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Saul Williams and Trent Reznor team up to single-handedly destroy rap music.

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Jackie Blue:
Seriously, has anyone heard Niggy Tardust?  It's as bad as its title.  Easily the worst rap album I've ever heard, and yes, that's including mainstream shit like 50 Cent and Young MC's Return of the One Hit Wonder.  Half the songs sound like they're being pushed to be "hold yo' 40s in the air" club anthems, complete with lyrics that are ridiculously macho for someone who is a former slam poet (he wasn't good at that, either, but he was popular) and is supposed to be "intelligent".  The other half of the songs sound like Trent said "Man, I wish I could make songs that sound like TV On the Radio".

Also, that cover of "Sunday Bloody Sunday".  Oh, Jesus, that track is pain incarnate.

Scandanavian War Machine:
sounds like a personal problem. i've never even heard of this; let alone listened to it.

and judging by your description that's a very good thing.

Jackie Blue:
Well, it's being pushed as some kind of brave new evolution of hip-hop, because OMG TRENT REZNOR PRODUCING A RAP ALBUM, and Saul Williams is "the new voice of black America" and all that.  That's why I brought it up.  Check the Pitchfork review; they gave it a 7 point something but basically kissed its ass hardcore in the actual review.

Johnny C:
I think you've misjudged the review and possibly, from what I'm listening to on Myspace, the record itself. Pitchfork's stance is that it's a challenging album, the reviewer doesn't always "get it" but he isn't willing to discredit it based on that.

The Myspace only has "DNA" and "Trigger" as original tracks. The latter track reminds me of dense, murky rap like Tes mixed with some low-key Public Enemy sampling, while the former is a fairly slow-burn track about black urbanites finding more value in rap music and what it represents than anything immediate and tangible in their community. Maybe it's just that the best tracks on Niggy Tardust are on the Myspace?

I'm not trying to be a contrarian or anything. I mean, that "Sunday Bloody Sunday" does really suck. I just think that what I'm hearing so far - about a fifth of the record - isn't nearly that bad.

Jackie Blue:
The tracks on the Myspace are definitely not the worst on the album, no.  As for it being a "challenging" album, I don't see how.  The lyrics are front-loaded with ideas that were already old a decade ago.  In one interview, Saul said he wanted to use the word "nigger" so much on the album in order to open a dialogue about what the word means and how it should be used.  That's great and all, except that rappers have been doing that since at least the late 80s if not before, and 2Pac already delivered the definitive statement on the subject: "A nigger is a black man with a chain around his neck; a nigga is a black man with a gold chain around his neck."

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