Review: Magna Carta Holy Grail

Man I really wanted this album to be good.  I was really hoping the Jigga man could come through with his consistency and just put out something I could play on repeat for a bit.  Remember when I said this summer is filled to the brim with good music coming out.  Well that seems to have been an overstatement.  Look Jay-z’s mediocre game is passable, and better than a lot of other people’s best games.  But being that I was never a massive Jay-z fan, his mid tier stuff just never grabs me.  If you love Jay-z, then you’ll probably like this album.  But I’m really only a fan of Jay-z at his pinnacle. You know, Hard Knock Life vol. 2, Blueprint 1, and Black Album.  I’m the kind of guy who couldn’t stand his impression of Austin Powers on Blueprint 2, or his incessantly annoying single off of Kingdom Come.

Pros:

This album is a full album.  For some reason there’s been a trend of putting out EPs and calling them albums.  Jay-z does a great job of bringing back the whole embodiment of an album.  With the commercials, the anticipation, and hell even though I think it’s absurd and discredits all record sales numbers going forward, I can’t knock the genius of his hustle with the free album giveaways.   This is what we want from summer blockbusters.  We want the big artists to come out, get the other big names (JT, Beyonce, Timberland, Pharrell, et al) and make a big impact. These are the ingredients to a big record.  And yet with all the right ingredients and seemingly right sounds (those beats sounded a lot bigger and better in the commercial than they end up being on the album) Jay-z still comes up short.

Cons:

This album is boring.  It’s closest comparison in his discography has to be Kingdom Come.  Similarly anticipated, a few really good bangers, but overall something you can’t listen to without skipping around.  I give him credit for trying to progress his lyricism, and I don’t mind him going back to the well of opulence sometimes, but it’s just not enough of a progression, or regression.  It’s almost as if he needed to choose a side.  Personally after Watch the Throne I would’ve liked to see the more progressive side.  He’s the resident “wise” man of the group.  He’s supposed to show us how hip hop grows up.  And I think that takes more than calling yourself Picasso for the umpteenth time on an album, or making the outlandish claim that you’re the Bob Dylan of rap.  I guess I expect too much, as Jay-z to me has always been about great production and unimportant, yet clever lyrics.  Hell the Black Album is great because of the insane cast of producers.  I’m not sure how many people will get this reference, but Jay-z is the Triple H of rap.  For those who don’t know Triple H is a very good wrestler from the WWF that gets put on all-time lists that he really doesn’t belong on by virtue of the company he keeps (married the boss’ daughter; fuck didn’t even realize the parallel of that to Beyonce) and because he’s said it enough times people just generally believe he must be that great.

Jay-z’s albums make me think of M. Night Shyamalan.  Three really good albums as I stated before.  And with that logic, this is Jay-z’s “The Happening”.  Just like in that movie, I’m aware of the homages, I get the references and there is something there that should make it good with a level of originality, but it just falls really short and ends up being quite boring.  (If you’re wondering The Village is Kingdom Come,  Hard Knock Life vol. 2 is the Sixth Sense, Blueprint 1 is Unbreakable, and the Black Album is Signs)

Score: 6/10

*The best song on the album is the first song.  And it’s borderline just a Justin Timberlake song.  And it would borderline be the best song on JT’s underwhelming album too.

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