Submitted by RainbowFartss t3_10cn9zq in Music
I posted this as a reply in the other thread about 90's music but feel this deserves its own post because it's so genius. Each album is stylistically so different than the last and the last song on each album gives insight to what the next album would sound like. Fucking GENIUS.
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994): full of gangster/pimp music with P-Funk styled production. Last song is D.E.E.P., where you already hear the space-y vibes present on the next album and an alien speaking at the beginning. The production also has cleaner bass as opposed to the fuzzy funk samples on most of the album.
ATLiens (1996): Outerspace styled production. Again the UFO sounds are all over this album and it moves away from the gangster lyrics to more abstract with again, cleaner bass and less funk samples. [Edit: "Two Dope Boyz" is an exception but as I said in a reply below, I believe that was meant to be a stop gap for fans of the first album. It was the first song on the album and an outlier compared to the rest of the songs, thematically. And for what it's worth, the song opens with the same alien speaking that was on D.E.E.P. from the last album.] The last song is 13th Floor/Growing Old, which is an introspective song about life with much softer production compared to the harder beats on the rest of the album.
Aquemini (1998): socially conscious, introspective lyrics. More "grown up" hip-hop and smooth, soft production, just like Growing Old on the previous album. Last song is Chonkyfire, a more eclectic, genre bending, rock inspired track with electric guitars and distortion, which seemingly comes out of nowhere because the vibe of the rest of the album was definitely not this. Which leads to..
Stankonia (2000): extremely eclectic album, blending multiple genres with more instrumentation, becomes more experimental and moves further away from traditional hip hop production and samples. Along with some singing in there too, again blending multiple genres.