Wednesday, October 26, 2005

LL Cool J: Bad LP


Def Jam, 1987

J.T.: Hey. You really were never that bad but you were alright. You don't eliminate punks or cut 'em up in chunks or even "eat rappers like a cannibal" but I loved ya in Halloween and Rollerderby if its any consolation and love your earlier stuff.

In fact in "Bristol Hotel" you kinda sound like Fresh Prince except you know explicit and all. Still, I like rap songs about real ho's (f'rinstance, "Dear Evette"? -- one of my fave O.S. raps). And hey, your tributes to 50's music - "Go Cut Creator" (aka "Johnny B. Good") and "Do Wop" sound pretty "bad" (as in good) ... but then there's the pathetic "I Need Love" -- ooh, you kinda Frankenchristed there... I was almost embarassed for you and I'm not all about not knowing your sensitive side, there's just better ways to go about doin it, 'kay?

"Bristol Hotel"
"I'm Bad"

Buy it

4 comments:

Seb said...

Yeah, the sad fact of the matter is that, as a lump sum, Mr. Smith's career ended up being much more about "I Need Love" than the likes of "Radio" or "Mama Said Knock You Out". Boo.

Anonymous said...

Why did he become the luther Vandross of the rap game. I guess it was to do with getting more dollars. Thanks for the great read and music.

G said...

The thing is, at the time, rap was hardly played on the radio, even "Black" stations just played like one an hour so "I Need Love" was a definite move for radio airplay. I saw him on the Def Jam tour after this record came out. He had a couch on stage and he started to dry-hump it during this song- highly ridiculous but I think the girlies dug it.

Anonymous said...

Go cut creator go!