Looking back did Jay Z's hard knock life Volume 2 deserve 4.5 mics?

[mitter]

It’s the best volume front to back if we being honest. It doesn’t have the lows that are on vol3 and vol1. Collection of great singles and classic collabs.

If I had to choose the 10 best tracks from Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 combined, like 8 of them would be from Vol. 1

 

[Yehuda]

It deserved five mics

 

[nieman]

People will be like how did it get 4.5 mics and RD get 4 when RD was better?

I look at it like this. In 1996, RD wadn't really different. It didn't stand out. Yes, over time, it is accepted as classic, but here's the deal:

Vol. 2 was different it at least several of the songs were. Nothing sounded like "Hard Knock Life". By 1998, the Timbaland sound was everywhere, but "nikka What, nikka Who" was still alien. Swizz's sound was still new, so hearing "Money, Cash, Hoes" was an experience too and DMX being featured added to the hype.

There was the snowball effect of that culminated into this album from Streets Is Watching to "Money Ain't A Thang" to "Can I Get A..." (which was another song that sounded different from everything else).

There was the album cuts with "A Week Ago" featuring Too Short, "Resevoir Dogs" with The Lox", "Ride Or Die", the intro. I even like "Paper Chaser", but it feels like a Foxy Brown song featuring Jay and not the other way around.

Fabolous and Jada have attempted their own versions of this album.

For like the next 2-3 years after this dropped, almost everyone attempted their version of it. This started that era's Singles' Compilation album format, as I like to call it.

Album sold millions of copies had multiple huge hits that still resonate and launched one of the most iconic tours of all time.
Anyone quibbling with 4.5 is just bringing personal preference into it.

The quality is not a 4.5 album, as we expected during those times. The album can be all of those things, but still not be an great album based on the quality of music. I think this is the era where the rating of an album took a divide.

 

[TheMailMan]

Album sold millions of copies had multiple huge hits that still resonate and launched one of the most iconic tours of all time.
Anyone quibbling with 4.5 is just bringing personal preference into it.

Hammer did 10 mill and nobody saying this . Besides DMX was the star of that tour

 

[mitter]

The dumbing down of his lyrics started here. 3.5/5

I will admit this, although I don't think the dumbing down was deliberate in the case of Vol. 2.

I think Jay just made the album very quickly (and even said so in interviews). Listening to it, it was clear that he had not put as much time and effort into it as his other joints.

After Vol. 2 went 5X Platinum, I think that Jay made the deliberate decision to adopt simpler, more "dumbed down" lyrics moving forward.

 

[Canada Goose]

I bought this album for the first time in 2004 from Beat Street on Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn Man I loved that store, was like a Hip Hop Toys R Us

 

[Yayo Toure]

3.75

Felt like a collection of singles.

Followed the same formula as life in 1472. Both albums aged like milk.

 

[Premeditated]

that was my intro to Jay Z as a jit,
so it will always resonate with me

 

[JoelB]

Will always be a classic to me, fukk the critics

 

[Baka's Weird Case]

4.5 sounds about right

 

[Rekkapryde]

THAT shyt GOT 4.5 MICS?



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yes.

defintely agree it felt like a collection of singles. had some mega hits for him and the album that really put him in the mainstream giving him the crossover success.

4/5 for me at best.

 

[Mastamimd]

Nah

 

[Memorial Stadium Piru]

Paper Chase & It's Alright are trash. Otherwise it was a good album

 

[I'm Blackman]

3.75

Felt like a collection of singles.

vol 2 is an album i like and it has some iconic songs and it made him a star...but ive always said aside from the tone of the production its one of his least cohesive albums thematically wise.

its like he tried to make a dope HOT album and he did.

 

[Roxx the King]

Album aged poorly but at the time it delivered what he needed after the weak reception of Vol 1

Score looks bad in hindsight but considering the east coast bias at the time and how hip hop needed a face, Jay was there.