CD review: The Massacre - 50 Cent

[DudeAsInCool]

http://www.rollingstone.com/artist/videos/_/id/44827

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[KiwiCoromandel]

CD review: The Massacre - 50 Cent

16 March 2005

Marylin Manson had it sussed. Eminem did too. And it appears 50 Cent has also worked it out: Controversy sells records. The bigger the headlines, the bigger the album sales.

That's why 50 Cent's recent "beef" with protege and former G-Unit member The Game appears a little too contrived. Both have new albums out, and - following a war of words and weapons that lasted all of two weeks - both broke sales records. The rappers have since made up.

So 50 Cent is a master businessman, of that there is no doubt. He is also a talented rapper: His hooks are catchier than Nelly, his rhymes flow better than XZibit and he plays the role of the lovable thug better than anyone.

Some of the best hip-pop you'll hear this year is on The Massacre, 50's second album and the follow-up to his multi-million selling debut Get Rich Or Die Tryin'.

From the sickly sweet sexual innuendo of Candy Shop to the Middle-Eastern influenced floor-fillers Disco Inferno and Just A Lil Bit, 50 crafts ridiculously catchy songs that won't leave your head for days.

But the problem with The Massacre is 50's arrogance. At 22 tracks and 76 minutes, there is far too much filler. Gatman, a rehash of the Batman theme featuring Eminem, is just plain silly, while on Get In My Car 50 comes across like a seedy old man.

And on Piggy Bank, 50 repeatedly mumbles the line "Clikkety clank, clikkety clank, the money goes into my piggy bank," making it plainly obvious that he is only here to make as much money as possible.

One critic summed The Massacre up by saying 50 got rich and stopped trying. Sadly, he may be right.

The Massacre is out know through Universal

[bishop]

As long as Dre has a hnd in the production of the record it will sell. 50's got three songs in the top 10 right now. That's amazing - and yes they are catchy. So 50 is an expert promoter of the truly great art form - Dre's production. Dre doesn't need a muscle-bound teflon wearing thug to do it - but it doesn't hurt.

[DudeAsInCool]

Jody Rosen at Slate:

The dirty little secret of rap fans is this: Beneath the Sean John hoodies and thuggish scowls, they're more gossip-obsessed than Cindy Adams and a roomful of her girlfriends. (Don't believe it? Surf on over to Allhiphop, Rapdirt, or any of dozens of other Web sites.) The rise of glossies like the Source and XXL, BET's 106thand Park, and other hip-hop-centric media has created an echo chamber for rap rumors and fundamentally altered a rapper's career calculus. More than ever, hip-hop is a political game, steeped in cults of personality. New stars may rise on the strength of beats and rhymes, but a rapper's longevity depends upon his or her ability to adapt to fashion and keep themselves in the news. 50 Cent navigates this matrix better than anyone. Take his recent dust-up with The Game. Plenty of rappers dis their rivals, but who besides 50 would appear live on the radio to denounce a member of his own posse while two of their duets were perched in the top 10?

The irony of 50 Cent's serial beefing is he doesn't really have the skills to support the habit. The songs on The Massacre offer simple, visceral pleasures: catchy singsong choruses, minor-key synthesizer hooks, and 50 Cent's trademark slurred voice, trailing languidly behind the beat. But 50 Cent has never had the lyrical depth of great MC's like Jay-Z or Eminem, and on The Massacre, his rhymes have become brutally generic: "Shorty's hips is hypnotic She moves it so erotic/ But watch—I'm a watch her bounce that ass, girl." Pumped up like Jose Canseco, drawling on about getting it crunk and making it thump, 50 cuts a lumbering, stolid figure. In his own way, he's as much of a pop-rap caricature as Ja Rule ever was.

Read more here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2115216/

[KiwiCoromandel]

Bigger than the Beatles?

Rapper 50 Cent has become the first artist since The Beatles to have four simultaneous hits in the US Billboard Top 10.

more........

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Music/Bigger-th...2815700488.html