Customer Reviews

Magnificent City Instrumentals

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having discovered RJD2 on Pandora and liked the few songs I've heard, I decided to purchase this CD. RJD2 produces music that I find myself liking, but, in some cases, not caring for the arrangement. Magnificent City Instrumentals, as a whole is good, but, not great. There are a couple great tracks, but, some of the tracks that could be great just get too repetitive for my taste. However, as is typical with all RJD2's tracks, the creativity in using samples and his blending of what most would consider non-musical elements into a cohesive work is what keeps drawing me back to his work. If you like RJD2, buy this album. If you are introducing yourself to RJD2, find something else by which to first immerse yourself in his world.

Fun music. Anyone familiar with rjd2's material will enjoy this thoroughly. 'Caged Bird' is the personal favorite track, but overall the record is qutie cohesive and you will definitely think of it in terms of an album vs. individual songs.

I can't speak to the whole album. I just spent 15 minutes trying to find the theme of the TV show Mad Men. The mad men soundtrack isn't downloadable here, and you can't buy individual tracks from it at iTunes. When I found the artist page for the song titled "A Beautiful Mine", it included a DJ which wasn't what I was looking for.

The "Beautiful Mine" track on this album is the instrumental version. It's the track that opens "Mad Men". Strings, drums, and bass. Cool as he11.

If you like awesome instrumental funk you need this album. I have the instrumental versions of 8 Million Stories, In Rare Form, Things Go Better, Third Hand, and this one. And if you like this, you should get all the aforementioned albums.

On these albums he is up there with my favorite funk artists, like The Herbaliser Band, Budos Band, Chris Joss, and the instrumental works of The Beastie Boys. Fans of 70s era funk music will also feel right at home with these. It's temping to hunt them all in vinyl format, but I'm not even sure they exist as such.

Fans of Deadringer and/or Since Last We Spoke may find these tracks to be a bit more stripped back than they prefer. Remember, most of them were intended to be sung or rapped over, so the sparseness and repetition is intentional. Not that I have any problem with this, but it's worth mentioning anyhow.