The Official 'Classic Album' Discussion Thread

[phatphuck]

oh and for your question on nas, imo yes he has 1 classic being illmatic. it defines him, his region and hip hop

his second album and stillmatic are also masterpieces, but its not one of the 10 (or 20-30) albums that first come to mind if i were to recommend a new head

 

[RocPG]

No Stan shyt... Illmatic, IWW and maybe Stillmatic

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

Well I don't actually need the Nas votes now sorry fellas. I'll make a new thread for him once we've established a working definition. Thanks to everyone for their contributions thus far.

for my first reason, i think this addresses the OP's point about the fact that there could only be around 20-30 true classics in the genre

any 'classics' beyond this 20-30 album list would be something i call 'personal classics', 'cult classics', 'regional classics', whatever.

for my second reason, since albums like 36 chambers, chronic, amerikkka's most, etc already defined the 'sound' of a particular / group of artists / label, the status of the other albums that follow such as ob4cl, liquid swords, doggystyle, death certificate are very debatable, especially when some of them have actually surpassed their predecessor. i would put these as 'second-tier' classics

realistically, everyone's list should have no more than 10 albums. say if you were to explore to a new genre, you would only need 10 albums to form some kind of basic opinion about whether that genre is for your or not if you know what i mean

I was positing the idea of 20-30 albums but I said elsewhere in the thread if I had to guess myself, based on my barometers, there would be about 50-60 classics. I totally get what you mean with 36 Chambers and Cuban Linx or AMW and DC for example, but I would say all 4 are classics. But that's precisely why a definition has to be reached. Even if we all agree on a definition, our APPLICATION of said definition to various albums may still be different, but at least we're all working from the same starting point.

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At this point I want this thread, as @mobbinfms advised, to be a place to discuss the definition of 'classic' and to reach an agreed definition so we can proceed to various artists in ensuing threads.

 

[phatphuck]

Well I don't actually need the Nas votes now sorry fellas. I'll make a new thread for him once we've established a working definition. Thanks to everyone for their contributions thus far.



I was positing the idea of 20-30 albums but I said elsewhere in the thread if I had to guess myself, based on my barometers, there would be about 50-60 classics. I totally get what you mean with 36 Chambers and Cuban Linx or AMW and DC for example, but I would say all 4 are classics. But that's precisely why a definition has to be reached. Even if we all agree on a definition, our APPLICATION of said definition to various albums may still be different, but at least we're all working from the same starting point.

------------

At this point I want this thread, as @mobbinfms advised, to be a place to discuss the definition of 'classic' and to reach an agreed definition so we can proceed to various artists in ensuing threads.

totally agree with you on the bolded, but that's just because we're hip hop heads and would tend to be biased. i think we have to look from the outside. say, i have close to 0 knowledge of jazz and if i wanna be schooled on jazz, what would be the first 10, 20 albums i should check out? where would be my starting point? i certainly wouldnt want 50-60 names thrown at me

so going back to hip hop, as much as i love albums like dr octagonecologyst, dah shinin, black on both sides, etc, these would certainly not be the first albums i would recommend to a new head and for this reason, it would be very hard for me to justify them as classics. on the other hand, it would be eazy to have a conversation with an average cat here on the coli and agree that they are

 

[mobbinfms]

totally agree with you on the bolded, but that's just because we're hip hop heads and would tend to be biased. i think we have to look from the outside. say, i have close to 0 knowledge of jazz and if i wanna be schooled on jazz, what would be the first 10, 20 albums i should check out? where would be my starting point? i certainly wouldnt want 50-60 names thrown at me

so going back to hip hop, as much as i love albums like dr octagonecologyst, dah shinin, black on both sides, etc, these would certainly not be the first albums i would recommend to a new head and for this reason, it would be very hard for me to justify them as classics. on the other hand, it would be eazy to have a conversation with an average cat here on the coli and agree that they are

You're thinking more so what are the definitive hip hop albums. Which would be a much much smaller list as you've suggested. That would be an interesting discussion as well, but I think the aim here is to ascertain what albums are classics to the core community. Which albums have the highest quality and have stood the test of time. The big issue here is going to be how many albums deserve this status? But because each thread will have the votes tallied, we should be able to rank every album and come up with a list. Then individual posters can decide where to cut off the ranking of classic.

 

[DaveyDave]

Well I don't actually need the Nas votes now sorry fellas. I'll make a new thread for him once we've established a working definition. Thanks to everyone for their contributions thus far.



I was positing the idea of 20-30 albums but I said elsewhere in the thread if I had to guess myself, based on my barometers, there would be about 50-60 classics. I totally get what you mean with 36 Chambers and Cuban Linx or AMW and DC for example, but I would say all 4 are classics. But that's precisely why a definition has to be reached. Even if we all agree on a definition, our APPLICATION of said definition to various albums may still be different, but at least we're all working from the same starting point.

------------

At this point I want this thread, as @mobbinfms advised, to be a place to discuss the definition of 'classic' and to reach an agreed definition so we can proceed to various artists in ensuing threads.

I think you can def come up with a working definition to fit 10 all out masterpieces that you could say "here, give these albums a GOOD listen to" and it would give someone an idea of they really liked Hip Hop or not.

It would be the same for any genre, there would be many to choose from but a good list of 10 should be able to convince someone if they really love the music. You don't have to show the full spectrum of the genre in those 10 albums (tho I think it could be done)

I think it Hip Hops case it would be good to start with 2 albums from each region or 2 from each decade/era 80s, 90s, etc or something like that then go from there to give a good coverage of styles, flows, subject matter, ect.

 

[DaveyDave]

I'd say in the full history of Hip Hop so far there would have to be at least 50 all out classic albums and another 50 at least if you want to break it down to "regional classics"

 

[Roaden Polynice]

Nothing is going to get done in this thread

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

I'd say in the full history of Hip Hop so far there would have to be at least 50 all out classic albums and another 50 at least if you want to break it down to "regional classics"

That's the purpose of the thread bro. Not to put people on to hip-hop by listing the 10 most essential but rather discover what those supposed 50 all out classics are!

Nothing is going to get done in this thread

LOL. fukk off.

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

What sort of definition do we want to work with?

We know the album must be of supremely high quality

What other factors are important?

 

[mobbinfms]

@Inspect Her Deck
Here's your definition breh:
1. An album considered by consensus of the core hip hop community to be of the highest quality (doesn't have to be perfect or flawless, just an album that the consensus deems the shyt).
2. Assuming that condition 1 is met, is this an album that has stood the test of time amongst the core hip hop community? Is that an album still held in high regard, still referenced at least ten years after its release? By a consensus of the hip hop community?

If you can answer yes to all of that, then you vote the album as a classic. As a reminder, this is not a thread about your personal opinion on an album. This is a thread about what you believe the consensus of the core hip hop community believes about a given album.

Since we already talked about Nas a little bit, let's save him for later. Start with Jay. Tag all the mods like I did and hopefully it gets upped.

 

[KplusK]

Man listen if you get 100 nikkaz and 75% of the people agree that its a classic its a classic for what ever reason we all have our definition for a classic for me the majority of the album has to bump maybe one or two whack song you might get away with also the cohesiveness of the album is big to me and how often do i listen to it and am i still listening to it years laters….now thats my opinion of what a classic and thats it in my eyes. i don't claim to be all knowing and shyt about music but i listen and love music all types of music and feel i have a good ear for it so those are the only things i consider others might have different opions about what it takes to make a classic but all i know is that if the people don't consider it a classic then its not a classic majority rules. Nas Illmatic and IWW are both classics to me i love IWW better than illmatic but thats my opinion

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

@Inspect Her Deck
Here's your definition breh:
1. An album considered by consensus of the core hip hop community to be of the highest quality (doesn't have to be perfect or flawless, just an album that the consensus deems the shyt).
2. Assuming that condition 1 is met, is this an album that has stood the test of time amongst the core hip hop community? Is that an album still held in high regard, still referenced at least ten years after its release? By a consensus of the hip hop community?

If you can answer yes to all of that, then you vote the album as a classic. As a reminder, this is not a thread about your personal opinion on an album. This is a thread about what you believe the consensus of the core hip hop community believes about a given album.

Since we already talked about Nas a little bit, let's save him for later. Start with Jay. Tag all the mods like I did and hopefully it gets upped.

I'm more than happy with this.

So what you're saying is that quality is first (consensus-based decision), and provided that is met, how does it stand the test of time both with regards to reference. I think that is better than what I initially came up with because as you pointed out before, influence can be negative and plus that doesn't reward albums like Liquid Swords, which may be relevant in the long run and celebrated but not necessarily influential on artists that followed.

You know what? If people don't object to your statement, I'll just run with it.

And cool. I'll make a separate thread and tag the people you tagged earlier. Starting with Jay-Z listing his albums and making a poll.

I just wanna ask two more things?:

- what year should we go up to? some people have proposed 2001 as we need at least 15 years to determine if something is classic. What say you?
- what should the acceptance % be of people calling an album 'classic' before I put it on an official list?

 

[DaveyDave]

influence - you have to make some kind of influence on the culture in SOME way
innovation
timeless
rhymes AND beats have to be on point (that doesn't mean super rapitty rap crazy multis and shyt just DOPE rhymes that work with the songs eg Snoop wasn't teh BEST technical rhymer ever but Doggystyle is an undeniable classic IMO)

i'ma bit tipsy right now but that's what i can come up with. there prob should be one or 2 more things i'm not thinking of right now but if you have an album that fits ALL these categories then you could pretty much say it's a straight up undeniable classic no matter what region or who you're talking to. when you want to break it down to regional classics then you can say maybe they need to have all those same stats but if say if the influence is on a regional level rather than a national/international level then maybe it's just a regional classic instead of a Chronic type classic influencing the entire genre.

just to show an easy comparison that most heads would understand -
Enta Da Stage = undeniable classic (started a lot of that RAH-RAH yelling, gettin buck type East Coast shyt)
Dah Shinin = regional classic (def is a classic but it didn't necessarily have influence beyond the East or even NY)

 

[DaveyDave]

I'm more than happy with this.

So what you're saying is that quality is first (consensus-based decision), and provided that is met, how does it stand the test of time both with regards to reference. I think that is better than what I initially came up with because as you pointed out before, influence can be negative and plus that doesn't reward albums like Liquid Swords, which may be relevant in the long run and celebrated but not necessarily influential on artists that followed.

You know what? If people don't object to your statement, I'll just run with it.

And cool. I'll make a separate thread and tag the people you tagged earlier. Starting with Jay-Z listing his albums and making a poll.

I just wanna ask two more things?:

- what year should we go up to? some people have proposed 2001 as we need at least 15 years to determine if something is classic. What say you?
- what should the acceptance % be of people calling an album 'classic' before I put it on an official list?

10-15 years should be long enough to judge an albums longevity and timelessness. but if an album meets every other criteria then you could label it as a classic but if 10 years go by and no one is talking about said album anymore then it's probably time to re-evaluate the status