Aesop Rock - Skelethon
 

http://aesoprock.com/wp-content/uplo...thon-cover.jpg

1. "Leisureforce"
2. "ZZZ Top"
3. "Cycles to Gehenna"
4. "Zero Dark Thirty"
5. "Fryerstarter"
6. "Ruby '81"
7. "Crows 1"
8. "Crows 2"
9. "Racing Stripes"
10. "1,000 O'Clock"
11. "Homemade Mummy"
12. "Grace"
13. "Saturn Missiles"
14. "Tetra"
15. "Gopher Guts"

Listening to it right now. On the fifth track and it's probably an 8/10 at the moment. I will listen to it once more before I vote on here as I am unaware if I can change it at a later date.

On the 11th track myself. The beat on the 5th track is awesome.

/drool z0mg I didn't think it would leak. After all that waiting, it leaks the day before it comes out? Bah, ****, at least its attainable now. Where is it?! Must... find...

so yeah, it's pretty good.

home made mummy and crows 2 were my favorite.

Home Made Mummy and Leisureforce are the two that I skip, at least for now. Neither are bad, but all the rest are better, for me.

My favorites so far besides ZZZ Top and Zero Dark Thirty are Grace, the Crows tracks with Kimya Dawson and the followup, Gopher Guts was a nice way to end the album...

Whole Aesop albums are hard to digest the first 25 listen-throughs, minimum, so I'd rather do it in chunks. I'm extremely familiar with ZZZ and ZDT from the videos... rapping along fairly well, got the lyrics down... the others not quite so much. I think ZZZ Top might be the best track on the album.

I think those that missed Aesop explaining what ZZZ Top was about might not get it for a long while. It's a youtube video he released. I'm sure its still up. But I love how he takes a classic-rock, Zeppelin kid (Zoso), a hip-hop kid (Zulu), and a punk kid (Zeros) and kind of does a compare/contrast on how they're brought up and what issues they deal with. Still learning all the ins and outs of the tune. Can't wait to see the lyrics written out to really get a mastery of them all.

It's very much like every album of his, a lot of good, but there are some pretty noticeably off songs. I found myself skipping "Homemade Mummy" and "Racing Stripes" every time they came on when I was in the car. I wish this album had some more features, I mean you're on Rhymesayers, there's a lot of good artists you can ask to come on and do a verse. Still, it's better than last year's Hail Mary Mallon album and None Shall Pass (2007), but I think it could have been a bit better.

Why don't you guys like homemade mummy?

I think its a great voice sample. I have simple taste in music, sucker for overpowering bass.

I was surprised by the lack of guest spots as well. It would have been nice to see some DEFJUX members on there.

I was completely unaware of this entire development.
As long as it's better than the whole Hail Mary thing, I am game.

It's a great track, it's just the least great on the album for me. Racing Stripes too. I like them quite a bit, but most of the others really vibe better with me.

Some people were thrown with Aesop's involvement with Kimya Dawson's album, but I thought it was a nice change. It's nice to have her back on Crows and Racing Stripes...

============================

So I went to the bar last night with the suspicion that the whole album would be on the internet jukebox, because Zero Dark Thirty popped up on there before June.

I was right.

I blew that house up. Sit down, mah fackers this is a 5 spot. 55 minutes of new Aesop in an uppity preppy sports bar. Bass was up high, so all the better. It sounded amazing. They hated it and couldn't do ****.

:yeah::laughing::laughing::laughing:

hell yeah doo

Drunk drivin' on a wednesday!

The only people nodding were me and the busboy and the bouncer. **** was worth it.

Oh and I saved Zero Dark Thirty for last, because I know their policy (they'll skip your song if its not family friendly - some old BULL**** - even if its 1:30am and its all 21+) and near the beginning Aes goes "he was probably thinkin **** YOU **** YOU **** YOU as he carved it in his desk" and they skipped it.

And I had already finished my beer, standing on the back patio lighting my stoge, getting ready to roll. Flipped them the bird, turned on my mp3 player, and strutted out. Enjoy the last 5-10 minutes in silence suckas...

I haven't listened yet, but I love the album cover. Actually, now that I think of it, a lot of his album covers are pretty good.

The only thing more I could have asked for from this album is a more detailed/involved cover a la Labor Days, but minimalism is fine. It certainly serves a purpose. It suits the extinction theme of the album.

I was reading last.fm comments on Aesop's page, being generally happy that the majority of comments were positive. Ballpark estimate, all but 2 or 3 out of about 50. But, somebody posted a link to this lame ass Kanye forum and I've been facepalming for the last 10 minutes. There, it's the opposite ... 2 or 3 out of about 50 LIKE it and the rest are bandwagon haters. They're all talking about Frank Ocean and some Life Is Good, ****e...Nas, really? Checked out Frank Ocean and now I'm really butthurt. And they called Aesop boring? Fuuuuuuuu..... boring like ... you get bored of trying and failing to grasp the complex rhymes? One guy said something like he doesn't appreciate how Aesop writes lyrics... that he thinks Aesop writes lyrics to make people feel dumb. Or something. That he's an elitist.

I don't know if it was paying attention in school or what, but I don't have any troubles with Aesop's word choices. Once in a while, I hear a word I'm unfamiliar with ... I don't bother looking it up, I figure it out sooner or later from context or elsewhere. I mean, is this what the product of a failing school system looks like? Is this a pile of trolls? Is it an epeen gangster contest? Hivemind mentality of ignorance. Makes me want to vomit.

For the sad lulz:
Album of the year just got leaked. « Kanye West Forum

Oh, just in case you don't make the jump... I'm quoting this one:

"OP is an **** for doing Aesop Rock dirty like this. You can't hype something that isn't Nas or Frank at this point"

-"This must be Sarcasm!! Seriously? How did he "do him dirty?" If anything, its helping Aesop Rock win more listeners/sell more records!!"

"he should've just said Skelethon leaked or something. Saying its AOTY is gonna piss a lot of people off since it isn't a relevant album"

-"Pretty unfair/ignorant comment. Not relevant to who? People that only listen to a certain brand of popular music? I don't like Aesop's "I'm smarter than you, check out all these big words" type of hip hop and OP's need for approval of his heady taste..but that remark just stinks of ignorance."

"It isn't ignorant. The fact that theres only a 8 page thread of it shows most people on KTT dont care. So it isn't a good thing to be calling it AOTY especially when were on leak watch of the 2 most hyped releases"

-"It swings both ways. Like I said, to be fair to OP..he's just calling it AOTY because he wants to display his superior underground taste. He surely doesn't really believe that. Even if he did..whatever. Bait threads and attitudes like that get under my skin.."

They're ALL idiots.

I'm listening to this right now for the first time. The Wilhelm scream reference and sample on "Leisureforce" is fucking hilarious.

This is the only good post in that entire thread.

Fucking hilarious though.

There's been a turn on aesop in the underground community for a while.

If you notice most of the pop acts in the underground (for lack of a better term) have chosen to be as abrasive and literal as possible.

Odd future
danny brown
asap rocky
lil b

Thats why most of the younger fanbase doesn't resonate with aesop the way they did even when none shall pass was released. Hip hop is a very fast moving genre.

El-p gets around it by collaborating with these guys, and because he can make anyone sound better.

Yikes. It's like an entire forum dedicated to inarticulate people with crappy taste.

What the fuck is "CAC rapper" btw?

I have no desire to find out what a CAC rapper is. I have a feeling that I just don't want to know because I'll probably have to facepalm for the nth time today.

@Pete, yeah, that was the redemption post. But he's a relative n00b with less than 200 posts. Most of those hiveminders were 10,000+ posters... but then again, most of their posts are quotes of other peoples posts with no added substance. :)

@Sparky I can see what you mean, although I can tell these guys are not 'underground' friendly. Where I sit, underground and mainstream lines have been broken. The internet is here beotches deal with it. But some people will go down kicking and screaming trying to be on the one next big top40 hit. These people are literally waiting on/excited about eminem still ...about rehab. Get a ****in grip, get your hip-hop head out of 10 years ago and get with the program.

As far as actual underground heads turning on Aesop, I haven't really seen it...yet. Where I sit there are two types of people on the issue: Fans of Aesop or people who haven't heard of him still. Well, I don't like to count strangers ... but when I show someone I don't know Aesop I get a "oh that's... that's tight... yeah..." but I see it going over their head, as it went over mind the first 100 times I heard him. So there's a bit of a backburner mentality on it, like, oh this is complicated but I can tell there's a lot of good in this... but I just don't have the time to devote to figuring it out. I can see that, I can respect that and understand that. As long as at some point you delve into it. I feel like people miss out on Aesop just because they're looking for fastfood music and Aesop be serving up the 5 course meal.

Oh man, I'm really digging "Saturn Missiles". I only have two tracks left and at this point I can confidently say Skelethon gets a big thumbs up from me. It's really nice to hear a new hip hop release that doesn't bore the shit out of me for a change of pace, even if it is by someone who's been around for a long time.

All right, Janszoon is on board! Woot W00t! Saturn Missiles is cool as hell, love those little missile effects. Can't wait to hear what else you think of it Jans. I wasn't sure you'd like it. Glad you do...

Meh, if you've heard one Aesop record you've heard them all.
Guy needs to work on his delivery, it's just so monotonous and if I were paying less attention I'd swear he was spitting the same verse on every track.

Some of the production was pretty nice, but I find Aesop as an MC quite boring, he doesn't possess any great story telling abilities, it's just metaphor on top of metaphor which I guess resonates for some. Not me.

As with the rest of his work, I felt it wasn't bad. It was not mind blowing either. It was alright. There's nothing necessarily blatantly wrong with the record, and the guy's had enough success with his style of hip-hop, it just doesn't really strike me as anything out of the ordinary when he just whitters on.

I gave it a 6/10.

Coming from someone who loves Kanye as much as you do this comment is pretty hilarious. :laughing:

I actually thought "Ruby '81" was a great little story. But why do lyrics have to tell a story to be good anyway?

You can make out what Kanye is actually saying, to me it always sounds as if Aesop is mumbling.

They don't. But I prefer them to. That is why I'm not an Aesop fanboy. I have no interest in trying to decipher layer upon layer of pretentious wordplay as if it were some sort of message from Mars.

Perhaps others do, and that's fine. But that's why I do not rave about Aesop Rock. I am assuming his lyrics have signs of intelligence, I haven't listened to them under a microscope yet, from what I hear whilst passively listening, they don't strike me as being near the level of guys like Nas, Pun, Andre 3k or Immortal Technique.

Kanye has a pretty strong delivery. You think he could get away with what he was saying if he wasn't charismatic?

I kind-off agree with mankycaant, but I remember when aesops style was cool and original and that respect lingers on.

He does certainly pose good storytelling abilities as with that one track off labor days.

@ MAnkey
I'd say he's better then all those rappers you listed, with the exception of andre maybe.

I'm honestly amazed to hear you say this. I feel like every single line sounds the same in his songs—da-do da-do da-do huuuuh, da-do da-do da-do huuuuh—though I realize that would probably make more sesne if you could hear me sounding that out. :laughing:

No love for "Ruby '81"?

I thought it was kind of average on first listen, but it's grown on me since then. Overall I'd give it an 8. Pretty impressed with the production overall, and particularly on ZZZ TOP and Crows 1 (definitely my favourite track off the album). Haven't fully digested the lyrics but I'll get around to it.

And I thought Homemade Mummy was a pretty dope track, Sparky.

you're serious?

You think Aesop Rock's better than Nas and Big Pun?
That's insanity man.

no dude i know exactly what your saying actually lol

the huuuuuh is everywhere your right

but still, thanks to his pop sensibilities and production skills i find kanye's flow engaging.

when he screams in his monotone "eating good vegetary with the brown rice" on a wacka-flocka lex luger beat i can't help but love it

I have to listen to the ruby 81 song again with more attention, i haven't dug into the lyrics too far yet.

That seems like a really weird criteria for liking music. Do you feel that way about all music or just hip hop?

I can't say I've ever sat down and tried to decipher any metaphors of his. I generally look at his lyrics as being pretty abstract.

You'd really describe those guys as having good lyrics? I like Big Pun and Andre 3000 a lot but I've never thought of either of them as great lyricists. Immortal Technique has decent lyrics sometimes, though he's kind of hit or miss.

haven't listened to big pun but i see he has only released one record.

People have been calling nas the best forever for no apparent reason. He's a good rapper, illmatic was a great record.

I don't think he's better than raekwon, pharoah monch, butterfly, guru, or any other quintessential 90's rapper.

He has two, but the first one way better than the second.

Yeah, I honestly I've never really seen the appeal of Nas. He's okay but not particularly exciting.

I listen to quite a bit of post-rock, so no; it pretty much extends to just hip-hop.
To me, the most important aspect of a hip-hop album is what the rapper is saying, if you can't understand it, it isn't really worth repeated listens.

I don't mind foreign rap though. As long as there's passion and good delivery you can get some sort of story out of the words.
I have never been able to do this with an Aesop Rock record.



Yup, ever listened to any of Puns freestyles.
And Andre is the most unique, exuberant rapper out there. Everything he says is either pretty witty, pretty clever, or so odd that it's always memorable.

I'm not saying it's the best song on the album or anything, but it's just a cool little track (it's super-short) that tells a story from kind of an off-beat perspective. Not the kind of story people generally write lyrics about.

I can't say I agree with that. I mean it's cool if someone tells a story or something, but my focus with music is on the music, lyrics are definitely secondary.

I have. From what I remember they featured great rapping and meh lyrics.

I think the man is a genius... as musician. Lyrically? Not so much. I mean "Toilet Tisha" is an example of a song where the lyrics are so bad that it does actually ruin the music for me.

yeah i didn't care for most of andre's writing on the love below either

he's also not a great actor, and not expecting much from his upcoming role as Jimi Hendrix

Man I missed out on the argument... Jans really coming to the rescue. Manky, Manky, Manky... man... You shouldn't really listen to an Aesop record without your audio microscope. You must decipher the lyrics. It sounds like, to make a comparison analogy... you're in an art gallery and you take one walk around the room without stopping and leave and complain that it was all boring and plain. I feel like when I listen to Aesop's songs, I get them, and when others listen to them, it goes over the head and I'm getting a little validation here. I've been listening to Aes for 6+ years now. I know his style, his delivery. I have zero problem understanding any and every word out of his mouth, what I end up listening to it 100 times plus for is to gather the meaning. I've come across 2 repetitive themes so far: getting healthier and struggling, and extinction.

Oh man, and did we really need to pull out the p word? Pretentious. Manky, I'm not mad at ya, but pretentious? He's not pretentious because he has an advanced vocabulary and because he writes songs about non-typical things. I don't even think it's pretentious to have clever intricate metaphors. Swear when someone puts an assload of work into crafting not only a song, but a song with an underlying message... they put in more effort than your average musician easily... and people call it pretentious because they can't digest it in one listen, or even five. I want to quote point by point but this summary argument works well enough.

Questions, comments, hit me up.

What's up with the big argument here? I guess I'm not the one to get involved, I don't know a lot of hiphop artists yet, but I can tell ya that as far as I do know them Aesop Rock is one of my favs. Aesop's rapping is great on this record but the production is where it really gets awesome. Beats on tracks like Leisureforce and ZZZ Top are absolutely iressistible to me, and the mixing on the lot of this tracks is also great. The album doesn't have any weak spots to me, the onle thing I could complain about is that the flow on a couple of tracks like Homemade Mummy isn't as great as with the rest.