If you buy Watch the Throne from iTunes-- the only place you can buy it at the moment-- you'll notice that it's credited to "JAY Z & Kanye West" (capital letters and missing hyphen unexplained). "H.A.M." Posted on August 31, 2011 by stayofexecution As always here at Stay of Execution we welcome all opinions, and one of our friends has sent his opinion on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s latest collabrative effort. Neither as compulsively neurotic as Eminem, as languidly characterful as Snoop Dogg, nor as furiously articulate as Nas, the raps here represent a pretty mediocre, cardboard kind of throne, truth be told. Watch the Throne is undoubtedly the album fans of both artists have been on the edge of their seats for since the Blueprint album dropped ten years ago, the musical equivalent of a Righteous Kill had it gone tremendously right, taken no glaring missteps and delivered on all the accrued talent and self-awareness a decade spent at the top of your game is expected to evidence. 9. The songs are packed with samples of some of the most hallowed figures in African-American music – James Brown, Otis Redding, Nina Simone – and it’s clear that Jay and Kanye consider those greats their peers. And they can demand that we pay attention. The wait is over for one of 2011's biggest hip hop albums Watch the Throne - Jay-Z and Kanye West Track ListNo Church in the Wild (feat. Related • Photos: Jay-Z and Kanye West’s ‘Watch the Throne’ Artwork • Kanye West and Jay-Z’s ‘Watch the Throne’: A Track-by-Track Breakdown• Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci Unveils Album Art for Jay-Z and Kanye West’s ‘Watch The Throne’ • Jay-Z and Kanye West Avoid ‘Watch the Throne’ Leak • Video: Jay-Z and Kanye West Perform “H.A.M.” Live in Austin, In This Article: DX gives a review for the highly anticipated album, Watch The Throne continues this tradition as the duo stake their claim for Rap supremacy. They’ve earned it. This slower, introspective number finds Jay-Z and West both addressing their hypothetical future children. My “Watch the Throne” Album Review. *WATCH THE THRONE REVIEW* August 10, 2011 // 0. So last night I went to the Watch The Throne concert at the Bank Atlantic Center and it was CRAY to say the least. Amazing. Want more Rolling Stone? Frank Ocean) Lift Off (feat. Jay and Kanye bellow over the clamor, invoking sovereigns (Jesus and Caesar, Elvis and “the leader of the Jackson 5”), boasting and gloating. Otis was an extremely soulful track (probably the organ.) Watch The Throne Review. In songs like “Why I Love You,” Kanye continues in the sonic vein he introduced in My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, lacing the songs with rock dynamics, layering his beats with eerie vocal chorales, piling on proggy flourishes. Which is not to say bling rap: Jay and ‘Ye (who’ve taken to calling themselves the Throne) may be obsessed with their own king-size lives, but the tone here is serious, sober, weighty – more “American Dreamin'” than “Big Pimpin’,” more “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” than “Touch the Sky.” Jay-Z and Kanye aren’t nouveau riche upstarts. Despite all the triumphant bravado these two bring to practically everything they do, they work overtime here to bring a sense of empathy to this enterprise. Le projet est annoncé fin août 2010 sur le compte Twitter de Kanye West [2]. Kanye West & Jay-Z- Watch the Throne ALBUM REVIEW - YouTube. This meeting of two long-reigning titans is the kind of stadium-sized event-rap spectacle we don't get often enough. Watch the Throne on the left, What a Time to Be Alive on the right.. Jay-Z And Kanye's Watch The Throne: Reviews Are In! That's worth celebrating. They’re hip-hop monarchs, and Watch the Throne doesn’t shrink from its own hype. The most compelling aspect is … It's just two of rap's biggest … Posted by Paris Haus in Findings, Music ≈ Leave a comment. The album comes hot on the heels of career-landmark albums from both artists, but the few months they spent recording it on multiple continents were practically vacations compared to the way they usually work. First it was a five-song EP; now, it is a full blown album with bonus tracks. "H•A•M" was Watch the Throne ’s first single, but truth be told, the song is just OK: Kanye West and JAY-Z over a Lex Luger-in-his-prime beat isn’t a hard sell. This is an album that takes aim at the history books. A friend recently asked me what my take was on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s new album “Watch the Throne.” I never intended on listening to the album, but after he asked me I decided to review it. Sign up for our newsletter. Why? Watch the Throne est un album studio commun des rappeurs américains Jay-Z et Kanye West, sorti en 2011 Genèse. How do I put this in a way where I will not be forever hated by all Yeezy and Jay fans. Archive for Watch The Throne album review. So the two iconic artists decided that they'd do an entire album for their fans. On "Murder to Excellence", it's black-on-black crime and the scarcity of people of color at society's highest seats. August 11, 2011 § Leave a comment. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. It’s not designed as a game-changer, nor does it need to be, since the current rap game is one in which these two play exceedingly well—and one that runs mostly by the rules they created. Copy link. AllMusic Review by Andy Kellman An audacious spectacle of vacuous pomposity as well as one of tremendous lyrical depth, Watch the Throne is a densely packed amalgamation of what Jay-Z has termed “ignorant shit” and “thought-provoking shit,” with creative productions that are both top of the line and supremely baffling. Certainly, Watch the Throne feels more like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy than a Jay-Z album, from the obsession with haute couture – even the sleeve is … Watching the throne may be harmful to your eyes. It's a vicious song, catchy as fuck, but it turns out to be weirdly awkward. They’re two global superstars who could’ve sold out The O2 individually so the fact that they decided to do a joint tour was even better!I’m one of those crazy people who will queue up for hours outside a gig just to get to the front. Watch The Throne – Review 25 Aug. Watch The Throne Review. I begin by stating this review will come from a strictly objective point of view and my admiration and appreciation for Jay Z and his talent will not cloud my ability to analyze the album at face value. On "No Church in the Wild", he authoritatively vows, "You will not control the threesome." On Watch the Throne, they push each other and have fun doing it, and the result is a stadium-sized event-rap spectacle that still sounds like two insanely talented guys' idiosyncratic vision. On "Welcome to the Jungle", Jay, never a tortured pop star, actually says, "I'm fuckin' depressed." On "Why I Love You", it's Jay's dismay at past crewmates' betrayals. Well, yeah. … The production – spearheaded by West, with contributions by the Neptunes, Swizz Beatz, RZA and more – is vast, dark and booming. And yet for Jay-Z and Kanye West, this could actually be viewed as a relatively minor album. Once in a while, they even sound vaguely humble. On "New Day", over a beat co-produced by RZA, he actually runs Nina Simone through Auto-Tune. The single "Otis" is dizzy fun, with Jay and Kanye rapping hard and swapping mics like hungry kids. Throughout, he displays levels of unequaled audacity. The sentiment deserves respect, but his laidback delivery, on a track with production and structure that call for ferocity, drains his ideas of force. But on a record this ambitious, this sonically bold, it’s a shame two of music’s greatest storytellers don’t extend their gaze beyond their own luxe lives. Share. In “Who Gon Stop Me,” Kanye cops to being racist. But while Jay might be billed first for seniority's sake, Kanye is this album's obvious guiding force. I wanted to give it a few good listens before I came to a conclusion on it. It has a sound to match those grand pretensions. Despite the title, Jay's verse is all devotional-prophet; it mostly concerns the way American beauty standards so often work against women of color. Watch The Throne did not disappoint! Info. (It also features this great Kanye moment, "Doctors say I'm the illest because I'm suffering from realness/ Got my niggas in Paris, and they going gorillas," followed by a sample of Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory talking about how awesome shit doesn't have to mean anything.) 1 1. unboxing today a revisited grail placed on a newer generation model sneaker. Review Summary: What Watch the Throne needs is not a grander purpose, but any purpose. Jay-Z and Kanye West – Watch The Throne Posted in The Sincere Lounge (Album Reviews) with tags Frank Ocean, H.A.M., Hip-Hop, Jay-Z, Kaye West. The whole thing sounds huge, and even the sillier moments ("Made in America", especially, reminds me of the inspirational ballads of late-period Michael Jackson) succeed on pure orchestral excess. 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Specifically, Watch the Throne is about black power, although the Black Panthers might not recognise it as such. Watch the Throne isn’t all braggadocio. "New Day" is framed as a letter to the pair's imagined sons, a device that mostly gives them a chance to soul-search and self-criticize. Watch the Throne has a message, all right—but maybe not the one they intended. Both artists have commanding yet complementary rhyming styles, and the beats that back them up (especially on "That's My Bitch" and "Murder to Excellence") are exceptional. Watch the Throne features the following things: absurdly expensive samples, a pair of choruses from Odd Future R&B singer Frank Ocean at the exact moment where he's turning the corner and becoming a Thing, another chorus from long-been-a-Thing Beyoncé, a buddy-buddy shoutout to the President of the United States, multiple namechecks of brands so expensive that you've probably never heard of half of them, a murderers' row of producers working on almost every track, and a fleeting moment where Bon Iver's Justin Vernon sounds like the funkiest man alive. Watch The Throne is just as, if not more experimental than Kanye's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," but in the end doesn't sound as Watch The Throne is just as, if not more experimental than Kanye's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," but in the end doesn't sound as polished or fleshed out musically. "Niggas in Paris" rides an impossibly propulsive synth riff and gigantic drums and gives Jay a chance to display the technical rap wizardry he still has in him. This is, in a way, the Kanye Method. After listening to the album, it’s pretty clear that the life of a Lamborghini-driving, Hennessy-swilling superstar—at least one who’s consumed with consumption—isn’t all that great. Pitchfork is the most trusted voice in music. I did not like this album. Watch later. It was released on August 8, 2011, through Roc-A-Fella Records, Roc Nation, and Def Jam Recordings. Watch the Throne is more notable for its general lack of impact. Listening to Watch The Throne, the more-than-hotly-anticipated collab album between Kanye West and Jay-Z, reminded me of this sort of indignant, somewhat adolescent struggle, the sense that some things that everyone believes in just aren’t right. Watch the Throne is definitively the year's most anticipated album and ranks as one of the most hyped in recent hip-hop history. Watch The Throne Review. Beyonce, Mr. Hudson, Otis, Rap, Sincere, Sincere Lounge, Swizz Beatz, Watch The Throne, Watch The Throne album review on August 8, 2011 by sincerelounge. Kanye West & Jay-Z- Watch the Throne ALBUM REVIEW. These subtler moments are admirable, but they don't always work. As Kanye puts it in the surging “Otis,” this is “luxury rap.”. After my first “Watch the Throne” listening session at 12:01 I gathered one initial thought. (I liked Ocean's Twelve.). After 2 hours of waiting, they finally came out, but that was expected. Watch the Throne demonstrates why Hova and Yeezy are at the top of the rap game. Watch the Throne: Review. Prior to the release, Jay-Z and West had collaborated on various singles, and with the latter as a producer on the former's work. Jay, meanwhile, is still cruising on the momentum of The Blueprint 3, an artistically flat but commercially massive grab for continued relevance that did everything he wanted it to do. From the first haunting guitar chords of the album's kick-off tune, "No Church in the Wild," you can tell that this rap record is different. Consider, for example, the song "That's My Bitch", on which Kanye and his collaborators flip the classic "Apache" break into a devastating dance-rap monster with synths zooming off in every direction and Justin Vernon making the aforementioned sweaty soul moves. On "Otis" and "Gotta Have It", he reduces Otis Redding and James Brown to simple grunts, then builds rhythm tracks out of them. “I only like green faces.”, Jay is in particularly fine form: He’s as sharp as he has been in a decade, and he shows flashes of the emotional depth that is West’s calling card. Watch the Throne wasn’t anticipated when I heard the “H.A.M” beat, I thought too Gucci Mane or Rick Ross. I don’t think I could review the show without mentioning the huge white elephant in the arena. Aug 12, 2011. We want to hear from you! ... Spears and Perry, listening to Watch the Throne feels like coming off of happy pills and … After listening to “Otis” I couldn’t wait for the album. © Copyright 2021 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. The conceit is exposed in that middle-school title: Look at Us, We’re the Best. Last November Kanye West told the press that he and Jay-Z had been working on an EP together. Kanye doesn't have a cruise-control switch, and when he's around, neither does Jay. The long-awaited, wildly hyped joint effort by Jay-Z and Kanye West has arrived at last, and it gives off a gilded glare – both from the actual cover (the deluxe CD edition, designed by Givenchy Creative Director Riccardo Tisci, comes wrapped in embossed gold Mylar) and from Jay and Kanye’s lyrics: an onslaught of Rollses and Maybachs and Gulfstream jets, five-star hotels and Audemars Piguet watches. The musical scope of Watch the Throne is a tribute to his distinctive taste and sense of style. By J.D. Full Review » Super-Evil-DOOM. Watch the Throne brings little of Twisted Fantasy's boundary-melting ambition or The Blueprint 3's commercial acumen. Listening to it is sort of like watching George Clooney get all his movie-star friends together for a party at his Italian villa, and, along the way, maybe dream up Ocean's Twelve. 12 Friday Aug 2011. Beyonce) Niggas in Paris Otis (feat. Nero | Submitted On August 15, 2011. Indecisiveness has plagued Watch the Throne since its inception. In the past week, Internet sleuths have pointed out that the release of many Jay-Z albums have coincided with some national or international calamity, 9/11 not excluded. The punch lines come fast and furious. Watch the Throne? Jay-Z: “In sheepskin coats, I silence the lamb.” Kanye: “I adopted these niggas, Phillip Drummond them/Now I’m ’bout to make ’em tuck they whole summer in.” In “Illest Motherfucker Alive,” Jay-Z compares himself to the Beatles – and calls Beyoncé his Yoko Ono. It was a landmark project for the recently-launched Apple Music. Maybe you've heard of this one? And "Who Gon Stop Me" finds Kanye cussing in Pig Latin while turning dubstep-rap into a viable subgenre. "Gotta Have It" unites Kanye and the Neptunes to crazily chop up James Brown vocal samples and Eastern flute melodies. Watch the Throne brings little of Twisted Fantasy 's boundary-melting ambition or The Blueprint 3 's commercial acumen. Kanye's opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, still less than a year old, won across-the-board critical raves for its lush, prog-rap expansiveness; to create it, Kanye sequestered himself in Hawaii and flew in an endless stream of creative-peak collaborators. Jay-Z & Kanye West were on my list of people to see live so I was so excited to finally get to see them! Watch the Throne is a collaborative studio album by American rappers Jay-Z and Kanye West. In “New Day,” Jay lays bare the pain of his fatherless childhood; in “Murder to Excellence” (with a turbulent beat by Swizz Beatz and S1), he places his success in a wider sociopolitical frame: “Only spot a few blacks the higher I go/What’s up to Will/Shout-out to O/That ain’t enough/We gon’ need a million more/Kick in the door.”. Now let me tell you a few things that were not expected.. It was later announced that Jay-Z and Kanye West had released most of the tracks that would originally be on the EP. On "Made in America", it's the hardships of youth and coming of age. Watch the Throne works best when Jay and Kanye are just talking about how great they are. They finished the album in March; in April, Mike Dean announced that they restarted the entire mixing process. 5. Watch the Throne is no exception: its release on the same day as yet another catastrophic stock market downturn has led some critics to conclude that the pair's boasts of obscene wealth is out of step with the times. That's a fair case to make. But one of the striking things about Watch the Throne is how often Jay and Kanye address matters beyond their bank accounts. Apart from the two main tracks ‘H.A.M’ and ‘Otis’, I thought the album was really over rated and disappointing; the lyrical content of the album was beyond dope — but the production was not yeezy’s best. Frank Ocean on "Watch The Throne".. Good Move? It's just two of rap's biggest figures and best friends getting together to make some of the swollen, epic music that comes so naturally to them. L et’s be clear from the outset: Jay-Z and Kanye West are responsible, jointly and independently, for six landmark rap albums, and Watch the Throne isn’t as good as any of them. Watch The Throne – Review leave a comment » If fine art could talk, I’d imagine it would say things such as, “This is what Andy Warhol’s inner-thoughts look like, surprised?” and “Why did no one think to institutionalize this individual before I was released on the world resulting in a widespread ‘…What?’ accompanied by a crooked head”. Rap Genius Reviews Dreams and Nightmares; Jetlifer SinnersRemorse Reviews Curren$y's Priest Andretti; Lyrics to Tyga's Well Done 2 … I downloaded ‘Watch The Throne’ a while back when it was first released and I must admit the whole day that is all I really listened to. Look at us, we who demanded the best beats from the best producers in the world, we who embrace both hip-hop’s odd future and Beyonce every night. In fact, it makes me feel a little sorry for them both. Jay-Z, Jay-Z and Kanye West, Kanye West, Watch the Throne. Should we care? Such moments are too scarce on Watch the Throne: More often we hear about “big rocks” and “gold bottles” – which, by the way, rhymes with “scold models.” In the midst of an early 21st-century Great Recession, the vicarious experience of opulence may be enough for Jay’s and Kanye’s millions of fans. They’re hip-hop monarchs, and Watch the Throne doesn’t shrink from its own hype. So: two long-reigning titans make a relatively quick album which, despite their best efforts, still winds up being a monument to their own grandiosity. While Watch the Throne took months to create, What a Time to Be Alive came from an impromptu six-day recording session.It didn’t have Watch The Throne impact, wasn’t nearly as good, but didn’t need to be. Otis Redding) * Gotta Have It New Day Prime Time Who Gon Stop Me Murder to Excellence… Jay and Kanye debuted the album in a private listening session at a New York planetarium, a setting which made perfect sense: even if it never approaches the grandeur or character-study complexity of Twisted Fantasy, this is still exploding-star music. Bad Move?