Album Donג€™ts

[Philaflava]

Fuck Doג€™s; letג€™s talk about what an artist should not do for their album.

1. Limit the amount of guest features. There is nothing more annoying than an album full of features. It no longer becomes an artist album, but rather a compilation.
2. Never get outshined on your own shit. Rappers do this a lot. Hollering at the big dawgs or the hottest emcee of the week. If you get shitted on your own record then you deserve it.
3. Be creative. Do not make an album comprised of a handful of tracks using the same titles, catchphrases or samples of your own song. Ill Al Skratch made an album that practically featured the same song with variations of the name. DONג€™T DO THAT!
4. Donג€™t overpay for the guest rappers name. Some of the best features came from unknown artists at the time (Kid Hood, AZ, MF Grimm).
5. Donג€™t listen to your friends when recording. Theyג€™re just weed carriers with no talent so they leach. Theyג€™re your Gayle Kings of the rap world.

Add on.

[Balzac]

No forced hooks/choruses.

9 times out of 10 they are corny and completely unnecessary. a rock and roll standard of song structure that imo doesn't need to apply to rap. scratch choruses are the exception.

[step one]

DONT tell everyone that Dre/Primo/Pete Rock is producing the whole album and its nearly finished.

[Dids]

Rap

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Don't get a different producer for every song. Stick with 3, maximum.

Holla @ good singers for the hooks, Debarge, Bilal, Chessnut, D'Angelo, Badu, Jill Scott, people who can actually sing and have a memorable voice. Not the flavor of the year mulatto who has a video where he doesn't wear a shirt or the half-breed chick with "good hair" humping air on some dancefloor.

[clark bent]

dont have more than 12 full length tracks

[silence]

Don't listen to Internet forum posters who try to tell you how to make a hot album and lost all your individuality and creativity in the process.

[Balzac]

Don't listen to Internet forum posters who try to tell you how to make a hot album and lost all your individuality and creativity in the process.

yeah why would you listen to your core audience.

[TheBigSleep]

I'm getting sick of the long, often overused samples that lead up to any actual verses or content, cut that out.

And as always, fuck intros, outros, interludes, skits and obligatory love / R&B songs. There are a handful of artists that can do those things well but ninety eight percent of the time that shit is guaranteed to suck and will be skipped over every time.

Conversely, ending a song with five minutes of shout outs and / or useless talking is not a good look either.

[silence]

Don't listen to Internet forum posters who try to tell you how to make a hot album and lost all your individuality and creativity in the process.

yeah why would you listen to your core audience.

Because your "core audience" doesn't pay for your music.


And, because your. "core audience" on the interwebs forums tends to think they are the only ones listening to your music and their opinion is the only one that matters

[silence]

Don't listen to Internet forum posters who try to tell you how to make a hot album and lost all your individuality and creativity in the process.

yeah why would you listen to your core audience.

Because your "core audience" doesn't pay for your music.


And, because your. "core audience" on the interwebs forums tends to think they are the only ones listening to your music and their opinion is the only one that matters

[Phizzal]

1. Limit the amount of guest features. There is nothing more annoying than an album full of features. It no longer becomes an artist album, but rather a compilation.

Unless there all on one track, i.e a posse cut

[A Kid]

Stop paying top price for over the hill rappers...i dont care if Ras Kass or Canibus is on your project in 2010, its so easy to pull that off, pause.

[Liger Woods]

dont put a song after a skit on the same track. good skits are good skits but they eventually get skipped on after the initial listen. so if u got a song on the same track as the skit i gotta hold down forward to get to the song. fuck dat shit.

[Philaflava]

Stop paying top price for over the hill rappers...i dont care if Ras Kass or Canibus is on your project in 2010, its so easy to pull that off, pause.

Most of those guys like Ras Kass or G Rap sell verses for less than $1000 and a 6-pack.

[A Kid]

and half of them cats can barely make their G back...and think about all the pushover internet rappers with money who probably paid more than the avg mc actually trying to make a good song.

[EMCEE DARTH MALEK]

Sometimes a lot of guests is a good thing....... kanye's albums....... who wants to listen to kanye the whole time? also on game's albums. i actually like both rappers a lot, but it seems like their comparative advantage is putting together albums rather than rapping all the way through them...........

shit nearly forgot the most obvious: dre.............

[COOLEHMAGAZINE]

Sometimes a lot of guests is a good thing....... kanye's albums....... who wants to listen to kanye the whole time? also on game's albums. i actually like both rappers a lot, but it seems like their comparative advantage is putting together albums rather than rapping all the way through them...........

shit nearly forgot the most obvious: dre.............

Agreed.

Personally, I think it's ridiculous to think that some set of hard and fast rules is going to make your album better. You should do what your artistic vision dictates, unless you don't have any of that, in which case you should either find an executive producer who does, or a new occupation.

[PopeyeJones]

The only one that that bothers me is when people include one song that doesn't fit the rest of the album to appeal to a certain market (11 songs of something, and then one "my song for the clubs" or "song for the ladies" or "song for the radio" song, etc.). Consciously trying to make a single song for a particular audience seems like it usually fails, imo.

[Philaflava]

Like doing Tush?

[Seduce]

Aspiring rappers: Don't listen to any of these posts.

Do what you wanna do. Just make sure it's creative and genuine.

[Magneto]

Don't put the "hot rapper at the moment" on your album if they are wack. That shit will not hold up over time.

[Philaflava]

[mike eagle]

im sayin tho, right

[Harry Hater]

Fuck Doג€™s; letג€™s talk about what an artist should not do for their album.

1. Limit the amount of guest features. There is nothing more annoying than an album full of features. It no longer becomes an artist album, but rather a compilation.
2. Never get outshined on your own shit. Rappers do this a lot. Hollering at the big dawgs or the hottest emcee of the week. If you get shitted on your own record then you deserve it.
3. Be creative. Do not make an album comprised of a handful of tracks using the same titles, catchphrases or samples of your own song. Ill Al Skratch made an album that practically featured the same song with variations of the name. DONג€™T DO THAT!
4. Donג€™t overpay for the guest rappers name. Some of the best features came from unknown artists at the time (Kid Hood, AZ, MF Grimm).
5. Donג€™t listen to your friends when recording. Theyג€™re just weed carriers with no talent so they leach. Theyג€™re your Gayle Kings of the rap world.

Add on.

How about no.

Just saying, great work comes from authenticity, not a checklist of dos and donts.

[ardamus]

Fuck Doג€™s; letג€™s talk about what an artist should not do for their album.

1. Limit the amount of guest features. There is nothing more annoying than an album full of features. It no longer becomes an artist album, but rather a compilation.
2. Never get outshined on your own shit. Rappers do this a lot. Hollering at the big dawgs or the hottest emcee of the week. If you get shitted on your own record then you deserve it.
3. Be creative. Do not make an album comprised of a handful of tracks using the same titles, catchphrases or samples of your own song. Ill Al Skratch made an album that practically featured the same song with variations of the name. DONג€™T DO THAT!
4. Donג€™t overpay for the guest rappers name. Some of the best features came from unknown artists at the time (Kid Hood, AZ, MF Grimm).
5. Donג€™t listen to your friends when recording. Theyג€™re just weed carriers with no talent so they leach. Theyג€™re your Gayle Kings of the rap world.

Add on.

1. Tons of guest features only work for producer albums. Very rarely does it work for solely just the artist. 9 times out of 10, its a fuckin' no no.

2. I definitely agree with this. Or at the very least, make sure you make up for that shit on another song with something by yourself thats way doper than who outshined you.

3. If its a triology song like Part 1 or Part 2 of something, its not that bad. Like when Common had those 3 part songs on One Day It'll All Make Sense. Or like if Redman were to put a bunch of conclusions of Soopaman Lova on 1 album. Other than that, I agree with this statement.

4. Amen. And if you buy the verse and they fake on it, make sure you get some shit in writing from the jump.

5. I'd say go even further for that......don't listen to folks who will not give you honest and constructive criticism. Notice I said both.

[starks]

Don't listen to Internet forum posters who try to tell you how to make a hot album and lost all your individuality and creativity in the process.

yeah why would you listen to your core audience.

Because your "core audience" doesn't pay for your music.

[Gregg Popabitch]

I actually agree with Silence.

[truthaddict]

Don't put all the best songs near the beginning of the album and end it with the weakest material. The last song should be one of the best on the album, so people are left with that shit stuck in their head, and keep coming back.

[Piff Tannen]

love these threads, please continue.