What Does So Fresh And So Clean Mean

Characteristic:

So Fresh, So Clean

Revisiting the Astounding Stankonia

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I could accept done this equally a Vinyl Corner…

just I wanted to spend a few moments talking about OutKast'southward Stankonia in another light. We are at present (only) in a fresh decade, so that means a lot of people will be ready to see which sounds and artists define the 2022s. Maybe it is also early on to predict where music will caput, but the first year of this decade is an of import 1. Some truly genius albums have arrived since the start of this century, just OutKast'due south quaternary studio album set the bar immensely high as early every bit 31st Oct, 2000. Rather than information technology beingness a Halloween fearfulness, information technology is an accented treat from André 'André 3000' Benjamin and Antwan 'Big Boi' Patton. OutKast formed in 1992 in East Betoken, Georgia, and had been making steady steps up to the indicate of Stakonia. Named later their recently-purchased Stankonia Studios in Atlanta, André 3000 and Big Boi wee free to experiment more and were not being bars by usual studio rules. With product from Earthtone Three (consisting OutKast and Mr. DJ) and Organized Noise, Stankonia must rank equally one of the finest albums of the twenty-first century. If you are new to Hip-Hop or OutKast and experience similar you need to know their history, I would encourage people to swoop into Stankonia every bit information technology is so alive, varied and accessible. Comprising a series of skits and full-length songs, Stankonia is OutKast creating an experimental musical aesthetic and pushing beyond what they released on 1998's Aquemini. In the frame of a Muddied South-orientated Hip-Hop context, OutKast fused everything from Rave and Funk to Gospel in a spellbinding album. Not only did I desire to mention Stankonia because information technology is nigh xx years old; I too recollect it marks one of the best anthology ane-twos in history.

Many can argue but how many artists have released two albums in a row that are as proficient as Stankonia and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003) – although the latter is a double album, and then many it should be a i-2-iii?! One can say The Beatles and Bob Dylan accept had a greater run, simply Stankonia was the get-go of a hugely inspiring and memorable period from André 3000 and Big Boi. Whilst the music is tricky, fun and full of different flavours, the lyrics accost sexuality, misogyny; African-American culture and parenthood. It is a mature, eye-opening and moving album that boosts equally much heart and encephalon as it does sheer vitality and spirit. OutKast's output pre-2000 was a scrap more mellow and laid-back. Stankonia represents a change of the times; the duo feeling things had inverse and they had to responds in kind. I guess things had inverse around OutKast. New, harder drugs were on the streets and that was striking the Hip-Hop scene. OutKast were aware and concerned by this. Rather than immerse themselves in older and new Hip-Hop whilst writing Stankonia, the guys, instead, took from Rock legends like Chuck Berry and Prince. Rather than producing something of that time or audio, they used it every bit a starting bespeak. Stankonia is a very modern-sounding record and ane that, to me, does non have a weak moment. I beloved how challenging and important the album is. A lot of Hip-Hop albums are concerned with excess, success and the writer'south ego. Stankonia looks at the condition of women in the South of America; it tackles misogyny in Hip-Hop and shows these women have rich and important spirits; they are not only i-dimensional people.

Songs such every bit Toilet Tisha are then different to a lot of what Hip-Hop was producing in the 1990s. At the offset of a new decade, OutKast wanted to change the game and reassess the way women are seen in Hip-Hop. The aforementioned song concerns a suicidal pregnant teen. The anthology's biggest hit, Ms. Jackson, is well-nigh the mother of a mother of an out of wedlock child. Plainly, the vocal is where André 3000 takes from his own experiences. The vocal was inspired by his relationship with singer Erykah Badu, the mother of his child, Seven, and serves equally an apology to her mother for causing her girl pain. From start to finish, Stankonia is an album that still sounds utterly amazing and relevant. I nevertheless recall there is a lot of misogyny in Hip-Hop and, with political and racial tensions withal evident in the U.S., Stankonia continues to deliver sermons of truth and wisdom. Given the fact this remarkable piece of work is held in such high esteem, it was hardly a shock that critics went nuts when information technology came out. The reviews are glowing and total of praise for 1 of the greatest albums of all-time. This is how Pitchfork assessed Stankonia:

"OutKast had ever consisted of a politically conscious pimp and a spiritual gangsta, but on Stankonia, those identities came to the fore with a greater stardom that paradoxically immune them to sound closer together than they had since their inception—even as André saturday out songs like "Snappin' & Trappin'" and "Nosotros Luv Deez Hoez." On Stankonia'southward first proper vocal, "Gasoline Dreams" Big Boi raps about their clout and the limits thereof—"Officer, get off the states, sir/Don't make me call [my label boss] L.A. [Reid], he'll having y'all walking, sir/A couple of months agone they gave OutKast the cardinal to city/But I all the same gotta pay my taxes and they give united states no compassion"—while André throttles out a brainy hook: "Don't everybody similar the smell of gasoline?/Well burn, motherfucker, burn American dreams."

Stankonia is an album about many things and full of epigrams; then ahead of the curve that one of its many double entendres—"I got a stick and want your automatic"—is at present a bona fide triple entendre. It's virtually sounds equally smells and music as sex, merely by and large information technology'south about two blackness kids from Southwest Atlanta, boogieing with fries on their shoulders, making Molotov cocktails of songs that sound like a revolution'due south afterparty. It's brindled with personal narratives and small slips of autobiography, and it tackles big ideas both directly and obliquely. Just, ultimately, it sounds similar two artists going popular on their ain terms while trying to brand sense of, and change, the world around them. Closing in on ii decades after its release, Stankonia remains loud as bombs over Baghdad and humble equally a mumble in the jungle.

It was not my first feel of OutKast, just Stankonia was the album that really got me into the duo. I wondered where they could become from here and whether it was possible to better – debatable, they did three years afterwards with Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. In another review, AllMusic had this to say about OutKast'south masterpiece:

"Stankonia was OutKast's second straight masterstroke, an anthology only as aggressive, just as all-over-the-map, and even hookier than its predecessor. With producers Organized Noize playing a diminished role, Stankonia reclaims the duo'southward futuristic aptitude. Earthtone III (Andre, Big Boi, Mr. DJ) helms almost of the backing tracks, and while the live-operation approach is yet present, there'southward more than reliance on programmed percussion, otherworldly synthesizers, and surreal sound furnishings. Nevertheless the results are surprisingly warm and soulful, a trippy sort of techno-psychedelic funk.

Every repeat listen seems to uncover some new chemical element in the mix, merely nigh of the songs have such memorable hooks that information technology's easy to stay diverted. The immediate dividends include two of 2000'south best singles: "B.O.B." is the fastest of several tracks built on jittery pulsate'n'bass rhythms, but Andre and Large Boi keep up with monumental effortlessness. "Ms. Jackson," meanwhile, is an anguished plea directed at the mother of the female parent of an out-of-wedlock child, tinged with regret, bitterness, and affection. Its sensitivity and social sensation are echoed in varying proportions elsewhere, from the Public Enemy-way rant "Gasoline Dreams" to the heartbreaking suicide tale "Toilet Tisha." Just the group also returns to its roots for some of the near testosterone-drenched fabric since their debut. And then again, OutKast doesn't have its posturing too seriously, which is why they tin portray women holding their own, or make baroque boasts virtually being "And so Fresh, So Clean." Given the multifariousness of moods, information technology helps that the album is broken up past brief, normally humorous interludes, which serve equally a sort of reset button. It takes a few listens to pull everything together, only given the immense scope, it's striking how few weak tracks there are. Information technology's no wonder Stankonia consolidated OutKast's status as critics' darlings, and began attracting broad new audiences: its across-the-board appeal and ambition overshadowed virtually every other popular album released in 2000.

In that location is no denying the power and depth of Stankonia. The first decade of this century offered a lot of marvelous albums, yet few can compete with Stankonia. Because we were only in 2000 when the album arrived, and that shows yous how keen OutKast were to reflect a sense of urgency and uncertainty that greeted the finish of the 1990s. Whilst other Hip-Hop albums blazed a trail around the same time as Stankonia, the influence of OutKast's quantum cannot be understated. This article from 2022 explains more:

"To put it in perspective, Stankonia was released on the same day as Jay Z's The Dynasty: Roc La Familia. Both albums clocked in at the elevation of the Billboard 200. Both sold over 500,000 copies with The Dynasty besting Stankonia past 40,000 copies. One was a straight up E Coast rap record that is remembered for its intro and a few tracks near the back end. The other is OutKast's answer in small parts to Parliament Funkadelic's Maggot Brain and in smaller parts to Sly and the Family Stone's There'south a Anarchism Going On. Both are important for detail reasons; Dynasty for laying the groundwork for what would become The Design and Stankonia for steering a solid two years of Southern rap before crunk came and kicked down the buildings.

The most lite-hearted moment on Stankonia? The roller-rink vibe of "Cruisin' in the ATL." The hardest? "Gangsta Shit." Information technology is a huge, huge pendulum swing that tells yous there's yet naught sweetness about 'Kast or Atlanta in general. "Gangsta Shit" is nearly five minutes of the Dungeon Family from Goodie Mob to Slimm Calhoun to Dre and Big Boi breaking down what is gangsta to them. Dre offers what could be easily seen as an extension of his "Return of the G" poesy and stomps all over the beat. "OutKast with a Chiliad, yes them niggas are hard/Harder than a nigga tryna impress God/We'll pull your whole deck, fuck pullin' ya card/And still take my guitar and take a walk in the park…." Information technology's as if he's still fighting for that legitimacy he told the world well-nigh five years prior at the Source Awards.

Stankonia as well set things up for the Dungeon Family unit, who dropped an anthology, Fifty-fifty in Darkness, in 2001. Stankonia properly introduced Slimm Calhoun who was the next D.F. member to release a solo album. Backbone, the D.F. rapper who first broke through on 1998'southward hustler's prayer "Slump," returned for "We Luv Deez Hoez" and released his own debut album, Concrete Police, in 2001 with his trademark unmarried, "v Deuce 4 Tre." However, there is no greater debut on Stankonia than that of Killer Mike. He only gets one song, the back and forth of "Snappin' and Trappin'," but he declared with 1 verse that he'd already delivered a classic.

By the time the dust settled, Stankonia stood tall equally one of the almost revered rap albums of 2000 by critics, eventually landing at 359 on Rolling Stone'due south listing of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Fourth dimension. It kicked in the door for Southern rap'due south at present understood authority as more albums from Southern artists have gone golden or platinum. What Big Boi and Dre perfected hither, they carried over to their 2003, Grammy-winning double album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. That'southward what Stankonia laid the background for. Not to mention it confirmed that OutKast was the undisputed greatest duo in hip-hop.

And still cooler than Freddie Jackson sippin' a milkshake in a snowstorm".

I wonder, as the 2022s have but begun, whether this revelation will appear; something that rivals Stankonia. It might happen, merely I think Stankonia is on a different plain and, every bit I said, it all the same sounds so electric current and unrivaled now. If you accept not heard it and so go stream or buy it because, as information technology will soon become apparent, Stankonia is a work of…

Source: https://www.musicmusingsandsuch.com/musicmusingsandsuch/2019/12/31/feature-so-fresh-so-clean-revisiting-the-phenomenal-stankonia

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