Tell me it isn't just me. First there was that Diddy album, and now I find myself enjoying this new Jim Jones album, at least as much as one can enjoy a Jim Jones album. Not to mention shit like that Nelly Furtado song "Promiscuous" and that one Christina Aguilera song from earlier this year.

I used to hate shit like that. I never really came to enjoy Diddy's first album, No Way Out, which is now regarded as somewhat of a lost classic, and there hasn't been an R&B album that I was really into since the days of Bobby Brown's Don't Be Cruel. Seriously. I haven't even so much as listened to one since D'Angelo's Voodoo, and that's been a while ago.

Now I find myself tempted to check out shit like the most recent Justin Timberlake album (that "My Love" is one hell of an earworm) and the Lil' Wayne and Baby collaborative album/makeout session, Like Father Like Son, which sold a fairly impressive - by today's standards - 170,000 copies its first week out. No Weezy F Baby.

Meanwhile, a lot of so-called real hip-hop shit hasn't been doing it for me at all. I know a lot of you d-bags like AZ, but his new album the Format is a real shit sandwich. What's more, the one track produced by DJ Premier is some of wackest shit on there. It'll be interesting to see how these new Nas and Jay albums turn out, but by now I know better than to get my hopes up.

Which begs the question: Is Bol getting soft in his old age?

I am 25 now, which is ancient by hip-hop standards. It's been said that people tend to like whatever kind of music was popular when they were in high school, which doesn't bode particularly well for me, given the fact that I graduated right at the height of bling bling rap and TRL pop music. It's not like I enjoyed any of this crap back then, but I do find it's growing on me now. Crap!

(Interestingly enough, I have developed a strange affinity for the song "Shimmer" by Fuel, which I hardly listened to at all back then. But I'm convinced this is because it really is a good song. And I do spend quite a bit of time listening other such '90s alt rock garbage.)

Of course part of the problem is that there aren't very many good alternatives. I was once as much of a Wu-Tang stan as everyone else, but the most recent albums by Ghostface (yep) and Method Man didn't really do it for me. In the absense of anything genuinely worthwhile, of course a shit sandwich is going to sound that much better.

So you see, it's not like I listen to teh ghey bullshit because I was presented with a choice one way or the other. Sometimes teh ghey bullshit is just the best thing going. No Ted Haggard.

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