Penúltimo

I can see the finish line from here, so before we get into the final post of this dumbass stunt-slash-naked attempt to gain page views, let’s take a breather and reflect on everything we’ve read thus far.

1. THE REVIEWS THEMSELVES

If you’re somehow visiting the site for the very first time today and have absolutely no idea what I’ve been up to throughout November, you can click here to see all of the albums I’ve reviewed this month. There are quite a few: twenty-nine thus far, one for every day of the month, in addition to the finale, which is set to run later today. And if you need further backstory, this month is one large follow-up to a similar stunt I pulled in February of this year: those posts can be caught up with here.

2. THE BONUS POSTS

On select dates, I chose to run more than one post, sometimes to provide a bit more context to that day’s review, and other times just for the general hell of it. Because of the “surprise” nature of those bonus posts, you can’t easily find them in the sidebar, so what follows is a list of the extra shit that popped up throughout the month:

Black Thought – Streams of Thought Vol. 1

Psycho Les – Psycho Therapy: The Remixes

Prince Paul – The Redux

Amil – A.M.I.L. (All Money Is Legal)

Jeru the Damaja – Still Rising

Kids See Ghosts – Kids See Ghosts

Aside from the hidden nature of the posts themselves (think of them as “bonus tracks”, says me, the nerd), these are regular write-ups that can be enjoyed like everything else, so be sure to leave some comments. I know a lot of you two had been waiting for a while on that Kids See Ghosts one.

3. THE RANDOMAX MIX

One of those bonus posts wasn’t an album review, but a link to a podcast/radio show mix I threw up, literally vomited out and uploaded for your listening pleasure. A link follows below: if you’ve followed the site for any length of time you’ve long since realized that hip hop isn’t the only genre of music I listen to, and my goal with these mixes (a series I’d like to continue) is to compile random songs I like in the moment (hence the name) into enjoyable bodies of work that can be enjoyed straight through. If you’ve ever needed to hear Young M.A. fade into Love and Rockets like I apparently did, listen to this mix and leave your thoughts, subscribe, drop off suggestions, do your thing.

4. THE NOVEMBER MIX

My Mixcloud page is also home of a collection of songs pulled from the first fifteen albums reviewed in November, a compilation that has no thematic through line (although I’ve listened to it myself, and as for the songs I chose from each project in the moment, man, I was in a fucking mood that day). These songs aren’t supposed to blend together: this is more of a handy representation of whatever I thought the best song was off of each album the day I put it together, hopefully providing readers with more context for the reviews themselves.

5. THE FOLLOW-UP NOVEMBER MIX

If I did it for the first half of the month, then I have to do another one to finish things up, so below you’ll find a link to a new mix for days sixteen through thirty. Again, these were the songs I liked the most from each project in the moment, “the moment” not being the day I wrote or published the review, so my feelings are subject to change. I’m still a work in progress when it comes to putting these fuckers together, but this time around the song order matches their publication dates on the site, and yes, there is a hint included within the mix about the final album of the month to be reviewed. (By “hint”, I mean I chose a song from that project and included it.) I’m running the final write-up a tad bit later than usual in order to give you two a chance to listen to the mix and figure out what the finale will be. Don’t go into this looking for cohesiveness, though: this is really more of a “play it while you’re at work or doing chores”-kind of mix, whereas the RandoMax mix above is absolutely a “driving downtown to do something approximating 'fun'”-type of thing.

EDIT: Here's the tracklisting for the second November mix, since enough time has passed where you two will have already figured out what the final album reviewed in November was.

1. "Jojo's Chillin" - Killer Mike
2. "Stepping Stone" - Eminem
3. "Suga Mama" - Beyonce
4. "Who We Be" - DMX
5. "Rasta" (featuring Agallah) - Group Home
6. "Suckas Pt. 2 (For Da Gangstas)" (featuring Beanie Sigel) - Philly's Most Wanted
7. "Rock Co. Kane Flow" (featuring MF DOOM) - De La Soul
8. "Make It Work" - Q-Tip
9. "Jesus Walks (Remix)" (featuring Common and Ma$e) - Kanye West
10. "Wake Up" (featuring Jay-Z) - Missy Elliott
11. "The Way I Are" (featuring Keri Hilson and D.O.E.) - Timbaland
12. "5 Boroughs (Unreleased Version)" (featuring Jim Jones, KRS-One, Method Man, and Uncle Murda) - LL Cool J
13. "Majestic Mic Masters" - Cloak N Dagga
14. "Pass The Mic" - Beastie Boys
15. "4th Dimension" (featuring Louis Prima) - KIDS SEE GHOSTS
16. "When I Get Free II" - 2Pac

Enjoy, leave your thoughts, comments, what have you, and come back later today, when I will collapse and die just before I reach the tape, and you will rush out to tell my story for generations.

-Max