Wednesday, December 19, 2007

MixMasterMegan Reviews "The Cool"

Have you ever had too much to drink, then woke up next to somebody, looked at them and thought to yourself...who the hell is this??

That's the way I feel when listening to "The Cool"

I mean that in a good way!! Hold on

Here comes this guy that I met at a radio show in Chicago with a backpack and glasses on almost two years ago KILLLLLLING everybody else and already has people talking "best of....."

1. Baba Says Cool for Thought- I love this. It let me know not to overdose on myself. The poetry on "Food and Liquor" alone introduced me to Harold's Chicken which I will be forever grateful for.

2.Free Chill-The beat and Gemstones and Sarah Green's soulful plea alone make ME want to tear the damn wall down and I barely know the guy!

3. Go Go Gadget Flow- A favorite of mine. I only imagine this song live will be the greatest thing........ever.

4. The Coolest- Introduces the cool....I LOVE the song..but find it hard to sing along with others. Do I have to say "The coolest, (coolest)"?? Don't get me wrong...I just don't want to be caught somewhere I shouldn't be yelling out "I'm the coolest nigga"......

5. Superstar- It just makes me want to go to a movie premiere....give a couple hugs, sign a couple autographs, take a couple pictures, and watch a movie of my own life story while eating yellow M&M's.

6. Paris, Tokyo- This reminds me of a nice, innocent Fresh Prince song from back in the day. It makes me want to fall in love in every city he mentions. Actually, I just want to sit on a chair and have Lupe sing this to me.

7.Hi-Definition- My FAVORRRRRITE! I love the fact that Snoop calls Lupe "Loopy" considering my dad calls him the same thing because he doesn't know how to say "Lu-pe". The beat, the lyrics, everything....I just want to NOD MY DAMN HEAD at this point.

8. Gold Watch- My head is still nodding, but it's a little slower at this point.

9. Hip Hop Saved My Life- Amazing story. What else can I say?? STACK THAT CHEESE.....somthin somthin somthin...STACK THAT CHEESE. By the end of the song Lupe has me rooting for this Houston rapper and hoping he makes it big.

10. Intruder Alert- Sarah Green does her thing. Nice, uplifting story..

11. Streets On Fire- If that whore didn't sleep with everybody, she woulda never gotten AIDS. Lupe's friendly reminder to call the Trojan man.....You don't want this type of fire.

12. Little Weapon- I listened to this with my mom and she complained when she heard the first line "I killed another man today".
Mom- "Megan, why do they always have to be killing people in these songs!!?"
Me-"Mom, listen to the whole song...it'll make sense at the end"
Me-(song ends) "Do you get it now???"
Mom-"No, I can't understand what they are saying"
Me-"Mom, it was a video game the whole time!! A little boy was playing a video game"
Mom-"They're still killing people!!"
Me- "Nevermind......"

13. Gotta Eat- There's probably a million cheeseburgers out there plotting my own death....but it's all good. A tasty death indeed, just like the song. The analogies are key.

14. Dumb It Down- He didn't dumb down this shit.

15- Hello/Goodbye- Nobody probably knew I heard this in Vegas in October. While others may dislike the song for not being hip-hoppish enough, I enjoy it throughly. Kinda reminds me of "The instrumental" Take two..

16. The Die- The Cool dies! A little part of me dies as well. Gemini is amazing.

17. Put You on Game- If I had to pick a least favorite song, it could be this one. I like the lyrics, it's just too slow. I want it to pick up but it just never does

18. Fighters-WWW.LUPETHEFIASCO.BLOGSPOT.COM A little look into Lupe's mind and heart. What a guy. Matthew Santos reminds me of John Mayer...and I love John Mayer.

19. Go Baby- Where your ladies at?? Right here!! LOL Seriously, I just want to go to a show, and have a sign that says "Go Baby!" I imagine I'm not the first one who's had this idea. And being an AVID Maury fan, I LOVE that he references him.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Congratulations Lupe. Thank you for being you.

24 comments:

Micah said...

You know, I finally figured out what it was about this ablum that wasn't sitting right with me... maybe it came when the Gemstones/Gemini link finally made it through my thick ass skull, i don't know. Don't get me wrong, the album's good and Lupe is still one of my fav rappers, F&L will always be on here.

This album just sounds too much like Gemini! It sounds just as much as Gemstones ft. Lupe as it does Lupe ft. Gem ... know what I mean? It's like, Twista meats Kanye (gem meets lupe), and while I'd be great for a collab album between Gem n Lu, not on Lupe's sophmore release, you know? I feel like a lot of the style on F&L was lost... am I the only one? This is just too much like a GRap album, less a HipHop joint.

Anonymous said...

The songs that she lovesare my least favorite and the ones she doesnt are the ones that i Love

Anonymous said...

cosign with Micah...this lost a lot of the hip hip vibe that food & liquor had. i think largely due to the sample-less production.also megan i dont think the whole song "little weapon" was entirely about a video game. only bishop's verse was. the rest was a story from the point of view of an actual child soldier

Micah said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Micah said...

yeah, i think the production was a lot better on F&L as well, but there are a few stars on this album .. gold watch is one! prob my fav from the album. Fighters is good too, lol at the fake vinyl pop though! :D

But I mean, look at his top ten... Tpain, UKG... jay Z has kind of left the hip hop realm as well...

Sammy Mac said...

Haha Megan... your comment about how to rap the cool.... Uhh I was wondering that also... I think I'll stick with my coolest whitey what phrase...
That was a pretty good review for you being such a skank.

love ya,
Sammy Wammy

Anonymous said...

I dont understand how you could say this album is gangster rap. Its a concept album, like a sequel to the song "the cool" off F&L. Basically the whole album is telling storys through the eyes of someone else. Little weapon is one of the hottest songs in a while (and about real issues), Streets on Fire tells a story about disease spreading, Intruder alert is 3 seperate stories itself. Maybe you should listen over it again. I'm not saying its better than F&L but its damn close.

And dumb it down is a great slap in the face to all this bubblegum make a dance shit coming out now.

Micah said...

I didn't say it WAS, i said it sounded like one. Yeah, Lupe is a deep guy, his songs have many levels. I've listened to the songs, probably had the CD playing non stop since i got the pre order on monday (just trying to prove I'm not a lupe-hater, just not as big of a fan of The Cool).

it's an alright album! I'm still suggesting it to my friends. I'm just saying "Well, it's not F&L but it's good." ...

Unknown said...

i dont like her review... hhdx had a much more in depth one

Anonymous said...

i never claimed it was an "indepth" review.

dear lord, i am no scholar

Will said...

If anyone wants an even more in depth review, I did one a couple of days back. Its getting some good feedback. Hope you like it:

http://thecoldcut.blogspot.com/2007/12/lupe-fiasco-cool-review-track-by-track.html

@SeanTheRobot said...

great review

and I agree with "Put You On Game"
beeing the least favorite track...but it's more the beat that's not so good....Lupe still spits fire on the track

Anonymous said...

F&L was an absolute classic...i don't think you can expect the cool to be better than that...but MixMasterMegan i donno about your review there were definitley some sections where i don't think you understood the actual meaning of the song. I think you may want to read what he's saying while you're listening

Anonymous said...

I didnt know this damn review would be so complicated. Obviously, I'm not a dumbass-I understand the lyrics, the concept of the cool, the characters, blah blah, the whole shabang...

I didn't know we had to take these reviews so damn seriously. It was just me havin a little fun, wow.

Anonymous said...

On the song, "Little Weapons" I am certain that Lupe is speaking of the child soldiers in the war torn countries in Africa; not the video game reference she made to her mother... The portion that Bishop, the artist that guest appeared on the song was speaking about a video game, but Lupe definately was talking about the child soldiers in numerous different African countries that are taken from their homes and are forced to be soldiers for the rebel armies fighting the respective governments of the different countries. Hence the part he mentions about the government trying to "get" the children... It's an issue I do not believe should be misinterpreted.

Anonymous said...

YES! That's exactly what i was talking about. When you said that song was about video games...i got a little frustrated. Don't just read the articles and lupe's quotes about the characters, understand what he's saying. To interpret that as a video game was a little short sighted

Anonymous said...

GODDAMN, I WAS JUST TRYING TO SHED A LITTLE LIGHT INTO MY MOM'S VIEW OF THE RAP WORLD

U TAKE IT SO SERIOUSLY THAT YOU THINK LUPE HIMSELF IS GOING TO PULL OUT A LITTLE WEAPON AND SHOOT ME FOR INTERPRETING THE DAMN THING WRONG.

it's NOT that serious. You guys need to calm the hell down. It's all in good fun. If you noticed, none of the review was serious. Some of you are so tense if you swallowed a lump of coal in a week you would shit a diamond.

CALM DOWN

Micah said...

or maybe we should DUMB IT DOWN! lol

Megan, I don't think they are upset with you, it's just the fun of it, you know? We're all enjoying forming out own views of the album and you and the fem's blog got a massive shoutout on the album, so everyone who loves it is coming here to voice their own opinion. You girls better get used to it! lol.

Ticia said...

This is a great album--
Lupe covers a lot of great topics...
He is showing a lot of versatility!!

Also.. I saw him on Halloween in Chicago at the HOB.. he was dynamic....

I also go to meet him backstage...he is supa cute and I enjoyed his layed back demeanor!!!

My favorite tracks--
Down it Down..
The Coolest
Go Go Gadget--

Cheers Lupe :)

Anonymous said...

I loved this album. Can't stop listening to it. If it wasn't for Jim Rome's end of the year show (which is like THE best) I'd still be listening to it now. Hurt my ears with the CD player on blast.

to the review, i liked it, i felt the same way on a lot of what she said, and yea, my least favorite was "Put You On Game" as well, i just can't get with it, especially since it sounds a lot like Gangsta rap which I hate. It took me a while to get with the Rock song but then I had to realize this is Lupe, went back listened to it and started to feel it, it's a nice change up and I like it. Gemstones is nice...when's this dude comin' out.

Anonymous said...

Also MixMasterMegan and the girl who does the blog are Two different people.

Anonymous said...

Little Weapons is not about a video. It is about soldier children in Africa. Gemstones raps about video games in the third verse, but it is not about a video in any other way.

Anonymous said...

me and megan tend to disagree for however many years we've been knowin eachother...what i love about lu's album tho is, its not food and liquor at all. its refreshing..its shows maturity, and if anything it shows that he can do more that 1 thing.. the blueprint 1 sounds like the blueprint 2..etc etc...but i hope lupEND sounds totally different than the cool and f&l...bcuz the thing with lu is, he's different in every single sense..so his albums should express that...and they do...i give the album 5 outta 5...

fnf since '05

love ya ladies...

Anonymous said...

Hmm.
Interesting run down.
Put you on game is actually my favorite song on the whole disc.
Those bars are the best in most recent years. Truly on another world