HarVeeGee

On one level, there’s not a lot to this album. It’s just Rick Rubin being Johnny Cash’s first producer since Sam Phillips to realise less is more with this guy. You can’t beat just hearing the guy alone in his living room with his guitar (or at most with a very low key backing band like the Tennessee Two/Three). Aside from the production choices, it’s just a fairly standard Johnny Cash album - the same sort of mix of covers, commissioned songs and originals ... read more

It's enjoyable with a few really strong cuts, if not something which will ever be high priority in my Nas rotation. Could have done with better production. Honestly the main takeaway is that Nas sounds good trading bars with a singer on what aren't really traditional hip-hop beats. Which just makes me mourn the Nas x Amy Winehouse album we very likely would have gotten had she lived.

This isn't what I signed up for, Nas.

I came to your discography looking for the dizzying contrast between the greatness of Illmatic, It Was Written etc, and the shittiness of colossal miscalculations like Nastradamus.

This is just kind of... whatever? Pleasantly in one ear, out the other, then immediately forgotten. Boring!

Is Jeopardy > Oh My Darling Don't Cry > Blockbuster Night, Pt 1 > Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck) the greatest, most face-blistering four song run the greatest, face-blisteringest opening to any hip-hop album ever?

Maybe!

The rest of it is good to great, but god DAMN. God DAMN. That fucking opening.