Review Summary: Danger Mouse gives Jay-Z’s Black Album new beats and sampling via the Beatles, creating a slightly lesser quality hip-hop album.
Jay-Z and the Beatles seemingly have very little in common. The Beatles are the most famous band of all time, and essentially revolutionized all the music that has come after them. Black Sabbath and The Ramones, the bands that helped shape early metal and punk, claim them as very large influences.
Jay-Z, meanwhile, can claim less than half the fame of the Fab Four. While some (including Jay) claim that he was (at one point) the greatest rapper alive, the success and influence he’s had is basically nonexistent when compared with the Beatles. Rising from his humble beginnings during the Reasonable Doubt era, Jay-Z (aka Hova) quickly rose to become one of hip-hop’s most financially successful figures. He was became president of Def Jam records and took the young (and back then, unknown) Kanye West under his wing.
After the release of
The Black Album, which was supposed to be his final opus before retirement, Hova released the acapellas from it with the intention of remixes being made. DJ Danger Mouse obviously thought about the idea of mixing it with The Beatles’ White Album, and after finishing his mixes, called it The Grey Album. EMI, the record company who owned Beatles’ copyrights, immediately put out a cease-and-desist order. This publicity helped make
The Grey Album one of the most famous bootlegs of all time, and helped spawn several other mashups of
The Black Album – including Metallica (The Double Black Album) and Weezer (The Black and Blue Album).
Being a mash-up, the first half, element or “side” of the album is Jay-Z’s rapping. Needless to say, it’s quite excellent. Like many rappers, he’s as high as a kite on himself, but if I was able to record raps like these in just one take, I probably would be too. His flow is terrific, varying with each song. Jay’s lyrics are at times better, sporting rapid wordplay. He describes himself quite well in “Moment of Clarity”:
“
Music business hate me cause the industry ain't make me
Hustlers and boosters embrace me and the music I be makin
I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars
They criticized me for it yet they all yell "HOLLA!"
If skills sold, truth be told, I'd probably be
lyrically, Talib Kweli
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
But I did five mill' - I ain't been rhymin like Common since”
(There are plenty of other great lyrics to be found, but for the sake of keeping this review from being incredibly long, I won’t be listing them.)
That’s all fine, but what about the sampling? Well, that’s where
The Grey Album falls a bit short. The beats are all quite good, despite often sounding spasmodic or disjointed. However, several of the songs (“Dirt Off Your Shoulder”, “Justify My Thug”, “December 4th”) feature uninteresting sampled guitars from the Beatles songs. What makes it worse is that 7 of the 11 songs feature either acoustic or electric guitar samples. This makes for a feeling of monotony throughout the album, which is a shame since the three aforementioned tracks were standouts on
The Black Album. Even though one probably shouldn’t compare this to
The Black Album, I can’t help but miss the better production that backed nearly every track on it.
So, how do the actual songs sound? Well, the first three are quite good.
Public Service Announcement kicks it off, backed by the guitar and another high-pitched instrument (that I obviously don’t know). It works quite well, and the next track is even better. The piano and guitar from “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” introduces us to
What More Can I Say, and we even get to hear the Beatles chorus once. Once again, the guitar from “Glass Onion” starts
Encore, but halfway through, “Savoy Truffle” comes in to finish the song. After these three songs is one of the aforementioned weaker tracks. “December 4th” is backed by a boring sample from “Mother Nature’s Son” making the song feel like a weird b-side that The Roots might have recorded. The rest of the songs sound fairly similar to one of those four, with
99 Problems being the best of the bunch, backed by the guitar, bass and vocal snippets of “Helter Skelter”.
DJ Danger Mouse has done something quite special here. By blending classic rock and superb rapping,
The Grey Album stands as what might be the greatest mash-up ever. At the very least, it’s probably the most famous bootleg in history, and well worth the effort of finding it.
So, in conclusion:
The Black Album is a 4/5
The Grey Album has overall weaker beats and sampling, giving it a lower score of 3.5/5.
Recommended tracks:
What More Can I Say
99 Problems
Moment of Clarity
Allure
