Lil Jon & East Side Boyz

Kings of Crunk

Unbelievably awful radio garbage

Review Score:

(2/10)
First of all, if you think this can actually be classified as music, you should stop reading this review; it will either be too much for your intelligence or you will be insulted that your musical taste includes an album that I don't think has a definitive language.

To start, I don't even own this album, but I don't have to. We've all heard this music way too many times before not to know how this goes. This is just another, all-too familiar for this genre, completely expendable and disposable piece of garbage featuring some guys who, despite not even having sixth-grade educations, can throw some words together with some seriously lacking vocal nuances. With "artists" such as these, I'm not sure if they are speaking communicable English or even have the ability to. Take their overplayed, yet very catchy (definitely due to massive studio overproduction) single, "Get Low." While I can't even tell what they are saying throughout the song (again another trademark of hip-hop), it sounds like they are imitating a form of baseball umpire strike calls throughout part of the chorus, and considering that every song from this genre of hip-hop is the same, I can safely assume the rest is no better. Also, could someone with a sliver of intelligence please tell me what "crunk" means? (Just kidding, it doesn't necessarily take anyone with an IQ higher than my rating of this album to figure that out) Not only is this an album title, but some of these highly intellectual reviews praising this album use the word to define this "truly original genre" of music. It has even infiltrated our everyday culture (this goes back to my complaint about them contributing to the gradual formation of a new language: because of this, I can't even have a conversation with an average kid anymore).

This "music" is purely 100% commercial. It was made for radio conglomorates like Kiss-My-A$$-FM to play for the brainwashed suburban white gangsta-wannabes who listen to this type of stuff and think they are hard. Kids think that, by buying this album, that they, in their own little microcosms, are really "kewl." The hip-hop genre has undoubtedly been the largest perpetrators of this legalized theft and it has gotten progressively worse over the last few years with such other "highly talented lyricists" as Jay-Z, Ja Rule, DMX, Snoop Dogg (post-Death Row), Master P, Nelly, Juvenile, 50 Cent, Outkast, Ludacris, Chingy, Puffy/P.Diddy/whatever the hell he's called, Murphy Lee, The Lox, Big Tymers, Cash Money, Cam'Ron, and seemingly thousands of other undeservedly rich and forgettable novelties. But hey, it's working, right? 9 of the top 10 (and 16 of top 20) singles on Billboard this week are Hip Hop/R&B.The problem I have with this music is that it is completely and utterly obvious that this is "clubbing / partying / have a good time / get laid" type music whose sole purpose is to be a short-term novelty act for kids with no true musical taste and attention spans 100 times shorter than the average length of one of these songs. So, there really doesn't need for there to be any effort or musical talent put forth because it is really not necessary in order for the desired effect to be achieved. It's working and subsequently, taking music overall down with it.

You probably already knew all that, but were too busy "getting crunk" to care. I'm not using to be completely biased against party music. If you want a good sub-genre of that, listen to rap circa the "Death Row" era. It was fun, real honest-to-God rap, and you could actually tell what they were saying. If you think about it, ten years ago, no exec in their right mind would have green-lighted anything like "Kings of Crunk" because the quality of both that genre and music overall was better, and this album is a shameful reminder that today's music scene is dominated by crap that's anything but.

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