Modal Soul

Banger 5

Another one of those sacred cow albums where my opinion starts and ends at: "Yeah that was pretty alright I think". Inoffensive, chill jazzy hip hop. 3/5.

Did not hear this one coming… it’s smooth as all get-out, veering into cul-de-sacs of hip hop, easy listening, jazz and even a bit of disco. What an interesting selection.

10/10 first time listening to Nujabes, and it’s so cool hearing an artist who pioneered the lofi-hip hop genre really great stuff :D

Jazz rap, hip hop, trip hop. Me ha gustado. Un 4.

A lovely album; thanks

Another sad tale... I like this a lot, this kind of jazz-hip hop fusion feels like an underrepresented missing link on that side of the pop spectrum. Lots of mid-2000s Adult Swim nostalgia.

Smooth jazz-hiphop. Like it as background music

I didn’t like the rap but the rest was ok.

This sounds like the kind of late 90s stuff that made Nuyorican Soul do so well - but from the mid-2000s. Surprising to find out that it's from a Japanese DJ. It's OK - better than most, but not something I found to be world-altering.

Ok, this is a definite spinout - jazzy piano and hip hop. No idea what to make of it. End of album: I wasn't expecting the to be Japanese... anyway, it was alright. Got a bit samey. 3/5.

Yeah, it's pretty smooth soul-jazz-hip-hop electronica. Opener "Feathers" and "Luv(sic.)pt.3" stand out immediately. I was also smitten with "The Sign", where Pase Rock does a Gil Scott-Heron impersonation that's so convincing I had to check the credits to see if it was not a sample playing instead of a featuring. The rest goes to a streamlined pace that's somewhat pleasant but not exactly revolutionary in those genres. There are expert lounge-jazz piano playing effects nicely conveyed through the equally expert programming of the Japanese DJ. But as nice-sounding as the thing is, the less striking cuts still personally sound quite derivative to my ears, and also like stuff that could be used for as "illustrative music" for some informative video online. The best tracks are still making the obvious artistry valuable, though. Rest in peace, Nujabes. 2.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums rounded up to 3 7.5/10 for more general purposes: 5 + 2.5 ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ----- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 50 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 66 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 121 (including this one) --- Hey, Émile. Tu as déjà dû voir ma dernière réponse sous la review de *Young, Loud And Snotty* des Dead Boys ! J'essaie d'écrire la mienne bientôt

Modal Soul is a nice laid back hip hop album by Nujabes. I do not like the production/mixing of the album though. For example on "Feather" the piano is way too loud pushing the rap to the far distant background. "Ordinary Joe" has a similar issue with too dominant drums. The songs are good in the beginning, but the quality (or my interest) starts to decrease halfway.

"enjoyed! Though I was up at noon today, this feels like an appropriate sunrise album." -October 21, 2024 That is all I wrote in my music diary. Damned past me is about to make me set an early alarm for Nujabes November 9, 2025 HL: "Feather", "Ordinary Joe", "Luv(sic)", "Thank You", title track, "Horizon" Listened to some of it at 8am and the rest at 8pm. It's a morning album, it's a night album, it's a frikin blast and I'm still not entirely sure why. The guest roster of underground rappers like Shing02 and Apani B Fly get their time to shine but their features don't really stand out the way you'd expect from a hip-hop album; the album is mainly focused on dreamily shifting from one track to the next. Though there are many great examples of mixing hip-hop and jazz before and after Modal Soul, this album is still a pretty special one.

I don't need to listen to this to know this is the king of trip hop and it just a truly immense album that I come back to all the time. Fantastic choice by the person who added this!

R.I.P.

The ‘J Dilla of the East’ deserves more notoriety for his career and kudos, listener for including this important disc, but also begs the question: where is J Dilla on this list? The Soulquarians got some nods but J Dilla gets a frighteningly-little credit for - as Nujabes also seems to have done in Japan - revolutionising hip-hop beats into a more jazzy free-flow direction. I’m not mad at this inclusion at all but I want J Dilla on line one, please.

Cool beats to string Christmas lights to

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Feather, Reflection eternal, World’s end rhapsody, Horizon

Sometimes you just get the perfect album at the perfect time. I've been listening to a lot of hip-hop producer albums lately (e.g. RJD2's Deadringer), so this album had its finger on my pulse. I really liked it overall. I would have preferred more instrumental tracks so you could hear what he's doing more clearly, but this album is really solid and clearly influential 4/5

The originator of lo-fi hip hop beats is still some of the best out there, with vocal features that has a cheesiness to it, but comes off more earnest because of it. I think if this was just slightly tighter pacing wise, this would be absolutely amazing, but it's still great as is.

Thought this was a pretty cool album. Refreshing with the jazz hip hop fusion, but found the featured artists to be a bit less talented and not strong enough to make this album really great. Some of the rap artists just felt a bit too amateurish. Overall it was a cool album and a good listen. 6.6/10

An interesting and nuanced hip-hop LP with some great beats, enjoyed the more involved instrumentation and clear vision in composing the backing tracks. Does get a bit repetitive at times, and the back half feels more demo-tape without any features on top (which feels like a weird omission), but an enjoyable listen nonetheless.

Nice

Är egentligen inte mycket för den här genren men här kommer de dock undan med godkänt resultat. Stundtals ganska soft och skön.

Dippin' Dots Elevator Music of the Future

Cold for revision

It’s that cool hip hop

Yeah enjoyed this,

Modal Soul started well, Feather, reflection eternal and Luv(sic) are really good, then I found the rest of it just played into the background and I didn't notice or care for it, very bland. Stops it getting a 3.

Oh gosh, it’s very kind of you but no thank you. Please just leave me alone now.