Phrenology

Phrenology I loved this when it came out, mainly off the back of the excellent The Seed. I liked it so much I also ended up buying Cody Chestnutt’s album that The Seed originally came from. I’ve not actually listened to it for a while so it’s been nice remembering what I liked about it. Obviously the main thing is the live instrumentation, which elevates the jazzy soulful feel and also allows them to go into some interesting, if not always totally successful, corners - there is certainly a slight disjointed feel between the more schizophrenic first half and the jazz-soul second half. Rock You is a strong if fairly straight ahead start, and !!!! gives Beastie Boys hardcore vibes, before the excellent Sacrifice. I love Questloves’s drums on this and the sequenced electronic burbling is excellent, giving it a slightly atypical feel. Rolling With Heat is great too, again excellent jazzy drums and a great hook. Thought @ Work combines Apache and 70s funk samples and the theme of dancing and music as freedom. The Seed is still superb, combining hip hop and Cody Chestnutt's indie-soul brilliantly. Break You Off is much more like jazzy r’n’b rather than straight hip hop. I like the lyrics about breaking up someone’s relationship, and the hook is catchy, if I sometimes find it a little bit irritating for some reason. Water is superb, the emotional and musical centrepiece of the album, ruminating on how their bandmate was lost to drugs, with a superb bass sample/interpolation and a great chorus, before descending into some Revolution #9 style music concrète. Quills is also great, I love the harpsichord/clavinet riff and the Swing Out Sister interpolation, even if I don’t quite connect with the lyric. Initially Pussy Galore feels like another sex obsessed hip hop track, but it’s slightly more nuanced than the repetition of Pussy Galore suggests I think, examining how sex is commodified, capitalised and weaponised. Complexity has another great soulful chorus and as well as a ruminative and rather sad lyric about relationships. I love Something in the Way of Things in Town, Questlove's percussion is great, moving under Amiri Baraka’s poetry, building a very Gil Scott Heron style track. Rhymes and Ammo also has an interesting lyric, conflating guns and wordplay with a great harpsichord hook, and then Thirsty takes things in a completely different direction to close, although I don’t particularly care for it. It’s not a perfect album, there are a couple of things that don’t quite work, but I do love it, and as the only Roots album on the list I’ll push it to a 5. 🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠 Playlist submission: Water or The Seed? As much as I love The Seed I’ll go Water

I had no idea that this was The Roots. Really interesting range on the album. A lot of great tracks, a lot of risks, an overall revelation.

I'm glad to see a Roots album on the list, but also a bit dissappointed that Phrenology was picked. I kind of understand why - it's one of their most diverse albums, covering a wide range of styles and even attempting a few interesting experiments. It certainly is a great record, with jazzy instrumentals and solid production. But it's also far from my favourite Roots album. I infinitely prefer their earliers works ; nothing hits harder for me than "Things Fall Apart", or even "Do You Want More ?". Sure, those were less intellectual or experimental, and were still mired in a more classical hip hop tradition. But they were also grittier, darker, with a raw sense of urgency that I feel has been completely lost in Phrenology. Switching to a more polished sound with complex structures and instrumentation is great in itself, but it unfortunately also came with a more radio-friendly vibe and some R&B parts that don't keep me as engaged as before. "The Seed" is probably the only truly memorable song here, with an honorable mention to "Water" and the crazy "Rhymes and Ammo / Thirsty". Still a great album by a great band, but I can't quite give it a full 5*. 8/10

THE instrumental hip-hop band. Smart, sophisticated, with influences from all over the musical spectrum and some brilliant guest appearances(Jill Scott here, Erykah Badu later on, among others). I also have incredible memories of seeing them live. The show was so energetic and explosive, with the intensity and stage presence of a great rock band. I absolutely loved this album when it came out, and I still love it today. Sure, they might not be the ultimate reference for hip-hop fans, but I love The Roots for what they bring to the table and for their own unique identity.

I had thought I would like this a lot more than I did. Don’t get me wrong, some great songs like The Seed and the track featuring Jill Scott. There were different styles going on, that I didn’t know what the album was about. It’s the best hip hop/rap album I’ve had on here so far.

Definitely different than past albums by The Roots, this one is best described as prof-rap. Focusing more on self-determination and lifting up, they bring along Cody ChestnuTT, Talib Kweli, and phellow Philly Musiq Soulchild and Jill Scott. They chose to add elements of free jazz, punk, rock, Philly soul, and techno. It probably takes a second listen to get all the effects but it’s a hell of a ride. Very cool album cover btw.

The Roots are a group I heard about nonstop in the early aughts, but not being a hip hop fan, I probably only heard occasional tracks. So, when I got this prompt, it felt like a reckoning. Like, yes, now you finally listen to The Roots. They were okay. I appreciated the spaciness of a lot of this. We veer into psychedelic territory occasionally. The overall vibe definitely brought me back to the times though, and wow, am I glad we’ve moved on from those days.

Album #253: The Roots – Phrenology ⭐⭐⭐ I seriously was not in the mood for a 70-minute hip-hop album tonight. There have been plenty of times on this list when I’ve thought that about a particular album, and usually the music manages to transcend that feeling. To be honest with you, this one didn’t. I don’t know what it is about The Roots. I’ve tried them a good few times before, especially when I was massive into hip-hop years and years ago, but I’ve never really caught on to them, despite their critical acclaim. I don’t know what it is. They seem to lack some sort of defining characteristic that I can latch onto in a hip-hop artist. They don’t have the grittiness and cartoonish violence of someone like Wu-Tang, for example. They’re not oppressively dark like The Infamous-era Mobb Deep, or as swaggering as Clipse on Hell Hath No Fury. They don’t have the outstanding lyricism of someone like Nas. I’ve just never caught on to them, despite thinking they’re objectively excellent. That’s kind of how I felt throughout this album, although towards the end my respect for it started to grow and grow. Lyrically, it’s grand. There’s a lot of rapping about how great they are at rapping and how much they love their brothers. I didn’t really catch many lyrics that stuck with me on my one and only listen. Production-wise, it’s fantastic. It’s an amazing-sounding album, and it owes just as much to someone like Herbie Hancock as it does to James Brown, as far as hip-hop goes. For 2002, it’s a really modern-sounding hip-hop album. By today’s standards, if it were released now, it wouldn’t sound out of place at all. In places, it sounds a bit like Kendrick Lamar’s production, or something by Thundercat, particularly with the way the bass sounds. The drums are fantastic too, these really hard-hitting, almost metallic-sounding drums. There are some really interesting tunes on here as well, and the album gets much more experimental towards the tail end. “Something in the Way of Things (In Town)” is particularly powerful. My favourite song on the album is “The Seed (2.0)”. Another defining characteristic that I thought was really unusual, but really, really good, was the way the album incorporates these slightly off-kilter soul verses and choruses. They don’t sound out of place stylistically, because they fit the music beautifully, but the timing of the vocals sometimes feels slightly out of sync with the beat. There’s a syncopated quality to it that throws the rhythm off in a really pleasant way. The neo-soul vocals are all sung beautifully too. But, as is always the way with The Roots, there’s legitimately something in the way of things when it comes to me enjoying them. They just don’t grab me. I never seem to remember any of their tunes. The only other time on this list that I’ve really felt that way about an artist was with Supergrass. Perfectly serviceable music for its genre. There aren’t many songs I could say I actively dislike, but equally, there aren’t many I can say I genuinely enjoyed. So, for that reason, I’m going to call The Roots the Supergrass of hip-hop. A grave insult to many, I’m sure. Three stars.

I'd not properly listened to the Roots before. This was such a fun, eclectic, energising album. Some of the interstitial bits are annoying and it peters out towards the end, but when it's good, it's really good!

Sorry Mr Dimery but when you reach a certain age it is an uncomfortable fact that there is only a limited amount of time left to listen to so much music that you really want to hear. Therefore, a few seconds from each track of this pitiful excuse for entertainment convinced me that I don't need to waste any more of it on crap such as this.

This record!! What a treat!! Magic from start to finish with every track having something different to offer, it didn’t feel like a 70 min album. Loved it!!

Fantastic record, super varied, loads of great beats and interesting instrumentation, It's a bit long, as these things often seem to be.s

no takie spoko

11/3 Didn't care for it

Not my style at all, and it's not something I would listen to if it wasn't on this list. ★★

very mid

Very good far excedded my expectations, especially the first half songs

This was amazing actually! Some real prog elements in this record. The 10 minute epic "Water" was great! Didn't see it heading in that direction. Roots are awesome.

Ambitious sprawling album - the high points are great but some filler drags it down a bit

The Roots are Jimmy Fallon’s band?! How did I not connect that? First song is a vibe, but there’s nothing special on here after the opener.

jazzy

Decent album with a strong concept and execution.

mahtavan ysärihiphopin jälkeistä aikaa, jossa vielä kuului kaiut siltä vuosikymmeneltä

Not quite as good as the 2 albums that preceded it, but a solid entry in their discography.

These guys are from Philly and play actual instruments and Questlove is undeniably one of the coolest guys on the planet. They have all this going for them, but this mostly just sounds like your basic early 2000s hip hop album. Not bad by any means, but I think these guys can do better.

I think Roots get a bit of a bad reputation from their kinda defanged presence on Fallon but shit like this proves how solid they can be outside of that setting

Really liked it

Nothing special here. But not bad. I listened to while I was working out. 3 stars.

Hip hop ikke min greie

One of those 2000's rap albums that contains the hardest song you've ever heard amidst boring, melodic chart bait featuring Nelly Furtado. First, I should say that this thing has its interesting moments. I The album cover is thought provoking, some of the lyrics grabbed me and there is some excellent musicality. The issue I have is that mid-oughts stink that permeates rap from this time. The Jay-Z-ification of rap music can be heard here as it was metastasizing throughout the genre. Some people call it "The Bling Era," and I choose to level the blame squarely on the oversized skull of "Hove." It's difficult to talk about records like this. There are some fantastic tracks here, but there are also a whole bunch of lame duck R & B offerings that completely derail the momentum of the more aggressive and well-crafted hip-hop songs. Can you listen to "Complexity" and tell me that this bubblegum commercial jingle belongs on the same record as "Quills?" I understand man is not a singular emotion, but there is such a thing as producing a decent melody or a genuine emotion. We go from that dumpster fire into a very interesting instrumental with a speech overlaying the track. This album is schizophrenic. Maybe we need another debunked science to get in on the action here. Let’s start the trek to Fire Mountain where we shall dwell until we have found a way to stop time, and then reverse it upon itself and remove Jay-Z from the collective consciousness. I don't know. I hate this era of hip-hop. 2 HIGHLIGHTS: I have the skull of a chimney sweep. Damn phrenologist invoices me $300 bucks an hour for that??

Always love The Roots, and this album is no exception. This is extremely my shit.

I'm not really a Hip Hop fan especially stuff from the 90s and early 2000s. It wasn't all bad, but I wouldn't listen to it again. ⭐️⭐️

Not their best album (Things Fall Apart) but there's some very interesting experiments here. 4/5

Hip hop that takes a pass on sampling, opting instead for a real band playing real instruments. The result can sound more like Soul or R&B or even jazz. There is a certain self indulgence at times. What the second, musique concrete half of "Water" is about is anyone's guess. And things get very silly when they go all Napalm Death on "!!!!" The problem is with the rapping itself. At one point someone calls out "Do you know what I'm saying?" and the short answer is "No". There's a good chance that I need the Remedial Level rap lyrics, but I found the vocals so buried in the mix, so effects laden or so fast that I didn't have a chance of knowing what he's saying. So great instrumentals, but average vocals

5 star album for sure. But its only the 3rd or 4th best album by the Roots. How is it the only one on here?

Sucks that this album is so long. If they cut it down to the best 40 minutes this is an easy 5 stars. However, by the end of the album I was begging for it to be over.

i like a lot of this album. theres some really great songs and a few not so great ones. overall its really well done, if a little too long

OK, but not my thing. Well done for the genre. For me nothing special. 3/5

Did Tribe lay down the Mic for The Roots could grab it? There is a lot of great experimental stuff here - this is also way more a MC album more than anything. It's just that most of it, doesn't stand out very well, doesn't live up to the other tracks. Maybe half the length and it would have been incredible. It is the closest for me to a 3.5 that on a day im more in the mood - is a 4...so a 4 it gets.

What a great album and chaos. Water and !!!! have to be to most crazy and amazing noise I've heard since Lightning Bolt. 5 Stars Baby.

I'm not the audience for this - I can't be for anything that uses the word, or is about real violence so I hated "Rock You". Hated it a lot. Hated "Rolling with Heat". "Thought @ Work" was not for me again of course but better than the other tracks I hate. "Break You Off" and "Water" was OK "Sacrifice" and "The Seed" was actually good. Two great tracks I'm glad I got to listen to. There was notable tracks I hated, some just bad (like "Rhymes and Ammo" and other wankfests), and the rest was just OK. 2.5/5 because the last track reminded me of early The Prodigy (Experience era) and that was fun. Not impressive for something recorded in 2002 though.

3.5 Great rap album, female backing vocals are great

7/10… conscious hip hop / rap / *2002

Because it only takes off after seed 2.0

I don't know if i hate rap more than britpop

I remember hearing The Seed 2.0 when it came out and really loving the live rock/soul band feel it has, although I think I was also aware it wasn't perhaps very representative of The Roots sound. Three or four years ago I saw the CD in a charity shop for a couple of quid and bought it. When I got the CD there was a second disc inside the case which was a CD-R which had Roots Manuva written on it and I was celebrating my good fortune for getting this extra bonus bit of mid 2000s piracy for free. Alas it didn't play and I felt a bit miffed, even though I had bought it without expecting anything more than a Roots CD. I've not played it a great deal since then, but revisiting it I enjoyed the record and some excellent rhyming. . It's quite experimental -some of which didn't work for me- but still love The Seed so it's a 4.0 from me.

Great hip hop album from the 2000s. Met the whole band on this tour minus ?uestlove. Classic tracks and amazing lyrics, beautifully powerful cover. Would have been a 5 but I reserve that for things fall apart by them

Pretty solid hip-hop record overall, it’s especially creative lyrically and sonically which makes it a standout for me. It definitely has a fair share of influences from soul music and r&b and honestly they just fit together really well on this record. The Roots proudly demonstrate their lyrical skill and their influences from old-school hip-hop, and it makes for a great mix of past and present rap styles.

A pretty good album, but a bit all over the place, not always in the best way. Still, this is good enough to nudge it into 4 territory.

Tiene su onda. Canciones de rap y hip hop con onda gangsteril, algunos duetos geniales y en general un buen álbum para los que no somos tan fans del género.

8 - some crap but thought, seed, break you off is an incredible 3 song lineup

Good stuff! The cover art is awesome

Some solid hip hop. Good lyrics and beats

Great stuff honestly. Funny how this era of hip-hop has become the group’s highest rated genre

Pretty standard hip hop stuff. At least there’s no weirdly sexual skit in the middle, so that automatically bumps it up a star.

Phrenology is The Roots refusing to become predictable. It takes the live-band foundation established on their earlier records and pushes it into rock, soul, funk, psychedelia and experimental hip-hop. Black Thought is phenomenal throughout, Questlove’s drumming is ridiculous, and “The Seed (2.0)” is an absolute monster of a song. But the album isn’t perfectly disciplined. Some experiments are brilliant. Some are merely intriguing. Some are simply unnecessary.

ok

A difficult and rewarding album. The Roots really upped their level on this.

Rap/Hip-Hop is a blind spot for me. The jazz-infused songs were great. Probably could've been trimmed down on the overall runtime. Just because a cd gives you 80 minutes, doesn't mean you need to use them all.

Rett og slett kjederlig/dølt

This is good stuff. I think "Things Fall Apart" would have been a better choice from the Roots discography though?

While I was listening to this album today I got in an argument with my mom over text message. Thug lyyyyfe

First listen. This is good, not great. The beats are hit or miss. I prefer the back half of the album.

*2002. *This is a much more interesting take on R&B. and hip hop. *There are a lot of different styles here and it's smooth, but not super cohesive. *I enjoyed listening to it, but wouldn't revisit. *These guys are definitely talented, and even I can tell that this is a really impressive album. *I'm trying to keep the 4's and 5's to album I want to revisit, but It feels unfair to give this a 3, because this stands out much more than the vast majority of the 3's I've given out. RATING - 6.5/10

The only thing I don’t understand is how a band this cool ended up as Jimmy Fallon’s house band. They can do what they like, but it almost has the feel of P-Funk doing a Vegas residency.

It was fine, but too long.

Overall Rating - 2.60/5 (5.20/10). Decent flow throughout, but it's not my style.

i really liked this. like it was hip hop but also jazzy at times and it was very energetic but also pretty mellow at points. i also loved how experimental this got at times - particularly with "water". if i listen to this more there's a chance it could bump up to 5 stars, i found it very enjoyable.

Minus P— Galore this was very good

Phenomenal album, really varied, VERY high 4

Ehdottomasti paras rap albumi tähän mennessä. Mielenkiintonen ja tuntuu että artistilla on jotain sanottavaa. Interludeja välissä ja kokonaisuus toimii. Pari biisiä ei ollu omaan makuun mutta muuten ihan hyvää musaa.

Rap isn’t my thing but it’s got good tunes

Missed the horn section that makes them unique. Just more music from da hood otherwise.

There were parts of songs that I thought were good, but I thought it was kind of uneven and my overall impression was not good.

Neo-soul hip-hop.

I love Things Fall Apart and I love the first half of this. But I think from Water onwards I wasn't quite as enthralled (didn't help that track was 10 minutes long and got quite experimental). I reckon with more listens this could be a 4 though.

ah man i really liked this at first and really wanted to give this a 4, but then it just kept going. this is easily 20 mins too long. i also don’t know how some of these songs made it onto the finished version.

Could listen to the Roots all day. Questlove is a genius.

That was a trip man, I know I need to hear it a few more toes to catch it all and I am happy to do so.

I like this, so my head must be bumpy

Some throwaway songs and some tedious songs but the good songs are REALLY good.

Solid beats. I like it. Probably won’t listen much again. But it’s pretty decent music.

Great sound but a little unfocused.

Негры пытались делать реп хуй знает что вышло

(Strong 7/10) "Things Fall Apart" is probably never gonna be lived up to, so really there's no use comparing this album to it. On it's own, it's a very solid listen. The band plays it safe for the majority of the album, featuring great beats and drumming thanks to the incredible Questlove. The rapping is solid all throughout, and the fusion of classic east coast production and neo-soul is fantastic on songs like "The Seed 2.0" and "Break You Off". The Middle of the record does feature a lengthy 12 minute long song with "Water". A pretty good rap song as it stands, but then it becomes this ambient instrumental that kind of signifies the halfway point has arrived and kind of stops the record a bit. I'm not sure how much of a fan I am of this overall, it kind of feels like padding the album's runtime out, but it's not a huge deal to me. The album ends with a pretty fiery piece of poetry spoken by Amiri Baraka, and a nice breakbeat to back it up. There also two hidden bonus tracks, the super beefy "Rhymes and Ammo" and a techno track with "Thirsty!", a nice and eclectic way to round the album out. I think this record is the definition of "solid". It's not this incredibly deep think piece like their previous album, and it's not really walking on new ground either, it's just The Roots flexing their muscles and doing something cool.

Started very strong, all started to sound similar after that. Love the energy of this album tho

In a world where there are many The Roots albums to choose from, this seems like a peculiar inclusion. I've no idea if any other of their albums made this list (I sure hope so) but this album is just a fairly typical hip hop album of its day, nothing really exceptional here outside of a couple of songs.

The Roots are always superb. Giving this four stars as there are a couple in their catalogue that I would rank higher. Fingers crossed for more.

Some songs are very excellent. I love The Seed. The album is a little longer than I prefer

This was ok album - high praise from me since I usually don’t like hip-hop. I particularly liked The Seed.

First Listen Favorites: Sacrifice Break You Off Complexity Honorable Mentions: Thirsty! Rhymes and Ammo Quills

If this were their debut, I'd think it's solid, or at least that it shows potential. A handful of tracks are stars, not necessarily the singles, either. As a project, each song playing back to back, it loses a bit of magic for me, and that's after appreciating the excerpts of different genres. It's where they aim for a more commercial hip-hop sound that I feel they drop the ball a bit, but it's still a record I'd consider buying at the right price. The cadence is beautiful, the production quality is pretty great, but when they turn to the underground hip-hop sound it's a bit too repetitive. I also feel like there's too many songs about good songs or good music, so maybe I feel like they could've been inspired different for a more artsy record, that I might personally have enjoyed better. I'm sure they've got an album for me, it was a good first listen. Might be the last. 3.3/5

Not much to say. Just a good hip-hop album. Solid 4 Stars.

I mean, honestly, I think it’s a 10. It’s just a roller coaster of tracks that refuse to let you off of its more experimental & slightly challenging tones, but it gently crescendos into one of the most compelling rides a hip-hop album has given me so far on the list. It starts off strangely, for sure, especially with the burst of punk rock on “!!!!!!”, but by “Sacrifice”, this album just rolls with heat on practically every track. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to an album on the list without occasionally pausing it just to comprehend something or write down a complaint, but this one just gave me absolutely no reason to. In fact, I only rewound a few times just to put my focus back on the verses after writing compliments. This feels a triumph in production & songwriting, and apparently, it’s not even The Roots’ best album, which is crazy to even consider. My experience with this album was pretty straightforward: pull up the lyrics, follow along, and just soak it all in. That’s true for a lot of rap albums, but the difference here is just in how easily this album can pull someone in. Black Thought’s flows are easy to roll with, and if you’ve heard more than enough rap, then it’s pretty impossible to lose him. It also helps that Questlove’s drumming is fucking incredible throughout, as is the entire band; they are in sync on this damn thing, and bring a hell of an energy across the board. The actual lyrics here are really fucking good too; a little complex at points, but still pretty easy to comprehend. These tracks thrive on repetition, but in a more rote way; think of it like cramming for a test. You have to be able to get an answer from multiple avenues to get as clear a picture as possible, and the lyricism here follows a similar ethos. Each verse just layers more & more on top of a simple concept to create a fuller picture, one that consistently works hand-in-hand from verse to verse to really open up an entire world by the end of the track. That’s how any song should be written, but The Roots practically do it perfectly here while tackling tracks with a bit more forethought & complexity than a lot of the bigger rap albums of the early 2000s. The standout stretch of this album, at least to my ears, is the run from “Thought @ Work” to “Pussy Galore” – it’s hard to explain exactly why without just going & listening to it, but they all just knock it out of the park. “Water” in particular has some of the coolest sound design I’ve heard from a rap album, and it fits with the thematics of being drowned by the horrors of drug use, especially as a tribute to a former member of the band who had to leave because of his drug issues. Musically, I can hear so much of the roots (pun obviously intended) of the conscious rap scene from the mid-2010s throughout this stretch, and if it started even earlier on “Things Fall Apart”, I really gotta listen to it. It’s not quite the same lyrically, as these tracks feel more like a precursor to the style that Kanye West & others would ride into the late 2000s, though with a consciousness & a mindset reminiscent of neo-soul & a sense of empathy that just gives them heart. That heart applies to the whole album, and when combined with a roller-coaster pace, a really dynamic flow, great lyricism & some wonderful instrumental work, you get an album that’s just undeniable. It commands your attention & never disrespects it, and while it may take a bit to really click, once it gets going, it’s fantastic. I think it’s one of the best hip-hop albums we’ve gotten so far, and we’re 978 deep. Thank goodness this is on the list. I really hope people don’t dismiss this due to any association with Jimmy Fallon, because it’s so, so goddamn good. For me, it’s a 10.

Mye bra nikke-hip-hop, med litt filler her og der.

Посредственней рэпчик

Ambitious hip-hop which mostly succeeds.

This album is great for the most part but... Justice For Things Fall Apart. Overall: 5/10

That was cool

I was starting to grow tired of hip hop, but I actually liked this one