In case you miss the concept, “Without You” spells it out: It’s all about “the dark side of the American dream.” But American dreams are tempting, which is why they’re dangerous. As any fan of Madonna, Britney or Steely Dan could tell you, lyrics about the perils of seduction work better when attached to seductive tunes. (Loads of Lolita references, though her literary template seems to be Poison’s “Fallen Angel.”) She has clever lines in “Diet Mtn Dew,” she rhymes “Take another drag, turn me to ashes” with “Says he’s gonna teach me just what fast is.”īut her voice is pinched and prim, and her song doctors need to go the fuck back to med school. The big theme: femininity as a scam, as lost girls preen for the gaze of imaginary sugar daddies. Her strength is the lyrics, which have the pop-trash perversity that the music lacks. It goes for folky trip-hop ballads with a tragic vibe, kinda like Beth Orton used to do. Given her chic image, it’s a surprise how dull, dreary and pop-starved Born to Die is. But for the rest of us, she’s just another aspiring singer who wasn’t ready to make an album yet. She’s a starlet to music bloggers, who’ve been buzzing over her for the past year. That was like the most illest shit because it was his way of marketing himself.Give Lana Del Rey credit: At least she didn’t break down and cry on Saturday Night Live.
![ready to die full album ready to die full album](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OehCQ_bQWUM/hqdefault.jpg)
James like he was selling the best coke ever. “From his house, dubbing the album on a double cassette deck and had a line in front of his crib on St. “I watched Biggie give away ‘Ready to Die’ and thought he was crazy,” he told Vlad TV. It seems unlikely that any of today’s young rappers would be found pushing copies of their records from their homes, but Biggie did just that back in the ‘90s, according to Busta Rhymes. B.I.G.s explosive 1994 debut album, Ready to Die, chronicled his survivalism and sexploits with charm, menace, and urgency. You could get a copy of the album by visiting Biggie’s Brooklyn house After dropping out of high school and serving jail time for drug charges, he recorded a demo tape that eventually landed him at Bad Boy Records, founded by Sean 'Diddy' Combs. These days, they just seem quaint compared to the VR machines he could have rapped about in 2019. Later, he adds a “ 50-inch screen, money green leather sofa” and “ a limousine with a chauffeur” to his list, but it’s those initial picks that haven’t stood the test of time. “ When I was dead broke, man, I couldn’t picture this.” The track detailed the rapper’s rise to the top, with those two games consoles listed as luxuries beyond his younger self’s wildest dreams. “ Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis,” raps Big on ‘Juicy’. But that wasn’t always true – Method Man told Complex in 2011 that the late star had once shown him the lyrics to ‘The What’ as he was writing them, specifically the line “ I’ve got more Glocks and tecs than you/I make it hot, n****s won’t even stand next to you.” Part of the folklore surrounding ‘Ready To Die’ paints Biggie as a rapper who had no need for a pen and paper, memorising his bars and delivering them off the top of his head instead. Contrary to popular belief, Biggie didn’t always freestyle the lyrics That honesty added an extra grit to ‘Ready To Die’ that means its still one of the most real portrayals of thug life in hip-hop. kept things real when it came to describing his life as a drug dealer, making sure to include the downsides of trapping, like the threat of being caught by the police or running into issues with other dealers.
![ready to die full album ready to die full album](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0255/7539/products/IMG_0424copy.jpg)
On Friday (September 13), it celebrates its 25th anniversary, so what better time to look back on some of the record’s more surprising elements. Since its release in 1994, it’s inspired countless rappers in Biggie’s wake and secured his legacy as a raw and real storyteller. The Notorious B.I.G.‘s ‘Ready To Die’ – his only album released in his lifetime – is widely considered to be one of the greatest rap albums of all time.