I hope it doesn't seem that "artistic statement" is some rarefied term that with their skits they're creating an aural Mona Lisa. But I do mean it as part of the larger work of taking disparate tracks and creating a bookended world with that album. Wu Tang and member albums were especially good at this. These are albums that wouldn't be the same without then. Yes - they wouldn't be the same because that's how we know then but I think they serve an artistic purpose regardless.

Is every skit a winner? Heck, no. And your point stands as well. But to just see a run time or that it has a bunch of 30sec - 1:30 skits woven throughout and make a call outside of it's context is setting up for failure.
 
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I see it as an effect of hip hop reaching commercial and artistic peaks in the age of the CD... rock from the era doesn't usually have skits, but a lot of albums from the CD era also could have benefited from a trim down to a 45-minute runtime.
 
Lord Diaper Baby said:
TBF, the bloat you're speaking of is a issue you have with the albums. So, I wouldn't say it's "the issue". Perhaps 90's to early-aughts (when skits we're almost a staple) hip hop isn't for you as an album experience?

I, personally, have no issue with skits. Most albums don't have interminably long skits and some have become so ingrained in the experience of the album that they would feel empty (less of an artistic statement) without them.

I will submit this for your consideration: you may be a victim (of your own perpetration) of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In so much, that you, at some point, convinced yourself you don't like skits; or that you don't have the patience to sit down for a long listen. So, now if you see a run time of >X or lots of skits you immediately dismiss the listening experience. Now, this may not be the case at all. But it's something to consider. Sometimes we adopt a viewpoint and continue to hold it, even if we don't periodically reevaluate. I thought cole slaw was gross as a child. I'm glad I tried it as an adult!
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thats a very good point... i did have a similar kind of aversion to certain genres I'm only recently getting more adept in listening to (used to be the open nerd who didn't really get jazz but finding a lot of stuff I honesty like that new album from vijay iyer)..

also I think another part of the issue is the fact that these skits are always like right at the end of an LP side... since I kinda wonder if the album just wasn't really tailored to a vinyl record (since i think anyone can agree these LPs were made for CDs and back then having a small amount of tracks was considered less bang for the buck or something)..
 
LeSamourai said:
I see it as an effect of hip hop reaching commercial and artistic peaks in the age of the CD... rock from the era doesn't usually have skits, but a lot of albums from the CD era also could have benefited from a trim down to a 45-minute runtime.
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I remember falling victim to the "pack as much in as you can" line of thinking back in the 90s/00s for sure. I'd be choked if a CD clocked in at less than an hour unless I was specifically buying a single or EP. Now I'm definitely far happier with a blazing 27-45 minutes than most of the long albums I told myself were so great back then. Obviously there are exceptions, but a lot of that shit could use an editor for sure.
 
LeSamourai said:
I see it as an effect of hip hop reaching commercial and artistic peaks in the age of the CD... rock from the era doesn't usually have skits, but a lot of albums from the CD era also could have benefited from a trim down to a 45-minute runtime.
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and its not like the CD era means no good albums that were deserving of that length existed.... stankonia was long and fantastic.. same with muddy waters for the most part (I still feel like the skits should not have been at the end of a side though.. it kinda make it feel longer with all the repetition), hell college dropout even though it also had skits many criticized i felt deserved its length even with the skits

and of course there is a ton of wu tangs work.. even though i kinda feel like fishscale was a little overrated because its not as great as critics said
 
Lord Diaper Baby said:
Yes that's when I grew up. I hope it doesn't seem that "artistic statement" is some rarefied term that with their skits they're creating an aural Mona Lisa. But I do mean it as part of the larger work of taking disparate tracks and creating a bookended world with that album. Wu Tang and member albums were especially good at this. These are albums that wouldn't be the same without then. Yes - they wouldn't be the same because that's how we know then but I think they serve an artistic purpose regardless.

Is every skit a winner? Heck, no. And your point stands as well. But to just see a run time or that it has a bunch of 30sec - 1:30 skits woven throughout and make a call outside of it's context is setting up for failure.
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I hate skits & skip them when I can. I grew up in that era too, so for all those early De La, Wu-Tang, Redman, Bad Boy, Eminem, etc albums, the skits are ingrained in my brain as part of the album. But I still skip them when I can. I edited them out of my digital copies. There’s a reason they went out of fashion around the mid-00s - a lot of people didn’t really care for them.

That being said, they don’t really affect my ability to enjoy an album or decision to buy something on vinyl.
 
avecigrec said:
I remember falling victim to the "pack as much in as you can" line of thinking back in the 90s/00s for sure. I'd be choked if a CD clocked in at less than an hour unless I was specifically buying a single or EP. Now I'm definitely far happier with a blazing 27-45 minutes than most of the long albums I told myself were so great back then. Obviously there are exceptions, but a lot of that shit could use an editor for sure.
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I remember seeing the runtime pop up on my CD player, and the same thing happened - "what?! ONLY 50 minutes!?"

duke86fan said:
and its not like the CD era means no good albums that were deserving of that length existed.... stankonia was long and fantastic.. same with muddy waters for the most part (I still feel like the skits should not have been at the end of a side though.. it kinda make it feel longer with all the repetition), hell college dropout even though it also had skits many criticized i felt deserved its length even with the skits

and of course there is a ton of wu tangs work.. even though i kinda feel like fishscale was a little overrated because its not as great as critics said
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Definitely- lots of great longer albums as well, in lots of genres, that used the CD format and the extra time well!
 
Obligatory old millenial experience meme (I'm a baby of the 80s but my dad adopted CDs right away, so I never had a record player in my house growing up):

57spax.jpg
 
LeSamourai said:
Obligatory old millenial experience meme (I'm a baby of the 80s but my dad adopted CDs right away, so I never had a record player in my house growing up):

57spax.jpg
Click to expand...
immediately after millenials it was all about streaming and suddenly you have unlimited space for putting songs on an album....


but also since billboard didn't even count streams yet and people were getting a bit of length burnout (if just because the amount of songs was just so much), rap times got shorter overall.. to a more pleasant 40-60 minutes...


then billboard decided to chart streaming, and pop artists realized they were so big that when their album dropped it was the main focus of the week (thanks views)... and so now a lot of albums have like 20 songs (example.. culture was a pretty solid album, and definitely the best migos project and it was only 13 songs.. nice and comfortable listen... then culture II happened and you had 24 tracks and almost 2 hours that just expects that you are going to skip a bunch of the songs)... actually maybe the problem is the fact that we now have the ability to skip songs that albums got so much longer and bunched together... because they knew that you could just skip any track you didn't like

I think with tiktok this might actually be changing a bit... not because of less songs because that's not going away.. but song lengths are shorter to get more of an immediate and quotable song
 
duke86fan said:
immediately after millenials it was all about streaming and suddenly you have unlimited space for putting songs on an album....


but also since billboard didn't even count streams yet and people were getting a bit of length burnout (if just because the amount of songs was just so much), rap times got shorter overall.. to a more pleasant 40-60 minutes...


then billboard decided to chart streaming, and pop artists realized they were so big that when their album dropped it was the main focus of the week (thanks views)... and so now a lot of albums have like 20 songs (example.. culture was a pretty solid album, and definitely the best migos project and it was only 13 songs.. nice and comfortable listen... then culture II happened and you had 24 tracks and almost 2 hours that just expects that you are going to skip a bunch of the songs)... actually maybe the problem is the fact that we now have the ability to skip songs that albums got so much longer and bunched together... because they knew that you could just skip any track you didn't like

I think with tiktok this might actually be changing a bit... not because of less songs because that's not going away.. but song lengths are shorter to get more of an immediate and quotable song
Click to expand...

I've noticed a bifurcation- a lot of albums in the more independent sectors have moved to vinyl-length, while artists who are aiming for the charts and gaming the new streaming count system and such offer up 20-song behemoths. BUT, it's all anecdotal, I wonder what would happen if someone crunched the numbers... *heads off to see if any research has been done*
 
My PUTS arrived today... and it's warped with clicks and pops on the first track.

SIGH... I'm so tired.

Edit: Yep, on visual inspection there is a small scratch across the beginning of the first track. Hope they've got replacements for this, given it was limited stock in swaps...
 
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