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Editorial Reviews

17 Tracks

Product details

Audio CD
Original Release Date: 1994
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Explicit Lyrics
Label: Arista Records
ASIN: B000KFTWIG
Average Customer Review: 385 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #197,909 in CDs & Vinyl (See Top 100 in CDs & Vinyl)
- #818 in CDs & Vinyl > Rap & Hip-Hop > East Coast
- #1501 in CDs & Vinyl > Rap & Hip-Hop > Gangsta & Hardcore

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PrinceNikodeem

Not the Ready to Die We Rocked in '94

November 29, 2012

Verified Purchase

I know, I know. How could I give one of the hottest hip hop albums of all time two stars, right? Well I've got a better question for you: How could Bad Boy piss all over Biggie's legacy and mutilate this classic?

Before they spend their money on this fakeness, the fans have the right to know...especially the young folks who weren't even around back in the day...that the album you see before you...this so called "remaster"...is NOT what Biggie fans rocked out to in '94. This is NOT the album that was bangin' in the clubs, in our cars, or at our house parties. Take it from someone who was there, this so-called "remaster" is not just an enhancement of sound quality as the name might imply, it's a totally different album.

Don't get it twisted, the original version, the one with the white cover, wasn't some rough mix that was stolen from Easy Mo Bee's basement and released on the streets as a bootleg or whatever...it was the official studio release. The one you bought at Sam Goody, Coconuts, or, until 2006, right here on amazon. And now it's gone forever in favor of this inferior mess.

And why? Money, mostly. And a touch of political correctness.

1.) Bad Boy's legal department apparently f'd up and some of the samples used on the original weren't cleared properly, so rather than tap into their billions and just pay whatever licensing fees were necessary for the re-release, Diddy and company decided to just CHANGE THE ORIGINALS!!! So now, tracks like "Machine Gun Funk" and "Ready to Die" sound totally different. They are not at all what we heard when we first bumped this album back in '94.

2.) Some of Biggie's original lyrics were apparently too raw for the sensibilities of the new millenium so they were edited out or backmastered. Most notably on "Juicy" where he spits "time to get paid/blow up like the World Trade" referencing the 1993 attack on the towers. On the remaster, the words "World Trade" are edited out, presumably because someone might think he was making a reference to 9/11 seven years before it actually happened. While I understand that 9/11 was a catastrophic and horrible event, and would certainly agree that a rapper using it as a euphemism for accruing wealth would be unbelievably crass, I also don't think that record companies should go back and selectively edit albums that came out seven years before the tragedy even happened because someone might think that Biggie was Nostradamus and predicted the whole thing in his crystal ball, thus compromising his original vision and lyricism.

Now that this "remaster" has come out, the only way to get the original is to run it down in some used record store. Think about what this means. Kids who grew up hearing that Biggie was the best and wanting to hear the album that their elders say prove it will rush to purchase or download this "remaster", because it's the only thing available, not realizing that they are NOT hearing what those of us who copped the original heard back in '94. They're not hearing Biggie as we heard him. They're not hearing his magnum opus. They're hearing a compromised, mutilated version of that album. Again, think about what this says about Bad Boy's respect for their greatest artist, the man whose talent they pretty much rode to wealth and glory. Would anyone dare to dream of doing this to the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's", Bob Marley's "Catch a Fire" or Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On"? No? Then what does this say about Bad Boy's respect for Biggie and hip hop as an artform in general?

Because it's Biggie, I can't bring myself to give even this mangled version of his vision one star, but because this musical mutilation is the auditory equivalent of putting boxer shorts on Donatello's David or a bra on the Venus de Milo, I also can't bring myself to give it more than two.

To the young hip hop headz out there, consider yourselves warned. If you want to hear Biggie as 90s headz heard him when this classic disc first dropped back in the day, this isn't the version you're looking for. Pressure Bad Boy to re-release the "classic version" full and intact. Peace.

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josh

Pressing for the hipster generation

May 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

Had to return it because the pressing was so poor..
Been collecting records “not Vinlys” since I was 10 and amassed a good colecton .. now at 34 .. this pressing is a mess ..

I own a complete marantz system ... tubes etc ... down to a 25om amp ...

Anyhow ,, this plays terrible ... on my system ..

The tape sounds better and so does my uncompressed Apple version ...

They should have left it the same .. I would have paid more to get the original .. than this jumble ...

It’s good if you want to own a copy without the impossibility of trying to find the original..

I am sure hipsters will love it ..

They don’t know the difference of keeping everything the same .. or even sound quality ..

On a difffenr note I own an OG press of the best of Tu pac .. and it’s amazing ..

Also I am only in my early 30’s.. so I am not an old man griping .. put just a purest

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juggy

The Real Version!!!!! (illegal)

February 11, 2012

Verified Purchase

In 1994 When "Ready To Die" First Came Out It Was Everywhere, If You Lived In New York(The Same Way That "Get Rich Or Die Tryin" Was In 2003). I Was A Kid Back But When I Got 17, I Decided That I Would Buy It But Unfortuately The CD Was Pulled From Stores Because Of The Ohio Players Sample On The Title Track. The Cd Was Remastered Afterward And The Sample From The Track Was Removed And Bad Boy Added "Who Shot Ya" And "Dreams" Plus A DVD With All The Videos From The Album....Not Bad But If You Dont Care About The DVD And You Already Own "Born Again" Which Has "Who Shot Ya" On It Already All Your Really Getting Extra Is A B-Side That You Can Cherry Pick From The Remastered Version (MP3's) And A Song Thats Missing A Sample.....I Wanted The Original So Thats What I Got, It Was Used But I Got It. The Album Is Great If You Dont Care About The Missing Sample Buy The Remastered Version. If Your Like Me The Extra Songs + The "One More Chance Remix" Will Run You A Grand Total Of A Extra 3 Dollars.

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Dale Perry

The Hype Preceded the Album

February 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

Notorious B.I.G. is meant to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Two albums and an untimely death sort of go against that vibe.
He was smooth, funny at times and inventive with his use of lyrics. The production standards are great, but it's usually the story of Biggie Smalls that gets in the way of the guy's talent and makes people want to buy the albums. Still, it's got value as an album that you can listen to more than once. A great talent for those two albums, though.

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Clay Clark

Nice!

May 6, 2018

Verified Purchase

Great album, 6th copy I've had but 1st time on vinyl. CDs don't seem to last and it's getting pretty hard to find original CDs, the remaster was a disaster!

One person found this helpful

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