White Rappers Continued. Count the Analogies.

2. Atmosphere-Lucy Ford (2001)

This is probably not Atmosphere's best album. Overcast is sonically better and Godlovesugly got them exposed to a whole lot of new fans. But Lucy Ford is, in my opinion, their most complete and the best representation of the group artistically. Plus, it has at least, again in my opinion, 2 of their top 5 songs altogether. It has always been my favorite.

Slug is nothing if not a standard-bearer of this particular branch of the underground hip hop scene. Love him or hate him, his influence is everywhere. Even of you say you never listen to atmosphere, it is still almost definite that you have been exposed to his worldview, be it through artists directly influenced or by artists on his label or his friends that have had him on albums. Slug is like Sonic Youth. You may think it is just noise, but it has influenced more people than you feel comfortable with.

When this came out, my friends and brothers and I were listening to Overcast and Deep Puddle Dynamics (more later) on the regular, so we were excited for it. To be honest, at first I didn't this album. Overcast was so raw. It sounded like the whole thing was written while riding a skateboard. But Lucy Ford sounded weird. The topics seemed way more personal, both in the honest way Slug reveals himself to the fans and the ways he was dealing with issues outside himself. It just felt strange. Slug was opening up to me like I was Barbara Walters or some shit.

After a few listens though, I got it. What is so great about Slug is that his lyrics are so simple (something he confesses), yet contain so much meaning. It's easy to listen to. I realized that this was a far more poppy sound that they found. But not simple pop. Challenging on some levels. But it sounded perfect to a lot of (including myself) 20-something hip hop fans. I always found it odd that so many more people got into Atmosphere when Godlovesulgy came out, cause I just never thought it was that great of a record. But, it was poppy as hell, and what I didn't realize at the time was that Lucy Ford laid the foundation for this new sound; in reality, these tracks represent experiments in crossing over.

What it all adds up to is that Lucy Ford is maybe the most honest record they made, because they did it on their own with no real expectations. Everything they have done after this has been paid attention to by too many people and has suffered because of it. Slug and Ant became very self-aware after Lucy Ford, which is certainly natural. It's kind of like the real world. The first season was pure because no one knew what was going on. After that, they are too aware of their roles and what's expected of them. The following seasons are still fun to watch, but they are inherently suspect.

Not to say that is necessarily a bad thing. I can speak of Atmosphere on this level because they are one of the few that have made it and sustained both artistically and in popularity and relevance. They aren't on The Hills or nothing, but they have managed to change over the years to remain relevant. They tour like Phish and play big shows all over the place. But, where as in the Lucy Ford days he was playing to people in their 20s, now they play to high school kids. Which is fine, cause thats how you stay making music. And I am not mad at him for it at all. It is a little weird hearing him say on the new album "hell naw I ain't going to school/the teacher's a jerk he must think I'm a fool" and then do a verse about getting picked on at school. It's a good song, but just kind of strange.

But that is what makes Lucy Ford great. It happened before all of this, and still to this day is the album most people I know cling to because it represented the last time that the underground got to claim Atmosphere as its own. Lucy Ford is almost perfect. Everything that would come to represent Atmosphere after this is on the album. Introspection, battle raps, quasi-spoken word pieces about females, love and hatred for his ex-girlfriend Lucy, and so on. It is all here. And the album references and samples liberally from classic hip hop songs, so it acts a s a sort of hip hop history lesson. Look up the samples some time. You might learn something.

On Guns and Cigarettes, a party anthem style battle-track, he says:

A few years ago an ex-girl of mine
Asked me to keep her name out of my rhymes
So I said this rhyme that I'm about to say
It came from the heart and it went this way:
Go to hell girl, you make me sick!
I hope your new boyfriend gets cancer in his dick
What the fuck makes you think I'd put your name on my record?
there, now I feel a lot better
You know what?
I ain't drank a forty since I became old enough to drink
Not caught up in what the fuck these people think
Cause when I die they're gonna find the missing link
But tonight I'm gonna vomit it in the kitchen sink
I'm surprised more of y'all don't get hit by cars
Missing your surroundings, staring at the stars
I'm lonely without a woman that wants to spar
That's why I spend so much time in these bars
Drunk poolside, screaming, "Do or die!"
Looking at the water asking, "Who am I?"
Saw my reflection, Yes! I'm super fly!
And as you can guess again, I'm too damn high

I wanna bigger than Jesus and bigger than wrestling
Bigger than the Beatles and bigger than breast implants
I'm gonna be the biggest thing to hit these little kids
Bigger than guns, bigger than cigarettes

It's so simple and funny and true. The rhymes are nothing special, but that's how Slug rolls. Then on Party for the Fight to Write he says:

As a child Hip Hop made me read books,
And Hip Hop made me wanna be a crook
And Hip Hop gave me the way and something to say
And all I took in return is a second look
Son, you're shook, cuz ain't no such thing as half way there
Gettin' good at actin' like you just don't care
The circle of life trying to make it square condition
And self sit still
And Still.. where have all the sheep gone
Burnt down the farm and turned the TV on
John Coltrane, Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley all get invitations to my party

I felt that exact same way when I was 22 years old. That sums it up. But the rap was so simple and just perfect. Slug also gets deeper and a little darker on this album with songs like Aspiring Sociopath, Mama Had a Baby and Its Head Popped Off, The Woman with Tattooed Hands, where he raps about almost finally figuring out women after watching a virgin woman masturbate. That's right buddy.

All in all, this record is great and will always remain one of my favorites from the genre. I know alot of people don't dig it, and that's fine, I get that. Being an atmosphere fan to me is like being a Nirvana fan: sure, Pavement is way better and wrote better, more complex songs that challenged commonly held ethos about pop song structure, but no one can deny that Nevermind in its own right is an amazing album. That's how I feel about Atmosphere. Others do it better and harder and with more skill, but damn, it is still fucking good, either way.

And if you haven't ever felt like this: ("Like Today")

Woke up, got up, near eleven o'clock
butt naked except I was wearing my socks
and that's cool, 'cause most the time this floor is cold
stand up and stretch look around this mess
my place has been a cage since she left me
make my way to the kitchen, start the coffee
then dip to the bathroom, begin the triple-s
and wash the previous evening off me....

Or,

and that's when I saw her, sippin' on water
I wanna kiss her mom just for having this daughter
excuse me miss, I don't mean to come across strong
but I've been waitin' a while and you've been taking too long
and she smiled and I began to blush
she asked if I'd like to go to the bathroom and make some love
and I got visions of us, and the mirror getting steamed
and that's the very moment I woke up from the dream

Woke up, got up, near eleven o'clock
butt naked except I was wearing my socks
and that's cool, 'cause most the time this floor is cold
stand up and stretch and look for my soul...

Then you may not be human. Peace.

Number One coming up soon. I think you know what it is......