THE 50(ISH) GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME
The Low Ebb Theory
Album #45 : A Tribe Called Quest — The Low End Theory
This time of year is designed to be miserable, isn’t it? The nights draw in quicker, the temperature plummets, often you find yourself waking up in darkness and going to bed in darkness. Grim. But, actually, it’s not been that bad this year, not really.
I mean, sure, the conspiracy of daylight saving has conned us all for another year (dark at 6:30pm, clocks go back an hour, dark at 4:30pm… something isn’t right there). To have daylight cruelly wrenched away and given to farmers doesn’t seem fair either — I thought the whole point of Brexit was to quash any sort of subsidy they got!? British sunlight for British people, I say. Let them toil in the darkness and give us back our sunlight sovereignty.
That said, we did get that extra hour in bed… ok, call it a deal.
And, sure, I’m less and less convinced that autumn is a thing. Seems to me that it was summer 20 minutes ago and now the temperature has dropped to the low end of the single figures. The real temperature is one thing, the “feels like” temp another ball game entirely — another con, surely? Is the temperature not just… the temperature. If you ask an employer what you were getting paid and they said “this, but it’ll feel like that”, you’d have some follow up questions.
And how come the feels like temp is never higher than the actual temp?! Suspicious.
All that said, this “Autumn” (if that is its real name!) has actually he quite nice so far. The days have been crisp and refreshing and, I think primarily thanks to our dog Otis, I’ve actually been out enjoying the fresh air and sunshine (I say sunshine, I mean daylight — I do live in Glasgow after all).
All jokes aside, Let’s make one thing absolutely clear. This year is better than last year. Over the last forty or so weeks I’ve been doing a lot of reflection and, let me tell you, last year was bleak. So we should focus on, and enjoy, what we have.
And therein lies the link to this week’s album. The Low End Theory strips out everything you don’t need in a hip hop record — basically anything high-pitched it seems — and what you’re left with? Well, you’re grateful for it. It helps that it’s really, really good, of course — which is where the comparisons with the bleak mid-autumn fall down somewhat — still, we enjoyed it while it lasted.
Thanks for reading — over the course of 2021, I’ll be reviewing 50(ish) of the greatest albums ever recorded. You can see the list here:
There is also a playlist featuring the best song from each album here.
