Customer Reviews

Rotten Apple

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

A little over 2 years since Bank$ dropped his solo debut, he's back with an album slightly worse than his "Hunger For More". With 16 songs you get to hear a god deal of Banks, of the 16, 1 is almost a classic, 8 or 9 are good, and the other 6 or 7 are average songs. Guests are rapping on 6 sogns and do the hook on another 4, so you only get 6 solo's with no guest appearances. Production is decent, not as good as I'd have thought looking at some of the people who did production, and handled by a lot of different people. Eminem & Ron Browz do 2 songs each, and 10, Midi Mafia, Pitch Black Music, Younglord, Dave Morris, RJ Rice, Havoc, Major Music, Needlz, Nick Speed, Black Flag, and 9th Wonder all do 1 track. For fans of Banks or G--Unit I'd recommend this but the Unit has put out better material.

#1 - 8.5 (f/ 50 Cent & Prodigy of Mobb Deep)
#2 - 9
#3 - 8
#4 - 6.5 (f/ 50 Cent)
#5 - 8.5 (nice beat)
#6 - 8.5 (f/ 50 Cent -- upbeat track)
#7 - 8.5 (f/ Keri Hilson)
#8 - 7.5 (f/ Musiq)
#9 - 9 (nice beat -- f/ Rakim)
#10 - 7.5 (f/ Prodigy of Mobb Deep)
#11 - 7 (hook is annoying)
#12 - 7.5
#13 - 6.5 (f/ Tony Ya Yo)
#14 - 8 (f/ Keon Bryce)
#15 - 6.5 (f/ Young Buck, Eightball, and Scarface)
#16 - 9.5 (tight beat -- best song on here)

Christopher Lloyd -- b. 4/30/82 -- Jamaica, Queens, NY
Check all my reviews

I was very excited and highly anticipating Lloyd Bank's sophomore effort. I was expecting double what he gave us on Hunger For More, but was sadly mistaking. Mr. Punchline provides very little punchlines in this album. If you actually listened to Hunger For More, even if the beat lacked Lloyd had enough heat behind the mic to make it a hot track anyway. In fact, this doesn't even sound like Lloyd Banks. I've listened to this CD over and over trying to force myself to like it, but this album isn't nowhere close to as good as Hunger For More! What happened to the Punchlines? The title track is decent along with You Know The Deal and Get Clapped. Cake is alright and Iceman is a good track thanks to Young Buck. Maybe my expectations were too high but this is a weak second effort by Lloyd Banks.

Of the slew of rappers in music, Lloyd Banks has always stood out to me. This is ironic because I have heard his music on the radio and television, but never listened to any of his albums entirely. So, why does he stand out? He's cute in a strange way and I like his voice. Also, although he's apart of G-Unit, he seems to be more mature than most of the other members of that group of males. I picked "Rotten Apple" up because I saw him on 106 & Park talking about it. After listening to it, I'm disappointed. I was expecting music that I could add to my iPod and jam to, but, sadly, I found none. There are several decent songs here, but that is all you are going to find. Banks doesn't rap quickly, he raps in a laid back manner. The lyrics are ok, but he said nothing that has stuck with me. The production, for the most part, is the typical G-Unit sound. Slower numbers, mid-tempos and up-beats are all found here, and there are one or two good beats, but again, that's all. The guest appearances are good. I enjoyed them.

Lloyd Banks usually delivers his songs in the same way, and that sent me into a slight state of boredom as I was listening to "Rotten Apple." However, in the chorus of "Stranger", Banks is rapping in a very low tone; I like that namely because it was a change of pace for him. As a whole, "Stranger" is a pretty weak offering with its dry production and average lyrics. His delivery on "Survival" is nice. The first few songs on the album set the tone for the entire record and this is a decent song. Musiq offers his talents on "Addicted", which is one of the best numbers here. Banks's delivery and lyrics are good as so is the beat.

I still like Lloyd Banks. He has improvement written all over him. All that is left for him to do is...improve. Recommended to G-Unit supporters.

Mikeisha's Top 5

1. "Addicted"
2. "Survival"
3. "Cake"
4. "Help"
5. "NY NY"

The biggest flaw of this album is Lloyd Banks' laziness on the mic. The title track is evidence of this as Banks tries hard to keep up with the beat and Prodigy busts his usual suspect 16 bars. This is not to say that this album doesnt have any good songs on it. Survival is not bad. Make A Move and You Know The Deal are vintage Lloyd Banks tracks that he put effort into but for every track like Get Clapped and Survival, there are straight garbage tracks like Playboy 2, Hands Up, Change, NY NY feat Tony Yayo, the preppy sounding Gilmore's etc. Stranger is boring as hell and even though I like The Cake feat 50, 50 floored "the lyrical one out of G-unit on that track. Lloyd also fails when he makes songs for the ladies like the drab Help feat Keri Hilson and the awful One Night Stand feat Keon Bryce. Iceman is hands down the worst track on the album as Young Buck, Scarface and 8Ball bring the track down with lukewarm appearances.
Bottom Line: Lloyd Banks's Rotten Apple takes its place in the list of worst G-unit releases. Lloyd's rhymes were lazy, the guest appearances were weak but the production was okay for the most part.
Standout Tracks: THE CAKE, SURVIVAL, MAKE A MOVE, YOU KNOW THE DEAL and GET CLAPPED.

For those who have given up on G-Unit because of last year's more commercial and lackluster albums, fear not. This album is exactly what we have been waiting for. It's not another GRODT but it beats both The Massacre and TOAPF. Banks is one of the best new rappers out there. He's got slick metaphors and creative rhymes. Those who are bashing this album are only doing so because they hate G-Unit(Yes Karen I'm talking to you, you Game groupie). It's a shame this didn't sell as high but it should still go plat. Overal one of the best albums of the year. Pick it up and you won't be sorry.

this album is suspect at best. It's no where near hunger for more and that album was just bearly ok. This album suffers from too many guest appearences and waaaaaaaaay tooooooooo much 50. Buy if you dare but do not expect a classic.

Rotten Apple by Lloyd Banks is a very good album, but no where near The Hunger for More in terms of quality. I loved every track on his first album, with some of the tracks being instant classics. While his sophmore album might not be as good as his first, its still a very good album, that any G-Unit or rap fan in general should like.

Best Songs on the Album

Make a Move - Great beat, good hook, Banks is really good on this track
The Cake - Good song, weird hook
Get Clapped - My favorite track, awesome hook, great guest appearance by Mobb Deep, best track on the album
You Know the Deal - I was hoping we'd get more from Rakim than the hook, but for an artist to even get him on a track tells ya what kind of rep Banks has, great song
Hands Up - Fun track, much like On Fire but not quite as good
NY,NY - Very cool track
Iceman and Gilmore's - Nothing special, but great tracks nonetheless

Definitely worth the money, great album, just not quite as good as first album. I liked this album a lot more than I liked Ludacris', Dro, and Snoops(I got an advance) Can't wait for Game's, Jay's, Nas', Buck. Great effort from Banks

Alright, so Lloyd Banks is the G-UNIT official NY lyricist, but NY rappers sophomore albums don't usually live up to the hype. Well, well, well, ain't no surprise here, the punch lines are here, $.50 is here, the sung hooks and the gansta mantra too.
While all the G-UNIT kids will swallow the radio friendly worms ("Cake", "Hands Up", "Addicted"), Banks will have to do more before he can claim back his early NY-mixtapes circuit clout. There's a couple of tracks where Banks actually lives up to the fame ("Life", "Stranger", "Gilmore's"), however, the production ain't all that, a lot of tracks sound the same, a lot of them just feel recycled. 16 tracks, a couple of hot tracks, a couple of singles, do the math, that's a lot of fillers to skip through.
It ain't like Banks fell off, but it's hard to listen to tracks like "NY NY", "Iceman" and not wonder where the hunger for more went and what could have been, 'life is full of possibilities ...'

The last time Lloyd Banks released a solo album, New York Hip-Hop wasn't in "crisis". There were no D4L, Dem Franchise Boyz, or a "Whisper Song" carving genres of "snap rap" or "intimate club music", respectively. No one knew who Mike Jones was, and when you mentioned the People's Champ, wrestler "The Rock" instantly came to mind. Fast forward two years to 2006, and the aforementioned sound of Southern Hip-Hop, from Atlanta and Houston in particular, has captured the airwaves and the minds of fans everywhere. East Coast radio stations flooded their playlists with music from below the Mason Dixon line. Sure, lyrical content wasn't at a premium, but the artists were having fun. The result was a slew of hook-driven, dance-creating soundscapes that left artists from New York with a little hate in their blood. After one leaked album and numerous delays, Lloyd Banks returns with Rotten Apple (G-Unit/Interscope), primed to remind folks what crew controlled the game before his hiatus.

Listening to Rotten Apple, one can't help but compare the sophomore LP to its freshman precursor. Where Hunger For More started off with the energy of "Ain't No Click", the new album opens with the subdued boom bap of the title track. "What a way to double up, headed for my second win," brags Banks. On "Survival" the G-Unit soldier rides the track effortlessly, giving the listener a tutorial on how he learned to protect himself from haters: "Poppa was a rolling stone, never came back now I'm on my own/So I had to learn a few things 'bout survival like the ice pick gun or the bottle." Blue Hefner doesn't disappoint on the wordplay boasting that he's got "TV's the size of Kevin Garnett," among other gems. Banks successfully switches up his style on the true school inspired "Make A Move", and pulls Musiq Soulchild out of the Witness Protection Program on "Addicted". "Help" shows a mature Boy Wonder touching on the prospect of settling down with a woman he can trust, a noble gesture from the man who claims to sleep with one female a day. With success, however, comes a tendency to get complacent and lose the fire in the belly. "Hands Up" and "Cake" are examples of stellar uptempo production that allows Banks to spit his best bars. Unfortunately, there aren't enough of these tracks on Rotten Apple.

"Playboy 2" finds Banks revisiting the stop and go flow of the original. "These haters still won't give me my props, I'm shocked/I do it for the concrete, the curb, the block/All I got is the street, my word, my c**k." The song ends the same way as its predecessor, unfortunately the production doesn't match the celebrator" tone of the original. Tony Yayo guests on "NY NY", a slow moving Eminen track with equally unhurried rap from Banks. The high energy of Tony Yayo is sorely missed as he makes a low-key eight-bar appearance. "You Know The Deal" continues the laid back production theme, further disappointing in that Rakim, who is featured, only appears on the hook. Banks' nod to the South "Iceman" is a sleeper compared to Hunger's "Work Magic".

There's nothing like hearing an emcee spit bars with a purpose. Banks shows up to play, but he sounds too comfortable, a product of the production. No sophomore jinx here, but those spoiled by the energy of the first album might be left at a stalemate.

On Lloyd Banks' second solo outing, I felt that this album lacked a certain something, I found myself skipping numerous tracks. But I did lik Hands Up, Help, Addicted, One Night Stand, adn Change. But other than that I felt it wasn't a really powerful album.