i see this album hated on a lot on this site. other than "so far to go" being released previously, i can't see ANYTHING wrong beat wise. now, lyrically, OBVIOUSLY common furthered his downward spiral. "i want you" has that line about "jen and vince vaugn." but c'mon....

i don't hear one WACK song. not even close. common getting his LL COOL J on a bit, but other than that, i don't get it. i will say this though: there aren't ANY classic songs on this album, but still a few that should be on any "best of common" album.


anyways, for those who do feel negative towards this album, what EXACTLY didn't you like? to say it's just a decent album is fine, but the hate this album gets doesn't make sense.

I always assumed the issue okp's had with it was that it didn't have a neo-soul feel. And/or that it wasn't produced by J Dilla.

Keep in mind that anything that doesn't have a neo-soul feel or wasn't produced by J Dilla gets panned pretty badly on this site.

Don't listen to the BS though. Finding Forever was a Great album. And I would consider So Far to Go classic. Well it's one of my favorite songs, at least.

like water for chocolate is the greatest produced album as the soulquarians did about 80%, with premier on a couple of tracks. how do you go from that to the neptunes? wtf. the album felt like an atempt to go after the younger, skinny jeans, gazelle with no lense frame wearing generation. what stood out most was that i was unable to liste to the album. it had no concept or flow, which was missing from his last two albums. conicidentally his two most commercially successful albums. i will say, that when the songs come up in my itunes on shuffle they aren't as bad on their own, but the neptunes, really. i've been a common fan since can i borrow a dollar. i'm a grown ass man. i'm not practicing dance moves or color coordinating my socks with my belt and hat. drop some knowledge common

>like water for chocolate is the greatest produced album as
>the soulquarians did about 80%, with premier on a couple of
>tracks. how do you go from that to the neptunes? wtf. the
>album felt like an atempt to go after the younger, skinny
>jeans, gazelle with no lense frame wearing generation. what
>stood out most was that i was unable to liste to the album. it
>had no concept or flow, which was missing from his last two
>albums. conicidentally his two most commercially successful
>albums. i will say, that when the songs come up in my itunes
>on shuffle they aren't as bad on their own, but the neptunes,
>really. i've been a common fan since can i borrow a dollar.
>i'm a grown ass man. i'm not practicing dance moves or color
>coordinating my socks with my belt and hat. drop some
>knowledge common

..... what neptune song was on Finding Forever? I can't think of one song on Finding Forever that I didn't like. Granted, LWFC is by far my favorite and I like Be alot better, but Finding Forever is great.

...my bad. Finding Forever was a dope album

only gladiator is even listenable, and that's sad to say for an entire common album.

it's one thing to say you didn't care for "come close" and "i got a right ta," but the neptunes whole catalog?

...the point is that he went from the greatest production team ever assembled on like water from chocolate, to using kanye here and pharell there, to an entire album produced by the neptunes. makes you wonder what the rationale for the change was. i mean no i.d. has production credits on jay-z's black album and the blueprint 3, why would common switch up his sound and dumb down his lyrics. wouldn't you expect a backlash from loyal listeners who aren't trying to bring bac dookie chains and racoon hats. we know good music, and that ain't it

in response to above: Primo only did ONE song on LWFC

and NoID was not on the Black Album...he did Success on American Gangster and some work on Blueprint 3.

stating opinions when your facts are incorrect just doesn't work.

*smh*

I absolutely love Finding Forever and I grew to like Universal Mind Control. I don't know what happened to the "The Believer" album but I guess it was due to filming issues. BE is my favorite common album besides LWFC. My major gripe with Finding Forever is that the songs were to short, some were obvious filler and some had too much of a pop sound that I didn't like. As a whole, the album was a great follow up to BE...

I always thought i was the only person who actually like UMC

is that not enough

'cause that doesn't mean that every song was lyrically weak. my point with that line was that he had some cringe worthy moments, more so than any other album, not that it was lyrically weak.

I don't get the hat either. I think the whole No Dilla/ No Neo Soul sound thing has a lot to do with it. But Common is my favorite rapper, and I wasn't alienated one bit by this album. Now UMC..........

>i don't hear one WACK song. not even close.

"Break My Heart" wasn't "even close" to a wack song? Come on man.

i will give you that one.

I think the lyrics were pretty lacking, to tell you the truth. It sounded a but better than I remembered it, I do think it was his worst album to that point. Punchlines were stale, lots of the hooks were corny. Outside of "Game," there's not many cuts that I liked lyrically.

The beats were dope though.

up to that point, it's probably at the bottom of the list (i like electric circus, but i think i like finding forever a tad bit more), but it's still AT LEAST a good album. cats act like it shouldn't be listened to though. i understand the disappointment completely (esp since i think BE was a slightly better than great, but NOT classic album), but the outright hate this album gets is beyond me. i've seen tons of posts that treat finding forever like UMC.

He went from Dilla, Premo and Kanye to Will.I.Am. I mean cmon. Some of that album is distinctly wack. Lily Allen? I mean to be honest So far to go is the only song I dig on the whole record, and even that wasn't a whole brand new song. Also his past albums, especially LWFC, seem crafted by musicians. This just felt like putting (realtively weak) verses over some (relatively weak) beats. I mean when you're getting someone as soulful as Bilal on a record, let him do his thing. But it just felt like he was told, "sing this hook".

I dunno I'm making presumptions a little, but put simply its a major step down in production and rapping from his previous records. The fact that I used to love him (no pun intended) only accentuates my indifference to the whole album.

Amen. I just dont know what the reason is for going that direction. No I.D. is still making bangers. Is Dug Infinit still around. I think homie got infected with Hollywood after smoking aces and american gangster. We don't hate albums without Dilla. There are still great producers out there like black milk, madlib, 9th wonder, etc...

kanye produced the bulk. dilla did so far to go, and devo springsteen did misunderstood.


so far, i don't see any really good arguments AGAINST this album, other than VERY VERY general statements. again, i'm not at all trying to say that finding forever is a great album. it's not better than be. but EVERY TIME i see someone talk about finding forever, they talk about it as if they didn't listen to it, but instead read everyone else's opinion, and formed their own off of that.

--it's not a bad album.

--it's great beat wise.

--it's not as bad lyrically as everyone acts.

you're battling on opinion. I don't hate the album but I can honestly say the only reason I listened to it more than once is because Common is my all time favorite MC and I wanetd to give him a fair chance. But the album is boring. Like someone already said, it seemed like Comm was going thru the motions and even the usually reliable Bilal features couldn't save it. His heart wasn't in it, it was run of the mill; was it absolutely awful? No, there's a little bit of replay value. But over the years we've come to expect Common to deliver solid, front to back albums which even if they're not classic like LWFC and Resurrection (examples are One Day... and Electric Circus, albums that aren't classic status but that are solid from front to back), at least you could tell that he put his whole heart and soul into his work and left no stone unturned.

Finding Forever was an album with little to no feeling and showed no effort for a man with an otherwise great career. And don't even get me started on UMC. Be was the last really good album that Common made.

My bad. I thought he did about 3 tracks. Although the track he produced (I Want You) is awful. And in a way you are right, it's not a "bad" album. But it is a bad album in comparison to Common's past efforts. Kanye's beats aren't all that on it, and Common was NOT bringing it.

Every album I categorise in my head: there's the all time classics I have to listen to every few months; there's very good albums; ok albums which are fun for a while; then I'd put FF into a subpar album I haven't felt inclined to go back to for years. It's all subjective, but when the majority of people on Okayplayer (who love Common) all feel like I do, you have to accept there's something in it.

i definitely agree at least somewhat with what everyone is saying. i just get tired of seeing the album bashed (and Be too, to a MUCH lesser extent) as if it's a new vanilla ice album. also, i like delving a little deeper into people's minds, rather than just the typical, "cause it's wack."

and/or critique my choices.

my list:

GREAT:
the people
the game
misunderstood
forever begins


GOOD:
intro
start the show
u,black maybe
southside
so far to go (mostly 'cause we'd heard it before)


DECENT:
i want you (love this song, though mostly for the beat)
drivin me wild


BAD:
break my heart

Driving Me Wild
I Want You
Southside and
Break My Heart

are just not good songs.

The People and The Game are favorites.
U, Black Maybe is pretty good
So Far To Go is a favorite but heard it before so it didn't really add to the album
Misunderstood and Forever begins are also good

Start The Show is just whatever and honestly your opening track can't be whatever in my opinion so that is a knock.

I don't know why we're adding the Intro in any category, 1:17 of sound which is fine but it doesn't add anything to the album.

overall, this album is just kind of boring, even the tracks I like.

and if you look at the track listing and my opinions above, I skip to The People, the skip 3 tracks to The Game, play through U, Black Maybe and So Far To Go then skip again over that awful Break My Heart to listen to the last two tracks.

all that said, other than The Game and The People nothing *grabs* me on this album. some of those other tracks I listed as good are good in the context of an album, but with this many skips, the album loses it's form.

not a terrible album but nowhere close to the level of Resurrection, One Day or LWFC and definitely can't be played through like Be can. so therefore you for you have Common giving you his first album where you have to heavily use the skip button and when you take that kind of drop off from previous albums, you have to expect his fans to take a disliking to the album.

only thing that help this album is the fact that he dropped UMC after it.

The production is real good

the lyrics are garbage, for the most part but the beats really do it for me

________________________________________
It's A Boy and his name is MILES KHALIL YOUNG

FF was average IMO. I certainly don't hate it. It's got some nice tracks on there, Com just ain't bringin the usual lyrical heat. For what it is tho, it's pretty decent.