The 500 - #250 - Reasonable Doubt - Jay-Z

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #250
Album Title: Reasonable Doubt
Artist: Jay-Z
Genre: Mafiosa Rap, East Coast Hip Hop
Recorded: D&D Studios, New York City, USA
Released: June, 1996
My age at release: 30 
How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #67, up 183 spots since 2012
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Reasonable Doubt

In January, 2019, when I began the daunting journey of listening to and blogging about The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (Rolling Stone Magazine 2012 Edition), I had some reasonable doubts:

Was I biting off more than I could chew?
Would I get 40 records into the project and sputter?
Would life get too busy for me to maintain a weekly pace?

Now I am feeling much more optimistic since officially making it to the halfway point with this week’s presentation. It's been a terrific experience so far and I am meeting the goals I set out for myself:

• Write weekly: This blog began with a focus on education; however, weekly topics were often elusive. But The 500 allowed me to evolve and innovate by providing a launching point to intertwine the evolution of music albums and, when it fit, classroom teaching.
• If you teach it, do it: I try to inspire my love of learning with my students. More than anything, I want them to be critical thinkers who are life-long learners. I teach writing, so I write. I'm also learning piano and Spanish while staying active in sports. Education truly is a life-long experience.
• Explore Diverse Music Genres: It is easy to get stagnant with one's music tastes. By the time we hit our 40s, we have "aged-out" of popular music trends and tend to listen to tried and true favourites over and over again. I wanted to shake up my listening habits and the journey through The 500 has diversified my audio choices while expanding my knowledge and appreciation of music.

I listened to Reasonable Doubt, the debut album from Jay-Z, for the first time in preparation for this week’s offering. It is the third from the Mafioso Rap genre featured on The 500. I wrote about the first one, Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Links, back in May, 2019. It is at position #480. Additionally, at position #476, I wrote about Life After Death from Notorious B.I.G. the following month.

Album Cover for Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Links

Mafioso Rap is characterized by references to organized crime. Sometimes, a gritty narrative presented in the lyrics focuses on low-level street toughs and thugs, unfazed by the danger of crime because it can be the ticket to money and status. Mafioso Rap can also chronicle the lavish lifestyles of crime bosses, soaking up the materialistic and hedonistic pleasures of champagne, expensive drugs, beautiful women, high-end jewelry and fancy cars.

On Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z weaves a tale that straddles both worlds. It is full of clever, double-entendres and contrasts the glamorous lifestyle of crime kingpins to the toll wreaked on the inner-peace and mental health of those who emulate them. Music critic Steve Huey summarized the record brilliantly by saying:

Jay-Z is cocky bordering on arrogant, but playful and witty, and exudes an effortless, unaffected cool throughout. And even if he's rapping about rising to the top instead of being there, his material obsessions are already apparent. The album demonstrates his extraordinary talent as a pure freestyle rapper, but also preaches a subtle message...'bad behavior gets in the way of making money.' Perhaps that's why Jay-Z waxes reflective, not enthusiastic, about the darker side of the streets."

I'll admit, Mafioso Rap is not my cup of tea. Still, I enjoy Jay-Z's clever use of language and his ability to weave long, lyrical passages filled with internal, multi-syllabic rhymes mixed with ingenious pop-culture references. It's easy to understand why he is so highly regarded in hip-hop culture. He is a dexterous wordsmith.

Jay-Z reportedly called the record Reasonable Doubt because he recognized the risk he was taking on his first solo project. He knew that any artistic endeavor draws criticism and judgment. He also knew that many of his rhymes were bold, boastful and even arrogant.

His doubts were quickly assuaged and, over the past 28 years, he has built an empire, securing a lavish lifestyle without participating in crime. He and his wife, Beyonce, have a combined worth of $2.5 Billion, not bad for a kid who was raised by a single mother in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant housing projects in Brooklyn where gangster life was a reality.

Jay-Z and his wife of 15 years, Beyonce

My reasonable doubt has also been eased. I now have fewer records to write about than I have written about. The end is still four years away. but it seems increasingly likely I will make it there. Hope you can join me.

The 500 - #251 - Low - David Bowie

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #251
Album Title: Low
Artist: David Bowie
Genre: Art Rock, Experimental Rock, Avant Pop, Ambient 
Recorded: Château d'Hérouville, Hansa (West Berlin)
Released: January, 1977
My age at release: 11
How familiar was I with it before this week: Fairly

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #206, up 45 spots since 2012
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Always Crashing In The Same Car

It has been a tremendously busy week. While still enjoying some summer break activities, I have started my preparations for a new school year. I'm also rehearsing for a play that will run in late-September and I've realized that my memorization skills are not what they were twenty-years ago -- when I last had a chance to "tread the boards". I also traveled to Toronto to attend the four-day Annual Meeting for my Teachers Federation in Toronto.

That event, attended by more than 600 Ontario educators, provided plenty of opportunity for socializing. However, long, sedentary sessions participating in debate, conducted according to the rigid protocols of  Robert's Rules of Order, can be mentally exhausting. Consequently, I took advantage of breaks to amble around the facility and help the blood return to my legs.

Robert's Rules of Order for Parliamentary procedure.

The hotel and conference centre where the meetings were held are massive. Traversing the expanse throughout the day required crossing the vast lobby to venture from room, to suites, to caucus chambers, to cavernous convention halls. It was a good opportunity to don my headphones and a revisit a familiar record -- Low, the eleventh studio release from English musician, singer, songwriter, actor and cultural icon David Bowie.

Low was the first of three records dubbed The Berlin Trilogy. It, along with Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979) were recorded in collaboration with English musician Brian Eno (a staple on The 500 list) and American producer Tony Visconti. The first two records were recorded in Berlin, while Lodger was completed in studios located in Switzerland and New York. It was during the promotion of the third record that Bowie began to refer to the trio of albums as The Berlin Trilogy.

Low, Heroes and Lodger comprise The Berlin Trilogy

Bowie's decision to move to Europe was impelled by an effort to free himself from the drug culture in Los Angeles, where he had lived the previous two years. Bowie's drug use, mainly cocaine, had escalated substantially. Fueled by the powerful stimulant, he rarely slept and subsisted on a diet of red peppers and milk. Already slim, his weight dropped to below 100 lbs. Years later, he admitted he had little recollection of the recording for his 1976 album, Station to Station (#324 on The 500). As he put it, "I know it was (recorded) in Los Angeles because I've read it was."

Album cover for Station To Station (1976)

A particular favourite of mine on Low is the fifth track, Always Crashing In The Same Car. The song references an event that occurred during the height of Bowie's cocaine addiction. While driving through Los Angeles, Bowie spotted a drug dealer who (he believed) had ripped him off. Furious, Bowie rammed his Mercedes repeatedly into the dealer's vehicle. After, "five crazed minutes" Bowie drove away from the incident and returned to the underground parking lot at the hotel where he was staying. He spent the next few hours driving the car in circles.

Bowie behind the wheel of his Mercedes prior to the 1976 incident.

That event was the catalyst for change for the English musician and he made the move to Berlin shortly after. Consequently, the title (and chorus) of the song serves as a metaphor about the human tendency to make the same mistakes in life, over and over again. It always reminds me of the quote attributed to Albert Einstein, that "Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results".

It seems we humans are prone to repeatedly making the same mistakes. Psychologists have postulated that it is because our ego-driven choices can create "grooves in our neural pathways" that we are compelled to follow. Freud called this "repetition compulsion" and believed it was connected to the learned behaviours we locked into our psyche during childhood.

Bowie's decision to move to Berlin was, according to researchers, a smart one. A change in scenery or situation is valuable in re-routing neural pathways, so pursuing a different creative activity has additional cognitive benefits. It certainly worked for him. He got clean and created an absolute gem with the release of Low, and the rest of The Berlin Trilogy.

There is a lesson in that for us all.

Perhaps that is why I don't mind keeping myself busy with different pursuits during the summer months? 

The 500 - #251 - The Blueprint - Jay Z

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #252
Album Title: The Blueprint
Artist: Jay-Z
Genre: East Coast Hip-Hop
Recorded: Two Studios, New York, NY
Released: September, 2001
My age at release: 36
How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #50, moving up 201 spots since 2012
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: IZZO (H.O.V.A.)

In the mid-’80s, music retailers in remote geographical areas were frustrated. When a new record was released, they would often receive it days after it had made its way to shelves at other stores -- usually those in larger cities with faster postal delivery. To level the playing field record labels decided on Tuesdays as a universal release day. Records and compact discs that arrived before the weekend were kept boxed-up until the store opened on Tuesday morning, giving stores at the end of the supply chain a little extra time to receive their deliveries. Hence, an industry standard - dubbed New Music Tuesday, Record Release Tuesday or New Release Tuesday - was born.

The Blueprint, the sixth studio record, from rapper, songwriter, producer and entrepreneur Jay-Z (born: Shawn Corey Carter), was released on a Tuesday. Unfortunately, it was one of 19 major record releases that were scheduled to hit shelves on September 11, 2001 -- when four planes hijacked by terrorists were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, and a rural field in Pennsylvania. About 3,000 people were killed – and the world was convulsed and changed forever.

Among the other records debuting on that terrible day was Bob Dylan's Love And Theft, which came in at #385 on The 500. I wrote about it in January, 2021. That is a strange coincidence, but not the strangest I've discovered.

The most mind-bending coincidence involved the release of a live recording from the progressive rock band Dream Theatre. Unwittingly titled Live Scenes from New York. The recording was made at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City in August, 2000. Like 18 other records in the works, it, too, was scheduled to arrive in record stores that world-wrenching week 13 months later. The artwork selected for the cover was based on a motif printed on Dream Theatre’s 1992 album, Images and Words, featuring a burning heart wrapped in barbed wire.

Cover to Image and Words, by Dream Theatre 

On Live Scenes From New York, the heart was replaced with a flaming apple wrapped in barbed wire, set against the backdrop of the New York City skyline showing the World Trade Center engulfed in flames.

Original cover of Live Scenes From New York

Given the events of the day, the band/record company panicked and pulled the record from the shelves, to be replaced by a re-issued cover weeks later – before the conspiratorially-minded among us were thrown into a frenzy.

Reissued cover to Live Scenes From New York

The Blueprint, from Jay-Z, required no changes to its cover art. It features an aerial shot, depicting the New York-based rapper smoking a cigar while seated on a table. It was taken by photographer Jonathan Mannion, who shot many of Jay-Z's covers. However, its composition was inspired by the portfolio of British photographer Jocelyn Bain Hogg, who spent 10 years documenting British gangsters in South London for her 2001 exhibit, The Firm.    

Jocelyn Bain Hogg shot on the left, from her The Firm portfolio
Jay-Z inspired, The Blueprint, cover on the right.

The gangster motif Jay-Z selected to emulate was fitting. At the time, Carter, who also goes by the monikers, Hova, El Presidente, Jigga, HOV and The Carter Administration, was awaiting two criminal trials for gun possession and assault. He pleaded not-guilty, but eventually accepted a three-year probationary sentence on a lesser charge of third-degree assault.

Jay Z - early 200s

Jay-Z was also embroiled in a number of "feuds" with other rappers, including Jadakiss, Fat Joe, Nas and Mobb Deep. Takeover, the second song on The Blueprint, features lyrics intended to "disrespect" or "disparage" all four -- a familiar tactic in hip-hop music called a "diss track". The premise presented in the song's lyrics asserted the dominance of Jay-Z and his rap crew, The Roc A-Fella Family, as the best in the genre. Each verse is then dedicated to defaming the skills and reputation of his rivals, who are identified by name within the song.

Promotional photo for Jay-Z and his posse - Roc A-Fella Family

"Diss Tracks" were common in the rap genre at the time and could have real world consequences. Numerous hip-hop feuds have turned violent and several have resulted in death. Consequently, the cover of The Blueprint, depicting Jay-Z as a confident, cigar-smoking gangster, is an intentional part of the fearless and tough image he deliberately portrayed.

Fortunately, with age comes wisdom and cooler heads eventually prevailed. Nas, whose record Illmatic (#402 on The 500) reconciled with Jay-Z in 2005 when the pair performed together at a concert in New Jersey -- fitting neutral grounds for two of the biggest artists to come out of the New York scene in the ‘90s.

Nas (left) and Jay-Z reconcile in New Jersey (2005)

The practise of releasing records on New Music Tuesday came to an end in 2015 when digital downloads became the industry norm. The Blueprint, which was released on that fateful Tuesday in September, 2001, rebounded quickly from understandably poor sales in its first week. It went to the top of the Billboard charts a few weeks later and has been certified platinum three times in the United States -- more than 3 million copies sold. It also moved to the top 50 on the 2020 edition of The 500.

What about Illmatic by Nas?

Well, it jumped 358 spots to land at #41. So, if a quiet beef was still going on, Nas won that battle. Granted, with a combined worth of three billion dollars, Jay-Z and his wife, Beyonce, are likely unconcerned with arbitrary album rankings.

  

The 500 - #253 - The River - Bruce Springsteen

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #253
Album Title: The River
Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Genre: Heartland Rock, Rock
Recorded: The Power Station, New York, NY
Released: October, 1980
My age at release: 15
How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat

Is it on the 2020 list? No
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: The River

When I think back on the best times in my life, I reflect fondly on the autumn and winter of 1980. I was starting at a new high-school in a new city after my family had relocated to London, Ontario, that summer. It was a change that, in retrospect, I sorely needed. The previous five years were spent in Kingsville, Ontario, a rural fishing and farming community on the shores of Lake Erie. Life there was fine...but, I knew I didn't fit and making meaningful friendships was challenging.

Kingsville to London, Ontario - 1980.

London was a game-changer. Days after arriving, I went door-to-door in my neighbourhood with handmade flyers to promote myself as a babysitter. Within a few weeks, I was making enough money to enjoy all that my new city had to offer. There was a bustling downtown with a real library, movie theatres, several record and book stores....and so many arcades. I had a bike and the city bus cost only a quarter. To paraphrase the Bard, "The world was my oyster".

London Transit Bus (1979). Photo credit - Chuck Lahickey.

I joined a water-polo team, a Venturer Scout Club (Boy Scouts for 15-17-year-olds), and registered for house-league hockey, soccer and volleyball. I was meeting new people daily and intuitively knew that, finally, I was going to find "my clan" -- that special group of individuals destined to become your lifelong friends, who share similar passions, tolerate your quirks and celebrate your weirdness.

I was also developing my taste in music, and London radio stations played a significant role. The college radio station, CIXX (106.9 FM), featured hip student disc-jockeys playing classic and obscure songs from the ‘60s and ‘70s. However, the local AM stations that played "The Hits" comprised a hearty portion of my auditory diet. CJBK (1290 AM)  released weekly pamphlets of "Top 29" records. They were distributed at the counters of local record stores. I managed to obtain one from December 4, 1980, and simply reading the song titles transports me to that simple, glorious and carefree time. I enjoyed it so much, I made myself a Spotify playlist with those 29 songs.

A CJBK Flyer from December 4, 1980. Shared online
by Andrew Stolarski.

London's hits of December, 1980, comprised an eclectic assortment of songs from multiple genres, with more than half of them performed by artists with multiple albums on The 500 list. It also included Hungry Heart, the first single released from Bruce Springsteen's fifth studio record, The River.

Hungry Heart single album sleeve.

I was already familiar with Springsteen (affectionately called "The Boss") because I'd heard some of his earlier hits (Born To Run, Prove It All Night and Rosalita) on the FM stations I listened to. However, I felt more connected to Hungry Heart because its release coincided with a time when my spirits were filled with glorious freedom, wonder and joy. The lyrics begin:

"Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack

I went out for a ride and I never went back.

Like a river that don't know where it's flowing

I took a wrong turn and I just kept going."

For the longest time, I didn't understand the song at all. The catchy, mid-tempo melody and the infectious hook of the chorus is deceptive. I thought it was a happy song when, in fact, it tells the story of a father leaving his family because his primal desire (hungry heart) compels him to find something better. Additionally, for several months I thought "Baltimorejack" was the full name of an American city and not “Baltimore (comma) Jack”. A high-school chum took great joy in correcting that mistake.

Springsteen performing with his band saxophonist
Clarence Clemons (1980).

The recording for The River took more than a year. Initially, Springsteen intended to release it as a single album with 10 tracks. However, he cancelled the release because "the songs lacked the unity and conceptual intensity" he wanted. He continued to write, eventually composing more than 50 songs before settling on the 20 that comprise the double-record.

The "gatefold" release of the record with liner notes.

Springsteen's previous record, Darkness On The Edge Of Town, featured storytelling lyrics about characters who were down on their luck and trying to survive against overwhelming odds. The River took a different tack, mixing frivolous and fun songs next to more solemn and dark tracks. In subsequent interviews, Springsteen made it clear that this choice was intentional, saying:

 "Rock and roll has always been this joy, this certain happiness that is in its way the most beautiful thing in life. But rock is also about hardness and coldness and being alone ... I finally got to the place where I realized life had paradoxes, a lot of them, and you've got to live with them."

Fortunately, in the autumn of 1980, this 15-year-old London transplant was "paradox-free" --  as he pinballed through his fresh start in a new town full of opportunity and wonder, propelled by the songs of the day and his own hungry heart.