Phrenology

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.

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.

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.

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

Some of this album I enjoyed, some I hated so much I had to skip the track. I’m mixed on how to rate this, as the bad tracks aren’t even worthy of a score of 1, but most of the album is good so I’m trying not to let the minority cloud my scoring. That said, I don’t feel comfortable giving this a 4 because of tracks like Pussy Galore. So it’s probably going to get a 3 from me.

My attention wandered a bit which maybe a indicator, or maybe it was just a bit too long. There were definitely some good tracks so maybe a shorter version would have got a better score.

In the end its just not really for me

Невдалий вибір альбому The Roots. В них є суттєво кращі. The Seed не може бути причиною додавання його до цього списку. З цікавого, що він досить різноманітний.

Я завжди поважав рутс і цей альбом був мабуть першим який я в них почув (а кліп на the seed крутили по ентер мьюзік взагалі ледве не кожен день). Але з роками якось не знаю, трохи я охолов щодо них і переважно альбомами слухати рутс мені нудно.

It's good, but not as good as other albums I've heard from The Roots. Curious why this is the only Roots album on the list, when they've had several more popular/better reviewed releases.

Eh ... its alright while playing GTA ... but goes on way too long.

Rap, 2002 -> 1

This has never been my favourite The Roots album or anything, and a weird choice for the only album of theirs on this list. But even at one of their lower points, the Roots are still working at a level much higher than most other rap groups out there. There's a very weighty feel to the production, and especially the drums on this album when compared to their '90s records. It has a similar "native tongues throwback" edge as groups like Black Star, but the beats of songs like 'Rock You' and 'Though @ Work' tell a completely different story, throwing away the more traditional, smooth, jazz-based instrumentals of similar acts. It's an acquired taste, but I did really enjoy it. Plus that song, 'Thought @ Work,' has one of Black Thought's absolute best performances; he destroys this beat. It's not unlike The Roots to dabble in genre-fusions, but this is really that exploration at its most extreme (at least up to 2002, their stuff in the 2010s would continue pushing those boundaries). 'The Seed (2.0)' is maybe the most landmark and exemplary song on this album, just ridiculously funky, and it contains a performance by Cody Chesnutt that is about as good as Black Thought's; it feels like more than just another RnB hook in a hip-hop song. And 'Water' has one of the strangest outros on any hip-hop album, bordering on a psychadelic ambient jam from a Can album, and it seems to come out of nowhere. Don't know how I feel about it exactly, but I do appreciate its boldness. And of all the love songs here, 'Complexity' was maybe my favourite, another smooth delivery from BT, and a super warm and psychadelic beat. Great rap album, just super fat beats over some superb rapping, and some solid genre-fusions here and there. Again, The Roots have far better records, but this one was still very enjoyable.

mehish

This just didn’t do it for me, but there were a few standout songs

Some really good moments, also pretty chaotic at other times.

I think Sacrifice was probably my favorite song.

Bin normalerweise kein Rap Fan aber das war tatsächlich mal super abwechslungsreich und hat spaß gemacht beim hören

나가라

Not my favorite

Für mich ist es ein beliebiges Hip Hop Album. Nichts, was mich begeistert. 1/5

More less.

Decent listen, not as good as their other stuff. Appreciate the exploratory sound tho!

Wildly good

A messy and eclectic mixture of hip-hop infused and inspired by a range of rock, jazz and experimental. At times excellent, smooth and brilliantly executed with some superb highlights (Thirsty! Quills and Thought @ Work went straight into the playlist) but also at times a little bit unrefined and OTT. (Water is interesting in parts but far too long and !!!!!!! is pretty well summed up by its title). I'll definitely come back to it in future; it's a lot to take in in a short space of time. The cover sums it up perfectly.

I have liked nearly everything I have heard from The Roots and am not sure why I don't listen to them more.

I don't like rap and this project is content to hand it out in abundance with both hands. This is better than most rap offered up here but that's about it. 2.5/5

As far as hip-hop goes I always enjoyed The Roots approach that brought a variety of musical styles, instrumentation, influences, I just find it more engaging. Still things that are a miss for me as it's not my favorite genre, but I liked it.

Today I thought I'd do an AI review for a change ... The Roots’ Phrenology is an album I enjoyed quite a bit, even if it never quite reached the level of an all-time favourite for me. It’s an ambitious, restless record that refuses to settle into one particular sound, moving between hip-hop, soul, jazz, rock and more experimental territory. What I like most about it is how adventurous it feels. The Roots clearly weren’t interested in simply making another straightforward rap album, and that willingness to experiment gives Phrenology plenty of character. Tracks like “Break You Off” and “The Seed (2.0)” are particularly strong, while the live-band feel and musicianship throughout make the album stand apart from a lot of contemporary hip-hop. At times, though, the experimentation can make the album feel a little uneven. There are moments where I admire what they’re trying to do more than I actually enjoy listening to it. It’s an album with plenty of ideas, but not every idea lands equally well for me. Overall, Phrenology is an impressive and inventive record that I’m glad I spent time with. I wouldn’t put it among my absolute favourite albums, but there’s enough creativity, energy and great music here to make it well worth revisiting. Rating: 3.5/5

Good album. Bit long though.