This was the first review which had Young Marty questioning whether The Source's ratings could be trusted. Reggie Dennis' glowing review and the 3.5 mic rating rating were out-of-sync like a dubbed VHS smut movie, and I had the album before I read the review so I already knew it was far better than a 3.5 mic rating. The bit which puzzles me most nowadays is Dennis' claim that Melle Mel wrote Straight Up N*gga. The flow kinda does sound like it contains Mel-titudes, but I've never seen any actual evidence that he wrote it. You'd think that Melle Muscles would have got some sort of official writing credit by now, right? After all, Prince Whipper Whip from Grandwizard Theodore & The Fantastic Five has a co-writer credit on Fried Chicken and that's just an interlude innit.
(From O.G. Original Gangster album; 1991)
** EDIT ** Werner dropped from the rafters into my comments and came through with clarification that Melle Mel was indeed the co-writer of Straight Up N*gga and he's credit on the penultimate page of the CD booklet.
It is my understanding that while reviewers submit their own ratings, the features/sub editor takes a view of the reviews section as a whole and tries to give the reader the impression of a bell curve. I imagine everything starts off as either 1/5 or 5 /5 and then the editorial staff add a star here or knock off a mic there so most reviews fall in the middle.
ReplyDeleteAll that being said, I remember HHC giving
Scarface's "The Diary" and KRS ONE's "Return of the boom bap" 1 star - and of course there's their notorious review of Gang Starr's "Moment of truth" where Guru got 2 stars and Premo 4. I believe kids today would describe that as "optimizing engagement" or "shit posting."
Oh yeah, don't get it twisted - HHC we're guilty of various awful, baffling reviews too.
DeleteCertainly engagement bait didn't start with the internet it helped move magazines also. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOHzHVF-4Mg
DeleteThe biggest travesty was Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists leaving out O.G. in its best albums of '91 list.
ReplyDeleteStill one of my fave books, though.
Some very weird omissions in their album lists which you can't even blame on East Coast bias: Don't Sweat The Technique was M.I.A from the 1992 list and Uptown Saturday Night was M.I.A from the 1997 list.
DeleteHot take/Unpopular opinion that I never dared share on social media : The Source wasn't very good.
ReplyDeleteDidn't know about the Whipper Whip or Melle Mell thing though.
It was definitely poor as far as reviews went. The best thing about it was the interviews, pix, adverts.
DeleteCritical Beatdown was another one that got a bad review in HHC
ReplyDeleteWhich is ironic because Ultra were such U.K darlings.
DeleteI always inferred that The Source's mic system was more about recognising hotness and predicting commercial success than whether a release was good/bad. you had to actually read the reviews to find that out. Much better (from a marketing perspective) to get five mics stickers seen all over the shelves of Tower and HMV than squander the magazine's highest accolade on mailorder-only tapes/CDRs.
ReplyDeleteI've grown to hate rating systems in general.
DeleteI first heard Fried Chicken 20, 21 years after it was released -- thought it was the absolute dopest shit. Had no idea there was a video, appreciate you posting it.
ReplyDeleteHe released a VHS tape of that album with a video for every song. First rapper to do that.
Deletepre-benzino they were generally spot on but a bit stingy, 3.5 was generally a must cop/listen. regional bias sometimes played in obviously. The final rating wasn't done by the reviewer from what I remember but by the source mind squad.
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase an Ice-T song, Mind Squad over what matters.
Deletei've definitely experienced having a rating attached to my review from the editor/s. also having a review softened a bit presumably to not fuck up the magazine's relationship with an artist.
ReplyDeletecorpsey
It's official: ratings are bad.
DeleteAfter further analysis, the most annoying thing about this review is that they added the word The to the album title.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who was there, I can confirm the writer submitted the review, and then "The Source Mind Squad" determined the rating (and possibly also edited the review, although in my experience, that was mostly just down to copy-editing rather than alterations of substance), so that would definitely lead to mismatches between the number of Mics and the substance of the review. Yaknow, not getting into the whole Made Men review debacle...
ReplyDeleteAnd Mel is credited as the co-writer of "Straight Up Nigga" in the album liner notes, at least on the CD version. I know, because 1991 was that brief period when I thought I should graduate to CDs from cassettes.
Interesting. Mel's not listed on my CD which is the U.K release. Will have to dig my tape copy out and see if he's listed on there. Is Whipper Whip credited for Fried Chicken on your CD version?
DeleteWeird Mel's not credited on any of the internet listings for the album.
Yup, though he's listed as (one of several) "O.G. album connects," not co-writer like Mel.
DeleteThe next page, like right after the OG connects, it lists Daeboe as co-writer of "The Tower" and then Mel. The last interior page with text, right at the top.
ReplyDeleteGot It! Oh shit. Cheers.
DeleteSomebody needs to ask Ice about how that collaboration came about and who wrote what on the song.
Cheers. Ah yes, I see that section now. WTF @ Special K listed on Street Killer.
ReplyDeleteIn your O.G booklet where about is the Mel listing? Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place on mine.