Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
Originally posted by: scott916
The first Aesop Rock album.
Good luck finding Music for Earthworms for sale anywhere on Earth... Unless by first Aesop Rock album you meant something like Float, which still came after the Appleseed EP. But yes, Aesop Rock is wicked sick; my friend, who typically only likes mainstream rap, can still jam out to Aesop
even though the lyrics are the antithesis of mainstream.
I'd recommend starting with Labor Days, primarily for the songs Battery, No Regrets, 9-5ers Anthem and Daylight (Aesop Rock's best song, and one of the best songs ever recorded). Appleseed is great if you can find it (it's been out of print for eons), Float is great but has some filler, None Shall Pass is outstanding and easy to find, Fast Cars is only an EP, but well worth it... But Aesop Rock is pretty much my favorite MC (it's a tossup between him and Sage Francis), so I'm always of the opinion that you can't go wrong with anything he's done.
On the subject of Sage Francis, I recommend starting with the album he released as part of the Non-Prophets (teaming up with Joe Beats), Hope. It's just solid hip hop from start to finish, and really gives you a feel for the power of lyricism that Sage possesses. A Healthy Distrust, Human the Death Dance and Personal Journals are all distinctly different sides of Sage, and all great in their own way, while the Sick of... series (Sick of Waiting, Still Sick... Urine Trouble, Sick of Waiting Tables, Sick of Waging War, Sickly Business) offer up what essentially amounts to a series of mixtapes that feature some of the greatest songs ever written (including the haunting Makeshift Patriot released a few weeks after 9/11).
One that I haven't seen mentioned yet is Diverse. His debut LP One A.M. is pretty damn solid, with beats by RJD2 (by the way, if you like beats, RJD2's Dead Ringer is the best instrumental hip hop album since DJ Shadow's Endtroducing), and some great rhyming.
Oh, and Cannibal Ox's Cold Vein is one of the greatest underground hip hop albums ever. The group no longer exists, but they still managed to crank out a fantastic piece of hip hop history on their first try. It's weird, definitely not as accessible as Atmosphere or Brother Ali, but it's beautiful in its own way, and an absolute must-have.
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