The Batlord

Insane Clown Posse: Riddle Box

Sweet. Up to the third Joker's Card, Riddle Box, which has always been my fav ICP album record. Granted, I'd only heard a few, but I still love this album. As it's a Joker's Card that means it introduces yet another attraction of the Dark Carnival. This time it's the Riddle Box (imagine that). When you die apparently you are taken to a dark room with nothing but a box with a crank, and when you turn the crank and the box opens you find out whether you get to go to heaven or hell. I'm not sure how this gels with the whole Dark Carnival thing from the last album since I thought it was the Ringmaster who was supposed to judge your soul but I'm guessing ICP aren't particularly concerned with continuity.




I guess their intros might be growing on me just a bit, but the intro to this album is still too damn long.


Dude, for some reason I've had Shaggy's first verse from the opener, "The Show Must Go On", stuck in my head for months. Even when I was sick and tired of them I had this verse going through my head. Let's see how much of it I can get down without listening to it. Please contain your excitement.

I'm 2 Dope and I sport tight Wranglers/Don't say a word or I'll kick you in the neck bitch/Everybody round make way for the clowns/Been to New York and LA I'm south west bound/Walked into El Ray's almost got my ass kicked/Rather just chill in the yard in my casket/Call all the hoes *can't remember*/And get a little sticky stank up in this bitch/Killer clowns kicked out the circus/Used to get live let the midget lady work this/I was the freak show they called me the pogo/I could make my ballsack bob like a yoyo/GIVE IT UP GIVE IT UP!/South west loony toon/Killed another redneck/Find his head in *something something* Goonie Boon *something something*/I can hear the loons as I sing my wicked song/The show must go on.

Alright, most of it. Bow down before something greater than yourself, trick. Bitchin' song BTW. Takes your nut sack by its short-and-curlies and doesn't let go for a minute except for a couple breaks in between for some guy talking about an evil carnival that came to his town when he was a child. Cool.

This album definitely has a harder tone than Ringmaster which is made explicit with a remix of one of their most well known songs, "Chicken Huntin'". If you've ever gone to an ICP show and heard one of their fans shout "Who's goin' chicken huntin?!" followed by the rest of the people in the immediate vicinity shouting back "WE'S GOIN' CHICKEN HUNTIN'!" then that's where that's from. The original was rather laid back, giving a feel of wandering through the countryside while answering the question "What can you do with a drunken hillbilly?" The answer apparently being "Cut his fucking eyes out and feed him to his aunt Milly." The new version has been completely rerecorded with much harsher performances that chuck tongue-in-cheek out the window for visceral violence. But the biggest difference is the beat itself which has been replaced by a simplistic guitar riff meant to beat your head into the cement and some high-energy record scratching. When they say "Blade out all over the grass/Then his little hound dog'll eat him up fast" you can almost believe they mean it.

Another thing about this album is that the offbeat weirdness has also been ramped up. Whether they're rapping about eating dead bodies, dancing with zombie Kurt Cobain, or a kid who brings murderous toys to school (I checked and sadly this song came out years before Columbine) they have topped themselves this time around. Unfortunately after this album they'd tone down the craziness and violence, so this probably stands as their crowning achievement in the field of "WTF". I'll have to listen to Ringmaster more and compare the two but this is still my fav ICP album for the moment.

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The Batlord

Blaze Ya Dead Homie: 1 Less G n da Hood

God damn it I don't want to do this album. I bought this thing years ago and it's one of the only albums I ever bought that I actively wished I hadn't spent money on. Here's seeing if time has dulled my hate.




Alright I remember actually kind of liking the first song, so the fact that I don't hate this so far is meaningless. You can't fool me, you asshat, I know you suck! At least he's better than Boondox. The problem with him is that his whole schtick is combining bland, third-rate gangsta rap stereotypes with boring, watered-down horrorcore lyrics. Yeah, I know, that's every Psychopathic group's schtick, but his schtick makes ICP look like Wagner. Even his "backstory" is a ripoff. Apparently he was a gangster who was killed and then resurrected after ten years by demons to get revenge on the people who killed him. Which is totally different from Spawn seeing as how he was a secret agent who was killed and then resurrected after ten years by demons to get revenge on the people who killed him.

Alright he's no ICP or Twiztid, but I'm not despising this. It's fun, even if it's not Riddle Box fun. He's damn good when he's being anthemic. "Grave Ain't No Place" and "Juggalo Anthem" are far too catchy for me to hate.

The entire reason I bought this album, besides already liking "Grave Ain't No Place", is because he actually does a good job as a guest on other people's songs. He's got a big, charismatic voice that adds a certain energy in small doses, sort of like that dude with the deep voice from "All Eyes On Me". An entire album is a bit of a stretch though, but I'm still kind of digging this for now.

Heard this a few times and it's alright. There are some legitimately fun songs and nothing's really awful, but there's nothing even approaching great and the already boring lyrics get more and more dull as time goes on. I'm vaguely regretful for having traded this in to buy a Morbid Angel album but it's not going to gnaw at me. I mean come on, Morbid Angel.

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The Batlord

Twiztid: The Green Book

This is Twiztid's third full-length. They released an EP in between Freakshow and this, but I'm too lazy to listen to it.




Alright, fatigue is starting to set in and I'm losing interest in listening to any of this crap. I still only want to listen to ICP all day every day, but the rest, even Twiztid, are getting stale. There's nothing wrong with this album (on it's own merits at least) so far and a week ago I would have probably been all over this, but music whose only real identity is as some kind of catharsis for the most boring of high school sadsacks looking for an excuse to get drunk and high can only hold my attention for so long. And please stop talking about juggalos. I don't care. Your fans are dull and constantly referencing them just makes you dull too. God damn it, fuck this. I'm done with this shit for today. Maybe tomorrow will make me care more...

...Meh. Twenty-four hours have made me more tolerant, but this is still a collection of slogans for rejects looking for a father figure. Twiztid seem to have sacrificed their individuality on the altar of the juggalo "family".

Also, while the music is perfectly enjoyable there's no real bite to it. Even with all of the boring crap on Freakshow you still had plenty of songs that kicked legitimate ass. All I'm getting here are tepid anthems. Yawn.

Hahahahaha! E-40 is on one of these tracks. I've tried to like that dude but his voice is just too hilarious to take seriously, and he honestly just doesn't sound appropriate to be on a Twiztid song. Fail.

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Unknown Soldier

Good to see you're back writing on the journals again.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

House of Krazees: Season of the Pumpkin

Well, since I loved Twiztid's first album, but got more and more bored with their later albums I figured I'd check out their earlier stuff. Technically this isn't Twiztid, but the two members of Twiztid were in this group until they disbanded while on tour with ICP, losing third man, ROC, after which they immediately formed Twiztid and got signed to Psychopathic. So I'm assuming that House of Krazees were basically just the prologue to Twiztid and will have the best parts of early Twiztid but without the juggalo crap since they weren't even on Psychopathic at the time.




First thing that's obvious is that these people had about ten bucks to make this album. This sounds like it was recorded in a garage. For many this would be a bad thing, but the lo-fi reverb on this is perfect for creating a creepy atmosphere. And as the album title suggests this has a very Halloween vibe, so the production sounds totally appropriate.

On the other hand the primitive nature of the recording really exposes the amateurishness of the songwriting. Whatever you want to say about Twiztid they were in control of their craft, but these guys, while they can lay down some surprisingly entertaining verses, don't yet have the same polish and give the impression of three semi-talented kids from the block who somehow managed to record an album. Which isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world, since The Green Book was all polish without any soul. And this is slowly growing on me, so time will tell whether or not I'll be telling all the Twiztid fans that they should quit being such vaginas and listen to HOK instead. At the very least it's definitely an album to bump on Halloween.

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The Batlord

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod! I just found out Vanilla Ice is now signed to Psychopathic Records. He's due to release his first album for them at some point in the near future, and I just can't wait. This should hopefully be the most gloriously awful thing I've ever heard. Thank you, Jesus. I know I don't believe in you and have said some terrible, terrible things about/to you that I totally meant, but you obviously exist and have given me the greatest gift that you can give. Amen.

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djchameleon

I wonder what direction he is going to go with it.

He's probably going to the the whole hardcore screaming rap thing that he's been doing with his band.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

The Batlord

Insane Clown Posse: The Great Milenko

We've finally reached the fourth Joker's Card, The Great Milenko. The cover above is actually one of four versions, green, red, purple, and gold, but I can't find 300x300 versions of purple and gold so I'm just using green. The only difference between all four, other than the covers, is that inside each booklet is one fourth of a message that reveals the name of the next album. A cheap marketing scheme perhaps but I can't deny that I have a vague desire to buy the other three versions (I've got green) just to say I did. But how effective a scheme this was this album still sold almost two million copies and "broke" the band to a new level of popularity that, for better or worse, paved the way for the massive expansion of the juggalo movement.

Like all the Joker's Cards this one introduces a character from the Dark Carnival. The Great Milenko is a "necromaster" who uses your own greed, lust, and envy to create illusions to tempt you to sin.




Another intro I don't hate, but the real reason I mention it is that it is narrated by none other than Alice Cooper. So take that Alice Cooper fans.

The first thing to notice is that this album's production is a big step up from the lo-fi scuzziness of the past. Not surprising since ICP had signed to a major label. A Disney-owned label. Yeah. Unfortunately the label, Hollywood Records, forced them to censor the lyrics of "Piggie Pie", and completely remove "The Neden Game", "Under the Moon", and "Boogie Woogie Wu". And when it was released they actually recalled the album after they got flack from church groups. Fuck Disney. ICP then switched to Island and got the album released with the cut tracks, though "Piggie Pie" was still censored for some odd reason.

But yeah, better production. I actually only recently noticed that it's still relatively minimalist, since it's made to seem bigger than it really is by the more up-front vocals. And the vocals are really the biggest change, both the performances and the lyrics.

ICP have seriously cut down on the violence and bizarre imagery this time around, but I'm not convinced this was record label intimidation, since they're as foul-mouthed as ever. And the aforementioned "The Neden Game" (neden = slang for "pussy) had no particularly violent references, it was just over-the-top in its obscenities. Much of the violence has been replaced by a greater focus on humor. "The Neden Game", too much a song to be a skit, but too much of a skit to really be a song, tells of J and Shaggy's appearance on a parody of The Dating Game, where they proceed to tell a woman how they would woo her. "I'd grab your titties and stretch em down past your waist/Let em go, and watch em both spring up in your face/I'd sing love songs to you, the best I can/Get you naked, and hit it like a CAVEMAN!!!" is about as glorious a lyric as I've ever heard. Even the between-song skits, a staple of their albums, are superior to past attempts.

While I certainly miss the macabre strangeness, they've put all their oddball creativity into their performances. They've always been larger-than-life but now they've been blown up to an even greater degree. The charisma and energy on display is at times manic and almost always engaging. And they still bring the violence at times, "Piggie Pie", especially the uncensored version, is as violent as anything they've done before, and the depiction of child murder on "Boogie Woogie Wu", though it is as tongue-in-cheek as some kind of porn sex act that I'm sure exists, is most satisfying.

But forget what I said about the vocals being the biggest change. They're a big departure, but, while ICP have always been rather accessible, Violent J shows that he missed his calling as a pop songwriter on this album. He really knows how to drop a chorus that is bigger than the large women he claims to engage in sexual relations with, and catchier than the Herpes he no doubt contracts from them. "Halls of Illusions" is probably the best example of this. It's one of those songs that seizes you by the nut sack and won't let go until you've heard it fifty times in a row and are completely sick of it. I'm sure when they play this in a festival with thousands of people this song must destroy. No doubt it's songs like this that grabbed the attention of vaguely weird teens all across the world and convinced them to get unfortunate tattoos. I don't know if it's better than the previous two albums, but it's certainly on the same level of fantabulousness, and has almost always been the album that gets named when I've asked juggalos what their fav was. It was also in my CD player for several days straight up until about two days ago.

P.S. So far as I know this is the first Psychopathic album to have songs that are juggalo anthems, rather than merely referencing them. "What Is a Juggalo?" and "Down with the Clown", are bitchin' but I can't help but feel some small contempt for what shall come from their influence. But on their own they're merely shout outs to all those that have made their success possible. Brings a tear to my eye.

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The Batlord

Wait, so you've actually been listening to him? Is his music as awful as I hope it is?

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The Batlord

Anybody Killa: Hatchet Warrior

Goddammit. As much as I didn't want to do Blaze Ya Dead Homie and Boodox I don't want to do this asshat ten times more. I kind of dug Blaze, and he had some entertaining contributions on other people's stuff, and I had no idea just how much I hated Boondox. Seriously, fuck that asshole. Worst thing to happen to hip hop since Biggie killed Tupac. But that's not important right now. I've heard all of one ABK song and it...wasn't the worst thing I've ever heard, but that's about all I can say about it. But if you listen to Psychopathic at all then you can't escape this dude. For some bizarre reason he's on just about everybody's track. I have no idea why cause he brings nothing. He's just sort of their to make all the other guys look better, and if you're the guy who makes Blaze Ya Dead Homie look better then you should kill yourself. If this guy is lucky I might actually make it to the end of this album, but I'm not making any promises.

P.S. Worst. Album cover. Ever.




Man. I've been listening to this shit the whole time I was typing that up and I haven't heard anything that made even the slightest impression yet. ABK is Native American and supposedly his schtick is that he's an undead "native"...something or other (Get it? Indian? Hatchet?) It's nice to see him honoring his roots by using them as a cheap gimmick to sell bad hip hop to retards. So, would a Native American Uncle Tom be an Uncle Geronimo or an Uncle Sitting Bull? Honestly, who the fuck cares? He's far too terrible to worry about such things. Fuck off ABK. I'm done. I've got Bolt Thrower to go listen to and this is taking up my semi-valuable time. I can't even be bothered to come up with a witty witticism to mock his pronounced lisp.

*snort* What the fuck? "Shooting off arrows like AK's"? "Native hydro"? Kill yourself.

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