Monday 3 August 2020

It's a heavy tale like Melville's book about the whale

The Jacka - Aspen
(From AP.9 Presents: The Mob Movement; 2007/The Street Album; 2008)



Here is somethin' I just can't understand: why did Jacka & his team leave Aspen off Tear Gas? When an artist has a single that's as capital A anthemic as Aspen you don't relegate that shit to the sidepiece street album mixtape, you throw that shit on the official album as one of the big opening tracks. Ideally, Rule The World would have been the regal Tear Gas intro with Aspen as the blockbuster opening track thereafter - works a treat musically and conceptually since the last line of Rule The World is "my n*ggas be jumpin' snow cliffs without the ski's." Amirite? Yes, I am:

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tear Gas was a mess.

Ben said...

Heavy Rain should have been on Tear Gas also.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Absolutely to both posts.

Anonymous said...

What did you feel were the best songs on Tear Gas?

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Won't Be Right, Glamorous Lifestyle, Dopest Forreal, Storm, Our Heroes.

As an 80s Beasties fan, of course I dug Girls too.

Ray Garraty said...

Jack left a lot of his first rate stuff off his solo albums.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

He didn't during The Jack Artist era. That's why it's his best album.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Related: Dip W/U is so much better than the Matt Blaque trax on Tear Gas innit?

"I remember hustlin' rocks just to cop clothes at the mall
Now I'm hotter than the time you sprayed cologne on ya balls"

rymsnitch said...

Aspen was the song that turned me into a fan. Tear Gas is brilliant though, it's obviously a departure from the introspective and more uniform Jacka Artist but I like that he actually tried something more expansive, varied and I guess you could say commercial with Tear Gas.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

It does have 2 of his best singles, tbf.

Jmil843 said...

What were the two singles?

d said...

I luv Tear Gas, some of his best verses on summer, what happened to the world etc. Some of the features drag it down a bit, he woks better solo imo but the best jacka albums are collabs where i wait around for his part anyways - drought season 2, explosive mode 3, animal planet, devils rejects 2

d said...

Id listen to an album of just jacka singles p, he almost never missed- all we do, death 2 my enemies, sicilian breeze all that shit

Ray Garraty said...

The Jack Artist era was just a warm-up. His best material is from 2012-2014.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

You are nuts, Ray 😄

Donal, remember when I didn't even realise They Don't Know was from Tear Gas? Totally dismissed that song at the time, forgot about it, and then ended up liking it years later 😳

Jmil, Won't Be Right and Glamorous Lifestyle.

Jesse said...

Devils Rejects 2 is the best Jacka album I've heard. It's funny that they named every album in the trilogy after the second movie in the Rob Zombie trilogy, and gave them subtitles that don't refer to movies at all. It's like calling an album "Empire Strikez Back 2: Resident Evil" or "Godfather II 3: A Midsummer Nightz Dream."

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

This would be a good time to say that Resident Evil is a far superior franchise to Star Wars.

d said...

Ah my comment got wiped. While I'm still not loving most chipmunk soul past like 07-08 I've been playing the jacka freeway album the past few days n it supports my theory bout jacka Collab albums

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

I luh Uh Huh off that album.

HaterzGotMeWrong said...

DR2 is his best... followed by Animal Planet, The Jack Artist and the debut album.

But yeah, his early releases were less messy... still, some of his last songs were incredible