I hate it when people resort to the criticism that "all the songs sound the same" when discussing an album, because it usually just means that they didn't expend enough effort to try to identify exactly why they didn't like it. That's why I feel so bad in thinking that all the songs on
The Low End Theory sound the same. Well ok, that's not entirely true. MOST of them do, especially on the first three-fourths of the album. I just get tired of the same formula, song after song. The vocal delivery rarely deviates from the path established on the first track, a sort of lazy lyric recital so controlled that it almosts sounds robotic. Many of the tracks share a similar sounding dirty bass rhythm that continues on and on with little to no variation or shift in momentum. I'm also beginning to despise the technique of cutting out the music mid-song and having the rapper finish his line in silence for a few brief seconds. It's especially annoying when you can count on it happening once or twice on EVERY song. I wish I could say more, but there just isn't enough going on in the music to explore any further. Based on these and previous comments, it would seem as if I hate this album, which really isn't the case. I'm just trying to get across how unexciting it all sounds. An album like this can only work if the rapper has an engaging voice, or if the beats and rhythms are interesting enough to carry you through the long stretches where there's nothing going on. A few of the tracks, like "Butter" and "Verses From The Abstract" succeed at the latter on some level, but I'm really not in much of a mood to talk about those right now.
I think "The Low End Theory Week" was a bad idea. I thought that given time, I would be able to understand what other people liked about it, and maybe come around to an artist that I had unfairly neglected. I've listened to
The Low End Theory five times since Monday and I haven't really discovered anything about the music that I wasn't already aware of. This just seems to be a case of dislike by preference rather than dislike due to ignorance, like I had originally thought. I've gotten so used to the idea of an album "growing" on me, that I forgot my first impression is allowed to be right every once in while.
Ok, so that's enough. No more
Low End Theory. This thing is going back on the shelf to collect more dust.
