I Need a Minute
At this moment, I am listening to TLOP. This is my 6th or 7th listen, in its entirety, and the first full listen on my home speakers. I have only done a partial drive listen with it. As a rule, I drive with new music before deciding where to file it in my music rotation.
Right now, I cannot give a thoughtful opinion on the album. I like it. I like it a lot. That’s all I got. I need to spend more time with it.
Music today gets inhaled and exhaled with shallow breaths. Full reviews being written in less than 24 hours. Meanwhile, I am three days in and not in any position to really discuss it more than in barbershop fodder. I like music, and the variables that can effect how I feel about a body of music, the sum of its parts, what it means, are many.
How long does music last? In theory, it is suppose to last forever. Getting to forever, however, takes time. How many albums have been allowed to slip my fingers with half listens? Every time I promise to get back to them and give them the attention they deserve. Broken promises filling up my external hard drive. Hate to sound like an old head but “back in my day” an artist worked an album for two years. Actually, they worked it for a year and gave themselves and the audience some space and time then offering a new album at the two-year mark. We would get 3 singles; four if the album was fire ball emoji. The recluse and exceptional artists would push that to five or even ten years (Sade) how did we get here? Well, this is all Jay’s fault. From 1996-2007 he released an album ever year. That was, for the time, unprecedented. And yes, Master P had No Limit crank records out every Tuesday and flooded the market, but he had a full roster. So technically it was Percy’s doing, but I still say its Jay’s fault. Go tell your mama if you don’t like it.
Jay changed the game and in order for everyone to compete they had to produce at a faster rate. But as we all know, there’s only one Hov. Not everyone has/had the skill set to perform at that high level. Now, artists are questioned heavily “when are you going to release new music?” when their last offering was 13 months ago. Yet many complain the music has no substance, no soul. Well, maybe if we allowed the artist time to let life happen they could have experiences to write about. Future has offered 50/11 songs in the last 180 days and I have listened to most of them or maybe I’ve only heard three of them. I can’t remember.
I would like two full seasons to digest about 10-12 albums. I don’t need more music I need good music. I need space to listen to it. What do I think of TLOP? I don’t know. Give me a minute.
Snuka