The Roots are a really weird band. I don’t say that because their music is all that different than other rap groups, but because I have never seen anyone say “The Roots suck” (though knowing Brad, he’ll probably comment on this saying just that). There are obviously people out there who just can’t get into the music, but even these people seem to always respect what The Roots can do. I’ve never seen another group (hip-hop or otherwise) that gets this type of treatment. Even the “rap is crap” people don’t hate on The Roots because they’re a full band with live instruments. They’re a really consistent band; even their worst albums aren’t really bad, they’re just “bad for The Roots”.

Fortunately, this streak of consistently good albums has continued with the newly-released “How I Got Over”. Unlike most hip-hop albums, How I Got Over is an album in the truest sense of the word. This isn’t just a dozen singles thrown together in a random order; the songs fit together seamlessly as it transitions from one track to another (occasionally with the help of interludes). That said, individual songs can still stand on their own very well (especially the songs in the second half of the album).

Although How I Got Over comes in at a quick and easy 42 minutes, it still almost feels like two completely different albums. The first five or so songs have a downbeat, almost depressing tone to them. One such example is Dear God 2.0, where The Roots’ Black Thought raps about all the struggles and ugliness in the world over a beat that fits the lyrics very well. About halfway through the album comes the actual How I Got Over song, where Black Thought decides to sing. Thankfully this is the only time he sings on the album; the singing works for this song, but I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to hear an album full of his singing because he doesn’t have a particularly good singing voice. After this point, the songs generally have a more upbeat, catchier feeling to them.

Right after “How I Got Over” and the “DillaTude” interlude comes a barrage of really awesome songs. The first of these is “The Day”, featuring rappers Blu & Phonte and singer Patty Crash. Blu is featured on two songs on this album with “Radio Daze” being  the other track he’s on earlier in the album. Even though he’s only on two songs, he almost steals the show (which is saying a lot considering I think Black Thought is one of the best rappers of all-time). I’ve always liked Blu, but I’m not one of those people who thinks his “Below the Heavens” album with producer Exile was the best album of the last decade. Exile’s production left me underwhelmed, but Blu fits The Roots perfectly. Both of Blu’s verses on this album, especially his verse on “The Day”, are two of my favorite verses I’ve heard from this year.

After “The Day” comes the track I was most skeptical about on this album…”Right On” featuring rapper STS and singer Joanna Newsom. Maybe I’ll lose all credibility with the internet (I’m not entirely sure what that means) for saying this, but I usually can’t stand Joanna Newsom. I can’t finish one of her songs without her voice giving me a headache. Luckily, I had no problems whatsoever with “Right On”. This song made me realize that Joanna Newsom is pretty good if you keep her relegated to the chorus, and the weird contrast of her voice with the rapping of Black Thought and STS works better than I was expecting.

After Joanna Newsom comes John Legend with the songs “Doin It Again” and “The Fire” (though his voice is just sampled on Doin’ It Again). Unlike Joanna Newsom, John Legend seemed like he would be a perfect fit for The Roots and he is just that. “The Fire” is probably the catchiest song on this album. I can’t emphasize enough just how great this stretch of “The Day”, “Right On”, “Doin’ It Again”, and “The Fire” is.

After those tracks comes an interlude followed by “Web 20/20″ and “Hustla” which feel a little out of place. Hustla is really weird, since the main sample is an autotuned baby crying. I’m not joking (I made sure to include the song at the bottom of this review). It’s not bad and it’s not one of those mainstream autotuned songs by the likes of T-Pain…it’s just kinda strange. I wouldn’t have minded if the album ended after “The Fire” to be honest.

Despite this minor complaint, How I Got Over is still a pretty great album. I’ve pretty much had it on repeat since I got it (as I write this, The Roots have 115 plays in the last week on my LastFM — all of those plays are from this album). Right now this is the front-runner for my album of the year…but with Big Boi set to release his awesome-looking album in a couple weeks, How I Got Over’s “front-runner” status may be short-lived.

Final Score: 8.75/10

The Day (featuring Blu, Phonte, and Patty Crash)

Right On (featuring Joanna Newsom & STS)

The Fire (featuring John Legend)

Hustla (featuring STS)

Eminem hasn’t really released anything worth listening to for at least 5 years, but there was some hope heading into Recovery. His verses on songs after 2009’s Relapse (which was an album I hated) have shown a lot of promise — for example, there’s B.o.B’s Airplanes 2 and Drake’s Forever. His Airplanes 2 verse is good, but on Forever he completely embarrassed the other three rappers on that song. Then Not Afraid (his first single from Recovery) was released and it seemed like Eminem had the right mindset, admitting on that song that Relapse wasn’t a great album and that he overused that horrible accent. You rarely ever hear a rapper admit that some of his stuff wasn’t up to par.

Still, I was skeptical. The second song Eminem released from Recovery was Won’t Back Down, featuring Pink — I didn’t think it was completely awful, but I thought that if the rest of the album was like that the album would be really mediocre. Not Afraid was pretty good, but if that’s one of the best songs on this album then there’s gonna be a huge problem.

So was this another disappointment by Eminem or did he manage to actually release something good? Well…

Track-by-track:

1. Cold Wind Blows - This song is basically here to tell you, “Look. This is how Recovery’s going to be. It’s going to be the angry, no-accent Eminem.” This is a good start; it makes the rest of the album seem promising. 9/10
2. Talkin’ 2 Myself (featuring Kobe) – This is a pretty personal song where Eminem admits a lot of things; he contemplated dissing Lil’ Wayne and Kanye, but then concedes that he was probably just jealous of the attention they were getting. This is also the first of a few admissions that Relapse sucked — “This time around it’s different, them last two albums didn’t count; Encore I was on drugs, Relapse I was flushing ‘em out”. This works really well as a song too; Eminem’s flow is really good, the beat is good, and the hook is good. 10/10
   Eminem – Talkin’ 2 Myself
3. On Fire – This starts a string of a few songs where the album begins to take a dive. While this is better than most of Relapse, there’s still something here that’s missing.  7/10
4. Won’t Back Down (featuring Pink) – Like I said above, this isn’t awful but it’s not that good either. The hook is only okay, I’m not a fan of the beat, and some of the lyrics are pretty stupid. 5/10
5. WTP – This feels like a leftover from Relapse. I’m not a fan. It doesn’t fit with the rest of this album. 2/10
6. Going Through Changes – This is where the album starts to recover, no pun intended. From this song on, there’s not another bad one on the album. 9/10
   
7. Not Afraid – Good as the lead single, but it feels a little different from the rest of Recovery. 8/10
   
8. Seduction – This isn’t bad by any means, but it gets overshadowed by what’s about to come. 8/10
9. No Love (featuring Lil’ Wayne) – Lil’ Wayne is (somewhat surprisingly) the only rapper to have a guest verse on this album — all of the other features are doing hooks. I was a little disappointed to see this since there have been rumors of Royce da 5′9″ being on this album for the past year. Anyway, about this song — this is ridiculously good, even Lil’ Wayne’s part. The beat is probably the best one on the album (that sample is amazing). So yeah, easy 10/10.
   Eminem – No Love
10. Space Bound – This album has been getting some flak on the internet for not having very good choruses, but if you ask me just about all of them own that don’t have Eminem singing (see song #16 for the worst example). This is one of those hooks that own. Like the most of the album, the rest of the song is good too.  10/10
11. Cinderella Man – More hate for Relapse on this track, with Em saying it’s in the trash. This has a bit of a different beat (produced by Eminem himself), and I really like it. Eminem still hasn’t really changed his song structure throughout the whole album (every song has basically been verse-chorus-verse-chorus-etc), but it’s been good enough for me. This album doesn’t feel like a chore to get through. 10/10
12. 25 to Life - This is a very similar song to Common’s I Used to Love H.E.R. — Common’s song is better, but it’s unfair to compare almost anything to that song. This is still very, very good. 10/10
13. So Bad – This unfortunately was sandwiched between so much awesome that I just think of this as “the song that’s right before the best two songs on the album”. Still good, but some other tracks on here blow this away…which is a little strange since you’d be expecting a Dr Dre-produced song like this to be one of the best on the album. 8/10
14. Almost Famous – This is definitely my favorite song on the album, and it’s one of the five best Eminem has ever done. The beat owns, Eminem’s rapping is better than any other song on the album, and the chorus is awesome. 10/10
    Eminem – Almost Famous
15. Love the Way You Lie (featuring Rihanna) – WIN. This reminds me a lot of B.o.B’s Airplanes. Anything that reminds me of Airplanes is good. This should be the next single. 10/10
    Eminem – Love The Way You Lie
16. You’re Never Over – Eminem’s singing is almost laughably bad, but his verses here aren’t. He probably should have had someone else sing the chorus. 6/10

*This is a preliminary review. There are rumors that the final CD will come with a code to download 12 more tracks essentially making this a double album. Some of the rumored tracks include a collaboration with Slaughterhouse and a collaboration with Hayley Williams of Paramore (which isn’t Airplanes 2). If there’s a god, at least those two songs exist somehow. The rumor has now been proven fake, and I have an excuse to use my “Proof that god doesnt exist” tag again.

This album is a complete 180 from the awful Relapse (except for Beautiful and Underground). Once you get through some rough patches in the beginning, the second half of this album is great song after great song. This is my third favorite Eminem album after The Eminem Show and The Mashall Mathers LP, both of which are classics. Eminem fans have been waiting 8 years for an album this good. 132/160 ~ 82.5%. I’ll bump that up a little bit because of how pleasantly surprised I was at this. I still have to finish my review for Reflection Eternal’s new album (and I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to give it) so I don’t know if this is my favorite album this year…but it’s definitely in my top 2. 8.5/10

Podcast 0 is up. This isn’t really a podcast, but more of a recording test. We will be creating real podcasts very shortly. Podcasts will most likely be recorded once every two weeks. On our podcasts, we will be talking about video game news,video game reviews, movie reviews, and basically anything in the media that we would like to talk about that week.

Podcast hosted by Archive.org.