The Beastie Boys new album will belong on this list. A classic hip hop feel all the wy through the album with great production work and the boys actually sounding youthful on the vocals. I highly recommend it to anyone who was skeptical of picking it up.

Definately agree on the new Beasties album! I didn't think they had an album like this left in them, but they proved me very wrong! Killer, old-school beats, their best rhymes in years, and no filler! Great album!

I havent listened to the entire album, but Tech N9NE's "Absolute Power" is really terrific. I dont know what it is, but this really gets me going unlike any hip hop album Ive ever listened to.

Except Kanye West's song "We Dont Care"---damn good song.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: EccentricSam,

3 words "the Black Album". Eminem is dropping an album sometime this summer also!!

Ive been most impressed with Dizzie Rascal's album actually. Its probably not the most technically acomplished album on the list, but Dizzie is really doing new and original things in "Boy in da Corner". His words are also probably the most thought-provoking on a rap album this year after the Streets.

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Originally posted by Lbc:
3 words "the _Black_ Album".

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4 digits: "2-0-0-3"

I still think the best rap album of 04 is either Murs 3:16 or Busdriver - Cosmic Cleavage. Madvillain is up there too. Dizzee Rascal I consider a 2003 album.

Kanye West Wins for me!!

Almost anything he he says means somethin!!

Just listen to Jesus Walks!!

Kanye West Easily wins in this catigory!! I just bought the cd because it had great reviews and it is my favorite Rap Album Ever!!!

Kanye West Takes my Vote With College Dropout!

A couple more 2004 hip hop albums that deserve mention:

Daedelus - Of Snowdonia

Shit yeah, the dude who peppered last year's "The Weather" with polka dots and rainbows has put out his second solo disc. More kitsch and whimsy.

Yesterday's New Quintet - Stevie

Madlib's jazz explorations was one of the motivations for my recent appreciation of the genre. I'm hoping the guy will teach one of his pseudonyms to play sax or trumpet, but I'm still impressed with this album of Stevie Wonder covers.

Rjd2 - Since We Last Spoke

Exotic Talk is one of the best songs of the year. Listen to this again sometime soon if you've written it off like I had for a while. Rj leaves hip hop for dead, but hip hop's ghost rises taller and stronger than its body stood.


I listened to DJ Signify again recently. I realized that I really don't like Sage Francis. I feel like a pretensious fuck when I'm listening to him. It bogs the album down considerably. Buck I'm cool with.

I've just queued up College Dropout on soulseek. I'm gonna be pissed at everyone who said they liked it if this sucks.

EDIT: Ok, I'm not mad at anybody, but "awful" does come to mind listening to this.

Kanye needs to:

-Quit rapping.
-Tell his rapper cronies to fuck off.
-Tell his hack soul singer friends to fuck off, that is unless he used it as a way to get some ass.
-Cut out all the skits.
-Keep the tracks less than three minutes.
-Keep the album under forty minutes.
-Put more effort into his productions.

This is unacceptably amateur by any standard. This is an especially glaring failure in the age of Outkast, the Neptunes, and Timbaland.

Seriously, I expected better. I've been impressed by many mainstream hip hop albums over the past year. I went into this thinking this would be like "The Love Below" or "The Black Album". The most embarassing aspect is that it does not even have one great single that I can keep on my hard drive. Every subpar mainstream hip hop album I've downloaded has at least had one.

The reason I am so outraged is because this album is so praised. I understand that mainstream hip hop is based off of instant gratification and hot singles. But this album fails even in that goal, marring potentially good tracks with horribly cheesy singers and incompetent rapping. The critical praise this received tells me that the "I love mainstream" movement is loaded with critics ready to heap compliments on artists simply because it is in style.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Buck "Sweetie" McGuck,

Ok, I'm reading my post, and it's pretty harsh. So I'm giving it another listen. "Two Words" has a decent production, but the rapping and cheesy choir completely ruin it. "Through the Wire"'s production is unobjectionable, but... goddamn it why is kanye trying to rap? "My Way" is pretty decent. There's a vocalist, but all she does is some unobtrusive 'oooh'ing. The last few songs are ok, but I guess it's too little too late.

The worst part of this album is the cheesy-ass r&b singers. I thought Kanye's gimmick was sped up female vocals from vinyl. Not only is he being lazy by using singers instead of crate digging for samples, but it ruins the album as well.

Even without any cheesy singing, what's left isn't too impressive. Kanye seems to have at least a bit of personality when he's telling his biography on "Last Call", but hearing him or anybody else rapping over his looped beats is not compelling at all.

Because I'm an underground fan, I bet some of you think I'm just being an indie rap snob. I wanted to explain in detail why this is offending my ears so you know that I actually gave this a fair chance.

Seriously though, nobody here cringed when the kids start singing on "we Don't Care"?

Kanye's got an everyman quality that is appealing to a lot of people. Also, a lot of the praise is coming from people who like some of the messages denouncing materialism or embracing Jesus and all that shit that gets the "socially conscious" tag. Well, except it's not consistent. For every "Jesus Walks" there's a "Get 'Em High". So the messages seem to contradict each other. Hey, if I want that, I'll listen to something better, like David Banner.

Personally, I think he should stick to producing, specifically for female R&B singers because I think his work for Brandy and Alicia Keys especially were outstanding.

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Originally posted by Buck "Sweetie" McGuck:
A couple more 2004 hip hop albums that deserve mention:

Daedelus - Of Snowdonia

Shit yeah, the dude who peppered last year's "The Weather" with polka dots and rainbows has put out his second solo disc. More kitsch and whimsy.

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A bit too whimsical for me, personally. But on a Daedelus note, I was listening to Invention today when I was blindsided by the ACCORDION SAMPLE FROM MADVILLAIN'S "ACCORDION"! Maybe I just didn't read Madvillainy's liner notes carefully enough, but I was under the impression that the accordion sound was original. (Listen to Invention's "Experience" and you'll hear it.) Of course, it might not be Daedelus's sample originally, either. I don't own Invention so I don't really know. Perhaps Madlib/Doom dug it out of an even earlier crate.

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Rjd2 - Since We Last Spoke

Exotic Talk is one of the best songs of the year. Listen to this again sometime soon if you've written it off like I had for a while. Rj leaves hip hop for dead, but hip hop's ghost rises taller and stronger than its body stood.

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I don't like "Exotic Talk" that much, but it comes nowhere near my dislike for some songs on Since We Last Spoke- namely "Through the Walls." Maybe we should embark on a project to re-sequence/prune it; I've been using a ten-track version of it that I'll post sometime later in the Since We Last Spoke thread in the Electronic/Dance forum.

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I listened to DJ Signify again recently. I realized that I really don't like Sage Francis. I feel like a pretentious fuck when I'm listening to him. It bogs the album down considerably.

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Fair enough; needless to say, I don't feel like that, and/or I already am a pretentious fuck.

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Kanye needs to:

-Quit rapping.

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Why? I like his flow, personally, and think it's a lot better than some of the guests' performances on the album...

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-Tell his rapper cronies to fuck off.

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Most of the guest performances are pretty limp, yes.

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-Tell his hack soul singer friends to fuck off, that is unless he used it as a way to get some ass.

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You didn't like "All Falls Down," I gather?

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-Cut out all the skits.

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They do get a bit trying by the end, yes.

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-Keep the tracks less than three minutes.

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*shrug* Are you referring to any songs in specific here?

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-Keep the album under forty minutes.

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UNDER FORTY? I think you'll find that rap albums under forty that aren't made by Nas and whose titles don't start with "I" and end in "llmatic" are very, very unsatisfying. And I'm looking at Murs here.
Certainly College Dropout shouldn't be pushing an hour and a half, but I think 56 minutes or so would be fine.

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-Put more effort into his productions.

This is unacceptably amateur by any standard. This is an especially glaring failure in the age of Outkast, the Neptunes, and Timbaland.

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Other than the fact that they all seem to revolve around the same general production aesthetic, I have to say that I disagree. Certainly Kanye's style incorporates less absolute randomness than Timbaland's, but Timbaland's been off lately (see: This Is Not A Test!). The Neptunes let's not even go into; I personally can't stand them, I feel like I'm being pandered to- "oh! a white kid! here are some RAWK RIFFS in your hip-hop!" And they're not even good rock riffs! Outkast's production is generally better than Kanye's but I don't see the gulf as particularly big.


It's tough for me to discuss College Dropout because my own opinions on it are mixed. In its weird, overlong way, the whole is just greater than the sum of its parts for me. When I go through the tracklist picking out the songs i don't like, they compose quite a large part of the album, but I still like it. Shrug.

I cannot agree more with the comments about Kanye West.The "fame" is definantly going to his head.He thinks he is jesus walking by the way he talks and conducts interviews.He contradicts himself on the album all the time and his "style" of beatmanship is old and played out!

Has anyone gotten a copy of the new prince po album?It is out on lex and you can get it on bleep.com a month early.
It has production by madlib and jel...personally i think jel is completely underated as a producer...his production under the "themselves" moniker with dose one rapping was superb...even if it is a few years old it is a gem!

Check out that prince po album...especially if u loved him in organized konfusion...pharoe monch where did u go...lol...?/?

Sorry i forgot to mention that there are also 3 tracks produced by danger mouse...all in all...th album is iffy.
I think right now i would give it about an 7.It could have been a great album with all the extra help from the producers i mentioned...plus mf doom guests on a track.Also j-zone does a track...i think.Not a huge fan of him though!

Good Evening!

oh yeah...i forgot.I got the new sixtoo album.

Maybe i should pe putting this post in the "miscelaneous" category/section.Either way it is an incredible album that runs the gammet from live instrument to samples to damo suzuki?
I say yeehaw to an awesome album that i love and would put on my list of 2004 greats.

Ch Ch Check it out if u havent...that was corny!

Oh snap! I just remembered a hip hop album I've been leaving out. Ten by Clouddead. It's not even close. This is the best hip hop album of 2004.

the new hangar 18 album on def jux...

i really like it...there are a few throw away tracks..but the good far outweighs the bad.

The outro is strange...the last track it sounds like your cdis skipping...but its not...they make it into an actual song...sort of...very interesting idea!

Not much pub on it though...it wasnt even inmy local indie shop till this last week...

has anybody heard anything about the new buck 65 album.???

I heard he signed to v2 and is coming out soon??

Hey Imprezu! I am on Buck's mailing list and the last letter I got from him 6 days ago said that his new album would be out in a few weeks, but only to be made available in the U.S. which sucks for me! He said he would be starting a U.S. tour in August or September, and that it would be very extensive, hitting every state he can. Apparantly he has also been working on a dvd lately too, with a lot of footage from this summer's festival circuit in Europe. If you see him live and you want to trip him out, yell out "There were giants in those days!", I do it at every show of his I go to and he has promised to me(like two or three shows ago guy!)that he will eventually play the song in question in Vancouver. I'm sure if he started hearing it other places he would be mightily tripped out by it! I know I mentioned nothing about best rap albums of the year, but who cares, it's Buck 65!

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Originally posted by Smenkharon:
Hey Imprezu! I am on Buck's mailing list and the last letter I got from him 6 days ago said that his new album would be out in a few weeks, but only to be made available in the U.S. which sucks for me! He said he would be starting a U.S. tour in August or September, and that it would be very extensive, hitting every state he can. Apparantly he has also been working on a dvd lately too, with a lot of footage from this summer's festival circuit in Europe. If you see him live and you want to trip him out, yell out "There were giants in those days!", I do it at every show of his I go to and he has promised to me(like two or three shows ago guy!)that he will eventually play the song in question in Vancouver. I'm sure if he started hearing it other places he would be mightily tripped out by it! I know I mentioned nothing about best rap albums of the year, but who cares, it's Buck 65!

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Yeah i am on that same mailing list...and i have heard all that...i was just curious to see maybe if there was any more details...that anybody knew of.

I was supposed to go see him last time he was in seattle...but i couldnt make it.I will make it this time for sure!

I am also going to see sixtoo dj signify and blockhead when they come here next month...that show should be insane...i cant wait!

I really haven't been in a rap mood lately, so I haven't given this Hangar 18 album enough attention. The MCing is pretty tight, and the production is good too. "Go Git That" could be on the radio if the rapping wasn't so tight. And they take samples from Strangers With Candy! "It's donkey time!"