List the best time you had listening to music: Could be at a concert. Or listening with your friends or SO. Or just sitting in your room, nodding you head. Or just discovering something on the radio.

And also the worst experiences you had.


BEST:

Hearing 'Love's Gonna Get Cha' on MTV with my friends and brother.

Buying 'All in the Same Gang' and 'Hammer Don't Hurt Em' back in the day.

Hearing Midnight Marauders & 36 Chambers with my brothers.

Watching Smells Like Teen Spirit and the Foo Fighters' first single on MTV (obviously the first was more 'important').

Hearing 'Groove Train' by Heatwave when I was three.

Listening to In Utero and Black Sheep's Strobelight Honey in my sister's car.

Listening to Aquemini and Things Fall Apart on the same day in college.


Worst:

Bought the 'The Show' soundtrack because of the video version of 'How High'. The song was on the soundtrack, but it was another version, a version that I still can't stand. My brother, I and my boy were so upset that we threw the CD out of the window... an hour after we bought the CD.

>Bought the 'The Show' soundtrack because of the video version
>of 'How High'. The song was on the soundtrack, but it was
>another version, a version that I still can't stand. My
>brother, I and my boy were so upset that we threw the CD out
>of the window... an hour after we bought the CD.

I remember a friend had that CD. I went RIGHT to that track, and I was like... "WTF?!!!!!!!!!!"

that used to tick me off. they'd have "video versions" of a song, you go to get the CD only to find out it was a remix.

De La Soul was actually pretty notorious for that (though I still do like the album version of "Ring Ring Ring")

The video-version with Keith in the straight-jacket and everything is seriously one of my favorite Hip-Hop cuts ever but the album-version on "Funk your head up" has a totally dull beat and while it's the same lyrics, it's actually a different vocal-track with Keith sounding less animated and intense...

"Poppa Large (Beatminerz Remix)" is the first version I heard and then I went out & bought the 12inch, then six months later I heard the album and was kind of sad that version wasn't on the album but surprised how the lyrics were different for a few verses but I'm still a big fan of "Funk Ya Head Up" cause it's got soooo many dope songs on it that I forgive them for doing that; but I realize that a lot of hip-hop back in the day did the remix for the video & single but come to find out the album version was less exciting.

Bests: My nigga racing through back streets to get me to Blockbuster Music to buy Aquemini on the first day.

Trading all of my notebook paper to a dude so he'd go to the record store to get Stankonia for me.

Seeing Kanye on "Glow in the Dark" and "Yeezus".

Worsts: not getting official engineering credits for some E-40 songs.

Not getting credit for recording "Eyes On You" by Styles P. & Akon. Basically got locked out into the lobby.

>Listening to Aquemini and Things Fall Apart on the same day in
>college.

This would have been too much for me to handle. Thankfully I discovered these albums a couple months apart, so it was staggered. I played almost nothing but these two albums for like 6 months.

After a long wait Forever is finally out. Buddy and I hit up a mall store (Sam Goody?) and each pick up a copy. I'm pretty sure we weren't driving yet so probably had mom take us. Get home to my bedroom to listen to...an old guy talking?...okay cool, just more anticipation for the first track. Something seems off though...what the hell? There's a lot of bee sounds on here. It's censored?! Eventually get back to the store to return them and learn they had a big issue with censored and uncensored being mixed up from the factory.

Best: Picking up Jay-Z's Volume 3 with a buddy and and while listening to the intro..."Yeah, I know you just ripped the packaging off your CD
If you like me you reading the credits right now" and laughing because I was reading the credits in the car so even though it was the middle of winter in Ohio we put all the windows down, buckled up and rolled out. "If you in your car, I don't care if it's winter, I want you to put all your windows down, Zone out, buckle up, let's go" I still smile every time I play that disc and think about us heading down the highway freezing.

Y'all must have been hyped after hearing that in the car.

-

Thx.

Best: Mama's Gun, Voodoo, FE Connected, Black Star, Midnight Marauders, Red Hot & Riot, Wayne Shorter Night Dreamer, Mulgrew Miller The Sequel
Worst: Miles Davis Sorcerer, The Tipping Point, Maxwell Now

Best: Not the best, but this is an example of the best b/c I listened to this song today and it reminded me of the first time... El-P's Request Denied off of Cancer 4 Cure, in a buddy's car with a brand new system and loud as hell. When the beat drops out the first time, I think I muttered "holy shit" and had a music blackout.

Worst: Eminem's Encore with a friend, and the horror each of us had in our faces when we realized that the album sucked and was nothing like Slim Shady LP, Marshall Mathers LP, and The Eminem Show (and, for that matter, the 8 Mile soundtrack).

Maxwell - Embrya

Big Mike - Something Serious

ATCQ - Midnight Marauders

RAMP - Come Into Knowledge

Arrested Development

YoYo - Make Way for The Motherload

Maxwell - NOW

Eddie Levert - I Still Got It (solo album)

Dalvin Degrate - Met.A.Mor.Phic

Best:
The Midnight Marauders/36 Chamber release day. Listened to Tribe in my headphones as usual, and loved the album. Passed that off to my brother for him to listen to then popped in 36 Chambers. I clearly remember when the record was over, I was in my backyard sitting on a bench. I stopped the tape and just held my walkman shaking my head in shock and awe. Nothing was going to sound the same after that album. It was the last true 'movement' album I can remember

Kind of Blue - Everybody has heard All Blues at some point in time, so I was familiar with the tune since being a kid, and had the album on my Ipod for a while. One early winter afternoon the wife and I are heading to her parents house in Baltimore, and we drive past her old school. She wanted to drive around it for a memory lane moment. So we drive around the school and she's retelling high school stories while Flamenco Sketches is playing. Right around the time when Cannonball hands off to Evans, everything about that song and that album clicked and resonated in a way I never imagined

Rappers Delight, Roxanne, Roxanne, The Show - I have to credit my cousins for all of these. 1st time I heard Rapper's Delight we were at a party at their house in '79, but I was more concerned with their race car set. For UTFO, I clearly remember being at their house on Livingston Road memorizing the words to that. And for The Show we were on their front stoop off East Capitol Street bugging out to the Inspector Gadget music

Any James Brown - Back when we lived in SE DC my father would have James Brown days on the weekends. He'd open the windows in the living room of the apartment, fire up his BSR 810 Transcriber turntable and blast James Brown so we could hear it outside while we were playing in front of the building. Cold Sweat is still one of my favorite records because of this




I'll be back for more in a bit

earliest one is when me & my cousin went to the record store he bought two cassettes BDP "My Philosophy" & Raheem "Vigilante" and I bought Public Enemy "Yo! Bum Rush The Show" on cassette, so we went back to his house, he went into his brother's room to listen to Raheem & I went into his room & listened to Public Enemy.

So an hour later I finished listening and was kind of upset that even though it was their fist album it wasn't anything like their second album "ITANOMTHUB", and he tells me how he liked somewhat liked the Raheem album, so we switch rooms and he liked the P.E. album but I definitely didn't like the Raheem album at all except for one song "Dancefloor".

Of course we both listen to BDP album and both of us was hyped up about that album, I made a copy of it later on, a week later I went back to the store & switched the P.E. tape for Kool Moe Dee's "How Ya Like Me Now" album and that album sucked except for one song the album title track.

Another situation was when me & three homies came from the record store and bought three cds Mobb Deep "Juvenile Hell", Akinyele "Vagina Diner", & Hoodratz "Sneeke Muthafukaz"; so we listen to all of them back to back to back, first we listened to Mobb Deep, two of us didn't care for it while the other two did; then we listened to Akinyele, three of us liked it especially me, and then we listened to Hoodratz, two of them liked it while me & another kat thuought it was okay, to me they were better than Mobb Deep's album but still kind of boring halfway thru. Oh yeah there were two other people who came thru back & forth to listen in on the tunes too.


That was the best album session I've ever had cause usually it just involves me by myself or just another person but never like four or more kats, back then we all listened not just skip around either.

The World Is Yours (remix), Labels (remix) - Video versions of songs are great if you can find that version somewhere. Before we had access to vehicles, we were stuck with Sam Goody, Kemp Mill, or whatever local record store. CD singles and CMS were all we had access to. The Q-Tip remix was on none of those and it drove my brother and I mad. So we borrow the family car and head up to 12 inch Records in Dupont Circle. Flip through the hip hop section, grab a few white labels & bootleg albums. My brother then makes a bee line to the 'N' section . Grabs a record and heads to the listening station. 5 seconds later he's jumping up and down like he found gold. Sure enough, it's the remix. We rush home, dub it to cassette and spend the rest of the day riding around to it. Same thing happened with GZA's 'Labels'. The cassette single didn't have the right mix, but we found the 12"

UB Style (Sinister Mix) - The video version (https://youtu.be/RweMkdLIj9k) is slightly different from the cassette version, and most DJs that play it only have the 12" with this version of it. However, the video version was called the Sinister Mix, which was on a different 12". I tracked down a copy a few years ago as an import. I was quite happy with that one

The Ultimate - We used to see The Roots every time they came to the 9:30 Club. One show around the Illadeph album they came to town and terformed one song that was 'Rock-Rockin it!' but never showed up on Things Fall Apart. All we know is that shit was a banger. Same show, when 'Clones' came on, the crowd seemed to turn into a white boy mosh pit. My friends and I were just shoving people in the middle of it on purpose. Nobody noticed.... Anyway, fast forward some years to a late night Tower Records store run. I come across a Roots CD single with a song called 'The Ultimate'. Could it be? Maybe? Possibly? Hit the register, get to the car, pop the CD in the deck. That was the mystery song we heard some years ago. Magnificent

Driving into Johannesburg coming from soweto in the back seat drunk with R. Kells feeling on your booty (or whatever the name was) playing and a chick from Botswana beside me necking me and whispering "do what the song says"

Listening to things fall apart while walking around town with headphones on.

Listening to Voodoo alone in my dorm room high as hell.

Listening to some Georgia Anne muldrow tracks from Early (years before she released them) walking around Fitzroy, Melbourne high as hell


Worst... Probably listening to Jay's black album for the first time with an ex and her asking me stupid questions throughout. I had a ritual where I'd listen to albums for the first time alone and with headphones... She insisted on "sharing the moment"... Smh...

Nobody Sound Like Me - Xzibit. I'm with the wife in Cancun for our anniversary. We're riding on a tour bus down the shore line and this comes up. The sand, beach, sunny weather, trees and this breezy sounding sample were just about perfect

Come On With The Get Down (remix) - Artifacts. Same trip, we're at one of the neighborhood shopping areas away from the resort. We go in the supermarket to do a money exchange and hopefully get a few supplies. Walking through the aisles with everything in Spanish does make you feel like The Little Old Man Who Could Not Read (http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Old-Could-Read/dp/059038077X). I'm not sure if these huge bottles of multi colored liquid are soda or Fabuloso cleaner. All the while Bussa buss is on the hook over a loping Holy Thursday sample. It was about as sureal musical moment I can remember

...the show would have the most random artists. They wasn't getting the big names anymore,but a lot of people on majors that had a single popping. So watching the show was less entertainment and more curiosity for me.

I'm in high school and it's a random Saturday before getting a haircut, time to see Shemar Moore (who in hindsight looked like a bootleg Ginuwine) hosting Soul Train. One of the performers was 702, who I knew had a single with Clipse that was alright so I figured 702 would perform that and be done...but they did another song first....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2SMryVFoUQ


WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?

At this point I was fiend'nt out for anything Neptunes, and this was before the Nept's got their big run. So when I heard this I went nuts...but no one around me watched Soul Train, so when I went back to school Monday no one knew what I was talking about.

Took me 3 weeks to hear the song again (the album didn't drop for another 4 months after the show aired) by finding a promo single and it felt like forever. It's one of those songs that everyone loves when they hear it, but most don't know it exists. I think it may have gotten some late-night radio burn but that was it.

How did this song not get a video man...sigh.

one of the best...my introduction to The Roots. Saw the video on a late night Yo! MTV Raps episode...i had been dozing off here and there...and then the laughs and the way the video played and me being half asleep...at first I had thought I dreamt it....did I really just see/hear that? What was that? Had to be sure to watch the re-run of that episode the next morning to make sure I actually saw what I thought I saw.

Before the days of the internet and if one wasn't stopping by Tower on Broadway and 4th to read the latest Billboard or Ice magazine (remember that), it was possible to be surprised by record releases.

On a summer day in 1991, I was randomly checking out a Sam Goody or Musicland in a mall in Warwick, RI when I stumbled onto the cassingle of Prince's Gett Off.

I has no clue that a new Prince song was on deck.

It had the funky handwritten 1999-style letters on the packaging.

And the song was banging! It was the perfect blend of old school Prince musicianship and swagger with a new and fresh sound. I was hyped again for my man Prince.

I listened to that cassingle nonstop until the fall when the album (which ultimately was not as good as Gett Off promised) came out.

I feel nobody gives it the credit it deserves for being such a HUGE song at the time. It's plenty songs from the same year/era that are heard more now, probably because it got played to death.

But I remember first hearing it while riding in a full van with like 8 other kids. People were excited, but I was hype in a whoooooole different way.

Another best:

When Ether first droppped. We had just got home from school, and my boy called and said "AYYYYYYYYYYYY, turn it on 100.3....why is Nas KILLING Jay-Z????"

A few weeks earlier, I remember everybody completely being on Jay's dick after Blueprint, and someone mentioned how hard Nas fell off. Me and my boy were like "I mean, he had a bad album, but I am was dope, and he's still dope as a lyricist" but nobody was listening. My young boy I took to school was just 9th grade, and he was a 100% Jay fan, AND a rapper...you know rappers who idolize Jay are just, different.

So yeah..I heard Ether, and was going wiiiiiild. I found the MP3...and the next day, I asked my boy who rode with me, "you heard Ether?" He said what, nah what's that? I said.........."this......." and showed no emotion....put that shit on.

His reaction:
5 second mark (Fuck Jay-Z): Wait, what? Who's this?

20 second mark: He probably gonna say somethin wack.

1 minute mark: Ohhh....wow.....

2-3 minute mark: WHAT???? WOOOOOW!!!!!! NOOOOO!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK?!!????????????

>So yeah..I heard Ether, and was going wiiiiiild. I found the
>MP3...and the next day, I asked my boy who rode with me, "you
>heard Ether?" He said what, nah what's that? I
>said.........."this......." and showed no emotion....put that
>shit on.
>
>His reaction:
>5 second mark (Fuck Jay-Z): Wait, what? Who's this?
>
>20 second mark: He probably gonna say somethin wack.
>
>1 minute mark: Ohhh....wow.....
>
>2-3 minute mark: WHAT???? WOOOOOW!!!!!! NOOOOO!!!!!!
>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! WHAT THE
>FUCK?!!????????????

I remember I was kind of just sitting there, shocked, after hearing it. and then the weekend that album came out I heard it from like 5 cars just randomly walking around.