Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Album Review: Tech N9ne- Welcome To Strangeland


Average Rating: 9/10
Overall Rating: 9/10
        1. Stars (10/10)
         2. Welcome to Strangeland Ft. Krizz Kaliko (10/10)
         3. Unfair Ft. Ces Cru & Krizz Kaliko (10/10)
         4. Kocky Ft. Jay Rock & Kutt Calhoun (10/10)
         5. Who Do I Catch? (10/10)
         6. My Favorite Ft. Brotha Lynch Hung & Prozak (9/10)
-        7. Registration Ft. iMaday! (9/10)
         8. Bang Out Ft. 816 Boyz (9.5/10)
         9. Beautiful Music Ft. Krizz Kaliko (9/10)
         10. Won’t You Come Dirty Ft. Young Bleed & Steve Stone (6/10)
         11. The Noose Ft iMayday! (6/10)
         12. Sad Circus Ft. Brotha Lynch Hung & Country Kuhnz (9/10)
         13. Slave Ft. Krizz Kaliko & Kutt Calhoun (10/10)
         14. Overwhelming Ft. Jay Da 3rd (10/10)
         15. Gods Ft. Krizz Kaliko & Cutt Calhoun (8/10)


       Tech N9ne has added another album to his Collabo’s collection, which is a collection of albums full of collaborations and people from Strange Music or rappers who are not so famous all working with Tech. So far Tech had 3 Collabo’s albums, and honestly the best one out of the three, “Sickology 101” which wasn’t nearly as good as Tech’s other projects, the issue with his Collabo’s albums is there they normally are not very good, they get to have some amazing tracks and excellent features, but there are some bad features, but whatever the feature is there is always this one thing in mind: Not enough Tech. So can he find a way through that with this album?

    The concept in “Welcome To Strangeland” was the same as Tech’s other Collabo’s albums, which is having a lot of guests, expanding some unknown rappers’ names, and generally just expanding through different styles of rap. The first Collabo’s, “Kaos Loves Kompany” was a pure horrorcore album, “Sickology 101” was a hardcore rap album, and “The Gates Mixed Plate” was all about hardcore rap based club tracks. Now Tech’s fourth Collabo album, “Welcome To Strangelang” was mostly about blowing up and making it to the mainstream side of music, Tech really did it, it’s a known fact, but now we can finally hear what he thinks of this explosion of success, personally I think it’s a great think, because Tech is getting the recondition he deserves, and this album shows that entire process.

     Tech talked about many things on this album, but what he really opened up about here was his newly found overlapping fame and success and how he felt about it. “Stars” was about Tech basically crashing into fame and the mainstream, it was an amazing song to say the least. “Who Do I Catch” was about Tech breaking into fame and basically catching the eye of the industry and eventually the whole world, Tech had a crazy flow on the song and some really clever lyrics, it was easily the best track on the album, and “Overwhelming” was basically a story of Tech’s life and how unbelievable to Tech was it for him to actually have fans, little than blow up into fame, it was an excellent track, and really one of the best fan-dedication track to come out.

    Tech opened his world ‘Strangeland’ to his level of fame in some tracks on the album. “Welcome To Strangelend” introduced his world and his style to the mainstream music industry, it was a real aggressive and entertaining track. “Kocky” talked about the right to be cocky, especially after getting really big, it was a great track, and “Gods” talked about how Tech rules his genre as a rapper, and how he is the underground king, it was a great track, but not one of the best on the album though.

    He also talked about making it this late and how he needed to make it to fame a lot sooner. “Unfair” talked about how it’s unfair that the real rappers are not making it, and the all-commercial based rappers are easily making it, it was a honest, and unique track and a stand out for this album. “Slave” basically talked about working very hard and at some point making it nowhere, yet still trying again, it included more singing than rapping, and that’s what made it an excellent track and such an enjoyable track.

   Tech also opened up about the negative side of his newly found fame. “The Noose” talked about finding out about a lot secrets when expanding, and Tech wishing that he never knew any of those secrets, it was a good emotional song, but it was really slow, and “Retrogression” was another song that talked about the downs of fame, it talked about the possibilities of relapsing into some addictions or going back into depression because of the stress brought with fame.

    Tech also played out some tracks that had styles similar to the styles he had before he blew up. “Beautiful Music” was a classic Tech styled horrorcore track, “My Favorite” was another classic styled horrorcore Tech track, “Bang Out” was a classic styled hardcore party Tech track, and “Sad Cercus” was a reminder of Tech’s sad ‘fuck life’ type of songs. While those few reminders where not Tech’s best tracks or the best tracks on the album or his career, they were still some great reminders of Tech before blowing up.

   Welcome To Strangeland was overall a pretty much excellent album. It stuck to its concept, it showed that Tech can hold an entire concept for an entire album with no filler what so ever and above all that Tech showed why he deserved to reach this level. Welcome To Strangeland was something rare to see, it wasn’t a choking attempt of a ‘welcome to fame’ type album and it was a full and perfectly tied-together album. While it did have some lower-quality tracks and still did have too little Tech, this album was still great, it still held its own, especially for a Collabo album, and while it’s not Tech’s best album to come out, it was his best Collabos album to come out for sure.

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