Before I get into this, I was wrong. I said an artist sucked purely because I didn’t enjoy their music. As an artist myself, I should know better than to throw around such words just because I don’t like someone’s music. Just because I don’t like their music doesn’t mean that there’s not plenty of people out there who love their music.

I was an earlier Drake adopter and for the longest time, I was trying to get MI to listen to his earlier stuff (Room For Improvement & Comeback Season) and MI was insisting that he just didn’t like the music. When Drizzy blew up in 2009 with So Far Gone and Thank Me Later followed, I urged MI to listen again, and he still wasn’t feeling him. While he’s never one to hold back his feelings about an artist, he was at least honest enough to say he didn’t like Drake’s music and didn’t just tell me he sucked (that time).

The topic was Young Thug and I said it then and I’ll say it now: I don’t like his music. Now, on one hand, my friend Korey made a very good argument which boiled down to my opening statement of saying an artist isn’t just for me. But then another friend urged me to listen to certain material, hoping to change my mind… just like I tried with MI and Drake. To bring this full circle: Why do I need to like it?

Not to put myself on a high horse because she certainly won’t change her opinion about Young Thug because I still don’t want to listen him. Maybe it’s my past radio experiences where I was exposed to new music every day and I had the final say on what I deemed good enough to play (on my shows at least) on air. Maybe because we’ve had past experiences of enjoying an artist together and she really thought I was missing out (like I did with MI and Drake).

E had asked me a few weeks ago if I was excited for A$AP Rocky, Danny Brown, Vince Staples, and Tyler, The Creator to come to Morgantown later this month and I had to say no. This wasn’t even as extreme a case of the music not being for me, I just don’t listen to any of them. I really do like Tyler, I just haven’t made an effort to get into his latest material but I did like some of his bigger Odd Future tracks. But I don’t feel the need to spend money just because a rap show is in town. I’d rather see local music (and my friends) at 123 Pleasant Street.

I don’t feel like I’m missing anything though. I know what I like so if you’re an artist I’m a fan of or if you’re someone new that I’ve never heard of, chances are I’ll put your music on my iPod and leave it there. There have even been cases of me changing my mind about an artist. I used to not really be a fan of Rick Ross back in 2006; now I can’t imagine missing any of his projects. But considering the limited time I have anymore (Nikki got be a pair of Beats by Dre and I had them for 4 days before I tried them out. I’m not kidding when I say I have no time), I’m not going to waste it listening to Young Thug. Or Future. Or Fetty Wap (but dammit, I’m starting to like “My Way”). Or Rich Homie Quan. Or Rae Sremmurd.

They’re not for me. I haven’t been in radio for 4 years now so I don’t have to play what’s hot right now. I play what I love and what I want to listen to. Matter of fact, I just finished checking out the Memoirs Of Dayne Jordan by Dayne Jordan and I really dug it. I’m pretty sure DJ Jazzy Jeff tweeted out the link (he produced the project and he’s responsible for Dayne getting his shot) and I hold anything with Jeff’s name attached in high regard. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I checked out Eric Bellinger’s Cuffing Season and I didn’t enjoy it at all. Not because the songs were bad; they were really catchy, but the music just wasn’t for me. One look at Bellinger’s songwriting credits and you can tell he’s no slouch but I’d rather be listening to something else when the iPod’s on shuffle.

I mean, I’m a simple fan I think. I can’t stand Boosie’s voice but I love everything that 2 Chainz puts out even though the lyricist in me says I shouldn’t. While I understand and appreciate To Pimp A Butterfly, chances are I’m going to choose Rich Forever over it if given a choice. And that’s okay because I don’t need to like everything that comes out just like my friend doesn’t have to like everything that comes out. That’s our right as musical connoisseurs; mostly because there’s far too much music coming out every day to get to it all like in the stone age of rap blogs. And just because I don’t like an artist’s music doesn’t mean they suck.

So my apologies Young Thug. Just get Birdman to let Wayne off of Cash Money so I can get Tha Carter V and we won’t have any other issues.

And then I complain about how Wayne sucks.

I wrote this the week of the Breaking Bad series finale in 2013 as part of a Breaking Bad Week celebration we did on our now defunct website, Tricycle Offense.

It’s rather fitting that Breaking Bad Week starts, well, late. After the train wreck (in a good way) glory that was “Granite State”, one could understand why I wasn’t eager to tackle my favorite episode quite yet. Despite some real debating, I didn’t choose “Granite State” as my favorite episode… yet. Maybe after multiple viewings, especially once I sit down and watch season 5 as a whole, it’ll come out at the outright winner.

I go back to the starting late, because I started watching Breaking Bad late. It wasn’t long after season 4 completed that I pressed play on the first episode on Netflix. While some viewers call the show’s pilot boring, I couldn’t help but keep watching after seeing Walt’s taped confession in the first 5 minutes.

The moment I knew I was hooked? “Cancer Man” when Walter blew up the car with the KEN WINS license plates. It was something we’ve all fantasied about doing to that oblivious douchebag that annoys us and is an underrated plot point in Walt’s journey to “breaking bad”.

Sure, he killed Krazy 8 the episode before but he didn’t want to. Hell, he was so naive that he was going to free him before he uncannily discovered the missing plate shard.

Now, we’re 5 days away from the series finale of what some are calling the best television show of all-time and it’s hard to argue against. I’ll have to take another complete viewing of The Wire for me to settle that dispute. But to pick just one episode as my favorite out of 5 seasons? It took some doing, but I decided on season 4′s “Salud”. But first, the honorable mentions:

• • Season 2, “Four Days Out”: Walt, Jesse, and a broken down RV in the desert. We also learn Walt’s cancer, his reason for cooking, is in remission.

• • Season 3, “Sunset”: Walt and Jesse get trapped in the RV again, this time in the junkyard with Hank right outside. Gus also sics the Cousins (Hector Salamanca’s nephews) on Hank in an attempt to divert them away from killing Walt.

• • Season 3, “Fly”: Walt and Jesse take on a fly that has infiltrated the superlab. A serious candidate for my favorite episode.

• • Season 4, “Face Off”: An episode where the series could’ve possibly ended on a high note. Gus meets his end and Walt declares victory.

• • Season 5, “Dead Freight”: The ultimate heist episode, as Walt, Jesse, and Todd rob a train for its methylamine.

• • Season 5, Part 2: I’m probably too close to this since it’s the most recent episodes but any one of these could be considered a favorite.

Of all 61 episodes that I’ve watched, why “Salud”? Because it eliminates our main character from the equation, if only for one episode. While Walt is busy recovering from the can of whoop ass Jesse opened up on him the previous episode (“Bug”) and spending “time” with Jr. on his 16th birthday, Gus, Mike, and Jesse all head to Mexico to meet with Cartel that Gus has been feuding with all season. After Jesse proves to the Cartel (and Gus) that he can cook almost as well as Walt, Gus tricks the Cartel into thinking that Jesse is theirs to keep, but ends up poisoning and killing every last one of them. At episode’s end, Jesse is driving a dying Gus and a wounded Mike the hell out of dodge.

This was the episode where I knew Jesse was my favorite character. I had been a Walt guy the entire series (and I still was rooting for Walt until he made off with Holly 2 episodes ago) and I found Jesse only fouled things up. But in this episode, not only did he cook well, he also defended his bosses by taking out Joaquin (and the last Salamanca remaining besides Hector), then drove them to safety.

This is the episode where Jesse could have been set for life. He wanted to cook and be in the meth business, he had a father figure in Mike, he was learning the hitman trade…this was his true chance to start over. All he had to do was get rid of the pesky allegiance to Walt and shoot him in “End Times”…but we all know how that turned out.

This episode really showcased just how much Walt was holding Jesse back at this point in time. Yes, Walt had pulled him into a lucrative partnership, got him clean of drugs, and saved his life (multiple times), but Walt never (and he still doesn’t seem to) respected Jesse. To his face. It’s a shame that he had to call out Jesse’s name as he passed out in front of Jr. this episode.

And that’s another thing, this episode is all about father/son relationships. Walt/Walt Jr., Walt/Jesse, Walt/his father, and Jesse/Mike. While Walt always says he started cooking meth for his family, we eventually learned that wasn’t true. But the main thing we’ve learned: Walter White is a terrible father/father figure. It’s pretty sad that the only time your real son thinks you’re honest is when you’re drugged out of your mind. And your former student/partner (who has a pretty shitty dad who seemingly gave up on him), just wants a pat on the back sometimes and you refuse to give it to him. Think of the Dr. Cox/J.D. relationship taken to the utmost extreme.

And one thing we know now that season 4 showed signs of: Walt’s egomania. As soon as Mike starts taking Jesse away from the cooks, Walt starts saying how it must be a ploy to get at him (“Cornered”). While he was ultimately right, he failed to mention how jealous he was of the fact that his partner was needed for something bigger than just cooking meth. He spent the rest of the season attempting to convince Jesse to turn on Gus and he couldn’t do it until he poisoned Brock.

And need I mention how cool it is how Gus took down the whole Cartel in one fell swoop? Despite his being the villain of Season 4, I always loved how the cool and calm Gus always had a plan. What seemingly looked like a trade in Mexico to get the Cartel off his back, turned into a decisive victory for Gus and company. There’s nothing better than a villain who can’t be bested at every turn and Gus was that right up until the end.

Of course, we now have the throwaway storyline with Skyler secretly giving Ted money to pay his taxes and then when he doesn’t she tells him the money was from her. I say throwaway because it’s pretty irrelevant to the final end game of the series, but really, she cooked Ted’s books and feared them both doing time. But by the time she gives him the money, the IRS already cut him a break due to her supposed “ignorance”.

To sum up, this episode had action, drama, storyline development, the total package. This would definitely be the episode I would use if I wanted to get someone hooked on Breaking Bad.

Among the many, many things there are in the world that bring joy to my nerdy self, Boyz II Men’s II is one of them. My earliest memories of the album was the hit song “I’ll Make Love To You” and the impact it had on radio in 1994. And as a fan of their previous hits, I was anxious to hear the whole disc. And my dad (who I credit a large chunk of my slow jam appreciation to) had bought it and told me to take a listen whenever I got a chance. I couldn’t get the CD out of the case though.

Mind you, I was 11 years old at this time. I didn’t want to admit to my parents that I was too stupid to take a CD out of its case. So I just didn’t listen to it.

For a very long time.

Eventually, on my umpteenth try, I figured out that if I pull on the CD while pushing the teeth out, good listenings would be had by all. And I listened. I’m willing to say that even 18 years later, II is still the album I’ve listened to the most in my life. Having no portable CD player or a CD player in my bedroom, I taped a copy of the album and played it at high volume…at all times. I’m willing to bet everyone in my family knows the whole album word for word. And II might be my favorite album of all time. I haven’t made a list or anything but I love this album that much.¹

I played II well into 1995 because I’m pretty sure I was entering junior high school when I finally moved onto something else (I’m thinking it was 112′s debut album by then. I’m definitely an R&B nerd.). It wasn’t long before I got Cooleyhighharmony and devoured it. The classic Boyz II Men sound was there, but it didn’t have the smoothness that II possessed. So as I spent time listening to all the CDs dad was getting from BMG and Columbia House,² I started wanting that new Boyz II Men album. It had taken them three years to release II after Cooleyhighharmony but I didn’t think it would take them that long to get something new out. They were one of the biggest musical acts in the world at the time, why wait another three years?³

Two years later (a decade for me). “4 Seasons Of Loneliness” was released. It went to #1.

And I didn’t like it.

It wasn’t that Boyz II Men sound I was looking for. It felt like a Michael Bolton record (and I hate Michael Bolton). The video didn’t grab me.⁴ The vocals were good but there was nothing that screamed “This is what I’ve been waiting for!”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the first time I was disappointed by music.

Being the true fan that I am, I made sure dad got me a copy of their new album Evolution as soon as he could. By the time I got it, “4 Seasons…” had grown on me a little but there was no way the whole album would disappoint me.

Evolution. When the times are great, they’re great (see: “Doin’ Just Fine”, “A Song For Mama”, “Can You Stand The Rain”, “Never”). When they’re bad, they’re dreadful (see: tracks 8-12).They always say it’s hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice and that it’s hard to overcome the sophomore slump. Boyz II Men had a junior slump. They were the William Gates of my music lifetime.⁵ I gave the album as many listens as I could before I moved on to other things (mainly, No Way Out and Big Willie Style), but for all intents and purposes, I moved on from my Boyz II Men phase.

As the years went on, I would occasionally drift back to II with fond memories, but with the dawn of the mp3 and all these wondrous ways we have of accessing music, I would run across a stray Boyz II Men track every now and then. And for some reason, last week I thought to myself, “I’d really like to listen to Evolution again.”

So while I was editing Justin’s Katie Richter article the other morning, I clicked on Spotify and listened to the whole album for the first time in at least 14 years. And the second half of the album is still pretty shitty. Maybe the guys went into “Fuck you Motown” mode and phoned in the rest of the album (there were apparently label issues around that time). But hearing those first 7 tracks just made me wonder what could have been.

I owned Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya but I never listened to the whole album. I didn’t listen to a full Boyz II Men album again until last year’s Twenty. The former quartet is now a trio, with Mike’s health issues forcing him to retire in 2003. Twenty was a decent album, but nothing that I wanted to listen to for hours at a time. The interesting part about the record though, was how the group re-recorded several of their old hits. I have no idea why they did this, but the updated versions still sounded pretty crisp.

So 18 years after the release of II, the guys are still touring the world, getting stars on the Walk of Fame, and living the dream that started at their Philadelphia high school. I came t h i s close to seeing them live for the first time after a Pirates game this summer, but my nephew decided to graduate that same day. And even if I never get to see Boyz II Men throw it down live, I’ll always have their good debut album, their stellar second effort, and their half dope third album.

And we’ll be in a serious argument if you try to say another group is better.

Long live “Motownphilly”.

WRITER’S NOTE: It hasn’t even been a week and songs I wrote off from Evolution are getting stuck in my head. “Come On”, “Human II (Don’t Turn Your Back on Me)”, “To The Limit”, and “Dear God” have all made the rounds. Maybe Evolution‘s second half isn’t so bad.

Footnotes
¹ Let me try to come up with a Top 5 real quick though: 1. Boyz II Men – II 2. Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt 3. New Edition – Heart Break 4. Garth Brooks – No Fences 5. Nas – I Am… And that’s just with 10 minutes of thinking. I’m sure there are albums that could easily replace those. Back
² For some of you noobs out there, BMG and Columbia House were mail order services. They would offer you 10 or 20 CDs for the price of 1. Of course, after that you had to pay a monthly fee to continue to use their service. But as a kid, it was awesome. Back
³ Somehow, even though they are credited for igniting the boy band craze, I never got any shit for liking Boyz II Men. If you were a New Kids on the Block fan when I was growing up, you got made fun of, but New Edition and Boyz II Men both got a pass. Maybe it was the R&B element to their music, maybe it was because they were black, I don’t know for sure. But I was such a Boyz II Men fan that I created an R&B group in elementary school with 2 guys who couldn’t sing just so I could cash in on that R&B fame. We went nowhere but it was cool seeing the girls reaction when you tell them you’re in a singing group. And I could sing. Ask anyone who went to junior high with me. Back
⁴ I didn’t have video channels until 1995, so I missed out on most of II‘s videos until long after they were released. Except “Water Runs Dry”. I always liked that one. Back
⁵ William Gates was a stand out high school player at Isiah Thomas’ old high school St. Joseph’s in the late 80′s/early 90′s. He peaked his sophomore year. Knee
injuries kept him from ever reaching that potential again. Watch the movie Hoop Dreams. No, right now. This article can wait. Back