Album Review: Akon- Trouble

Akon, one of the most talented artist of the 21st century, he started off as one of the best, but then suddenly became one of the most overrated after releasing 'Freedom', a repetitive, materialistic, and overall disappointing album, but that's not what this review is about, this review is about Akon's debut album 'Trouble' which was easily one of the most unique and entertaining albums of 2004.

Trouble is Akon's first album, and it's his second best album after 'Konviced', it opens Akon's career in the most unique musical style, by fusing R'n'B, West Coast Hip-Hop, and Reggae and that may be considered as one of the album's major highlights, because when I see an artist start there career with something new and unique, and more importantly deliver, I know that artist will be remembered for a while.

Trouble had some of Akon's best tracks, for example, there was 'Locked Up', which has a strong beat, a great R'n'B feeling, and and a smooth west coast rhythm, another very strong track was 'Gangsta' a track that shows us some of Akon's best lyrical skills, 'Ghetto' and 'Lonely' are two perfect examples of Akon's most emotional tracks, 'When The Time's Right' had a very strong west coast feeling, and 'Journey' was a very powerful fusion between Reggae, Hip-Hop, and R'n'B.

Trouble has very few errors to talk about, the only error I can think of is that Akon sometimes tried too hard to fuse different genres, the only three examples of that error are 'Trouble Nobody', 'Pot of Gold', and 'Show Out' ,which were easily the worst tracks on the album.

Despite having one major error, Trouble was one of the best albums of 2004, and one of the best debut albums of all-time, it had a very different style, and an almost perfect balance between two to three genres, so overall, I think that Trouble is one of those debut albums that starts a career right, and that insures that this artist will be remembered in later generations.

Album Rating:-

-Lyrics(out of 8)= 6

-Content(out of 8)= 6

-Flow(out of 8)= 7

-Rhythm (out of 8)= 7

-Beats(out of 8)= 7

Total Rating(out of 40)= 33

4 Stars

*Rating System:

0- 7= 0 Stars
8- 14= 1 Star
15- 21= 2 Stars
22- 30= 3 Stars
31- 35= 4 Stars
36- 40= 5 Stars

Album Review: Eminem- Infinie

    Back in 1996, Eminem, or in other words 'the greatest rapper who lived' was just an underground rapper, a rapper that was not well known, a rapper who was just trying to jump start his career, a rapper who was triying to make money off his talent, all of those facts about this album lead to a question, which is: did Eminem's first EP manage to jumpstart his career? Based on the music quality, the answer is yes, but based on trying to make money off the album, the answer's no, the album was not advertised well, and it was not sighed to a well known record company, but now, it's easy to find, thanks to his 'The Slim Shad LP' released in 1999.

    Infinite is a 'second level' Eminem album, it goes in the same group with 'Relapse' and 'Eminem Presents: The Re-Up', meaning that it's a good album, but with a few minor flaws, and very few major flaws. Infinite is an EP, that means that it's a short album, it only had 11 tracks, four of those tracks where all in excellent quality, three of those five tracks are uplifting, lyrical, and the best of the album, they are called 'Tonight', 'Never 2 Far', and 'It's Okay', the fourth track goes more into showing off lyrical skills, it's called 'Open Mic', and the fifth is a story telling track called 'Backstabber'.

    As I mentioned, the album has some errors, a few minor, such as the mixed vocal quality, or the weak beats', and one major, such as the length of the album, which caused every error to strongly count in the album, but ironically, even with those errors, there are no bad tracks on the album, the worst tracks are fair, also they are only two tracks, they are 'Jealousy Woes', and '313'.

    Infinite really did well for Eminem, despite a few errors, it gave us the origin of his lyrical skill, it also gave us the origin of his rhythm, and how he started to match the rhythm with his lyrics, overall, Infinite is nowhere near 'classic' status, but it's certainly a historical album.

Album Rating:-

-Lyrics(out of 8)= 7

-Content(out of 8)= 6

-Flow(out of 8)= 5

-Rhythm (out of 8)= 5

-Beats(out of 8)= 6

Total Rating(out of 40)= 29

3 Stars

*Rating System:

0- 7= 0 Stars

8- 14= 1 Star

15- 21= 2 Stars

22- 30= 3 Stars
31- 35= 4 Stars
36- 40= 5 Stars

Movie Review: Jonah Hex

-There are very few movies that are shorter than an hour and a half, 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' lasted an hour and twenty minutes, 'Jurassic Park III' was an hour and twenty five minutes, 'The Simpsons Movie' was an hour and twenty minutes, and all the Shrek movies, were each one lasted for an hour and twenty minutes, but what did all these movies have in common? The answer is simple, they were all short, and they all lacked a certain amount of detail, movies like 'The Simpsons Movie' or the first two Shrek movies where very entertaining, but lacked some detail, movies like 'Jurassic Park III' or 'Shrek Forever After' where both good enough movies, but they both lacked detail, and plot development, and movies like 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'Shrek The Third' lacked character development, plot, detail, and explanations, but what about 'Jonah Hex' a movie that just lasted for an hour and ten minutes, what was it missing? and What were the good and bad elements of the movie?

-Jonah Hex is a movie that takes place in the wild west, it has a very strong revenge type theme that strongly glamorizes revenge, which is one error in the movie, another error was the very weak and simple plot, about a former US solder named Jonah Hex hunting down Quinton Turnbul, a man who killed Hex's family after the civil war.

-Other than the plot and theme, Jonah Hex suffers from a list full of errors and problems ,a few where due to the extremely short length of the movie, such as the lack of details and explanations, or the lack of characterization, there where also some script related errors in the movie, one perfect example was during a scene where Jonah Hex is in a bar and someone with a knife asks him "what happened to your face" then Hex shoots him on the chest and says "cut myself shaving, what happened to yours?", another obvious error in the movie was the awful acting skills of Megan Fox, who had a strongly negative effect on the movie's quality, also there was one error in the movie which made it seem unrealistic, which included some of the action scenes having weapons that where too modern for the wild west era.

- Despite the many errors of the movie, Jonah Hex did have some light, such as the acting performance of Josh Brawlin, which was one of two reasons why the movie wasn't a complete failure; the second reason was because of some good action scenes early in the movie.

-Basically the only ups in the movie where Josh Brawlin's performance and some of the action, but other than that, Jonah Hex was a perfect example of a movie that can easily be defined as a joke, it had a handful of scripting errors, the action was very unrealistic, it was too short to even count as a full-length movie, and to make it worse, Megan Fox was part of the cast, so as you can see here, Jonah Hex is the perfect candidate for the worst movie of 2010 and will be remembered as one of the worst movies of all-time.
 
*Movie Rating:-

-Acting(out of 6)= 2
-Story(out of 8)= 0
-Plot(out of 8)= 0
-Actions(out of 6)= 1
-Effects(out of 4)= 2
-Character Developement(out of 8)= 1
*Overall Rating(out of 40)= 6
0 Stars



*Rating System:
0- 7= 0 Stars
8- 14= 1 Star
15- 21= 2 Stars
22- 30= 3 Stars
31- 35= 4 Stars
36- 40= 5 Stars

Album Review: Kanye West- Graduation

In the 2004-2007 hip-hop era, Kanye West had some of the best moments of his career, in 2004 he recorded 'The College Dropout', one of the best hip-hop albums of the 2000s, in the same year he recorded his best track 'Jesus Walks', which was part of the album, in 2005 he released 'Late Registration' which was a good album, but quiet comparing to his first album, and in 2007 he recorded his best album 'Graduation' which is the album that I will be reviewing right now.


'Graduation' is Kanye's last and shortest album on his 'Dropout Bear' trilogy, it featured only 15 tracks, but still managed to bring Kanye to the next level, opening with 'Good Morning' which fell short from being Kanye's best track but was still up there as one of his best, the second track 'Champion' was probably the weakest track on the album, which was weak in pretty much every factor except for the rhythm, the third track 'Stronger' was the best track on the album, it's no 'Jesus Walks' but it still manages to strongly entertain.

The best tracks where as I mentioned 'Stronger' and 'Good Morning' but there was still a handful of tracks that are not far behind, such as 'Big Brother', a heartwarming Jay-Z tribute, 'Homecoming' were had Kanye raps about going back to Chicago, 'Flashing Lights' was Kanye's take on fame, 'Good Life' was Kanye bragging about how good his life is, but at the same time being sarcastic about some points, and 'The Glory' had Kanye rapping about his rise to fame.

The album has a few errors, there were some weak tracks like 'Champion', and 'I Wonder' but another error in the album was the lack of guest appearances, despite having Lil Wayne, T-Pain, and Young Jeezy, the album was still missing Jay-Z and a few other artists who were in Kanye's other albums.

Graduation was Kanye's best album, it had the 'Collage Dropout' lyrical skills, and the 'Late Registration' rhythmic feeling, both together to create an album which has a perfect balance between lyrics and rhythm, despite a few minor shortcomings, Graduation could easily count as Kanye's best album.



*Album Rating:-

-Lyrics(out of 8)= 8
-Content(out of 8)= 7
-Flow(out of 8)= 6
-Rhythm (out of 8)= 8
-Beats(out of 8)= 7
Total Rating(out of 40)= 36
5 Stars

*Rating System:
0- 7= 0 Stars
8- 14= 1 Star
15- 21= 2 Stars
22- 30= 3 Stars
31- 35= 4 Stars
36- 40= 5 Stars

Album Review: Kanye West- Late Registration

Kanye West opened his career with 'The Collage Dropout', one of the best rap albums to ever come out, the best album in 2004, the best rap album to come out since 'The Eminem Show', and the first album since 'The Slim Shady LP' that was created by a rookie, but seemed like it was created by a legend, in 2006, his second album 'Late Registration' came out, but did it reach the same legendary standards as 'The College Dropout?'

Late Registration is Kanye's sophomore album, so you'd think that it would be better than his rookie album, but unfortunately, comparing to his rookie album, the album had simpler rhymes, was less meaningful, and had more weak tracks, but at the same time, there was a large group of tracks on Late Registration that can compare to some of the tracks on The College Dropout.

Late Registration opened with a track called ''Heard Em' Say' which had too much of a piano interference in the beat, but was still worthy to be a good track, the second track was one of my favorites, it was called 'Touch the Sky' and it was full of lyrical, and rhythmic energy, the third track 'Gold Digger' was the first single of the album, it was good, but it did not live up to the aggressiveness, the lyrical strength, and the rhythmic feeling that was in his last album's first single 'Jesus Walks' which was Kanye at his best.

The album has some tracks that can compare to his last album, as I mentioned, Touch The Sky was one of them, there was also 'Diamonds from Sierra Leone' which was strong lyrically, and rhythmly, another very strong track on the album was the 'Diamonds from Sierra Leone' remix, which featured Jay-Z, who was a strong addition to the song.

The Album's worst tracks include the same errors heard in the last album, but in this album the errors played a bigger role, there were slow tracks, such as 'Drive Slow' and the disappointing 'Hay Momma', there were weak rhythmic tracks such as 'Crack Music' and 'Gone', and there were some weak lyrical tracks as well, such as 'We Major' or 'Roses', there are probably some negative comments on some other tracks as well, but the difference between the tracks I mentioned and the tracks I did not mention is that the tracks I did not mentioned where good, but with some flaws.

Late Registration was a disappointment to me, it had too many flaws and errors to compare to The College Dropout, but at the same time, it was still good enough to be considered as a 'good' album.

Album Rating:-

-Lyrics(out of 8)= 6

-Content(out of 8)= 5

-Flow(out of 8)= 6

-Rhythm (out of 8)= 7

-Beats(out of 8)= 6

Total Rating(out of 40)= 30

3 Stars

*Rating System:

0- 7= 0 Stars

8- 14= 1 Star
15- 21= 2 Stars
22- 30= 3 Stars
31- 35= 4 Stars
36- 40= 5 Stars