But, truth be told, he only made one truly great album: and, at the time, it wasn't widely considered as such.
All Eyez on Me was his biggest seller and got the best reviews at the time it was new, but a lot of that can be ascribed to accidents of the historical moment: a few commentators called it right at the time, and over the years a few more will have reached the inevitable conclusion that it's a bloated and often horrible release, a kind of vomiting of frustration and aggression balled up during 2Pac's prison stint, with him egged on by Suge Knight's game plan for Death Row domination of the marketplace. 1) that were released either during his life time or in the form he had planned (as opposed to the posthumous discography which exceeds the intended releases but necessarily lacks his input as a guiding force) includes at least a couple of tracks that have proved durable not just in a popular, anthemic sense, but as successful representations of a singular creative vision. His solo debut, 2Pacalypse Now, released to relatively little notice back when he was known primarily as an acolyte of Digital Underground and was yet to become a bete noire of the American establishment, is considered by some to be a masterpiece: and the record certainly has enough substance, in songs like the single 'Brenda's Got a Baby', to merit serious attention and reappraisal with the benefit of the objectivity that the passage of time affords.Įach of the six albums (including the group effort Thug Life Vol. Some qualification needs to be made to this necessarily if unintentionally provocative statement, of course. Stripped of their context - not that that's possible to do, entirely - his albums mostly lack those often indefinable intrinsic qualities that can turn pop records into cultural landmarks.Įach one, in retrospect, has attracted admirers who claim it as a monolithic achievement: but this is only possible to do when the back story is factored in and the foreshadowing of the dramas yet to come can be projected onto the albums through history's prism. An occasionally inspired writer with a distinctive vocal presence (albeit often, in part, as a result of each vocal being double-tracked), Pac nevertheless lagged a little off the pace when it came to making records. That reason is that his records, for the most part, weren't particularly good: certainly they are usually the least interesting parts of the 2Pac legend. There's a reason discussion of 2Pac tends to avoid detailed re-investigation of his records and remains almost exclusively devoted to what he means, what his legacy may be, what he stood for and has come to stand for, his status as hip hop's James Dean, the elaborate theories about his murder or the even more contrived fictions around his supposed faked death and hidden earthbound afterlife.
0 kommentar(er)
