See I liked it BECAUSE of the focus on electric guitar. I love all BJL previous albums but I was worried that Electric Slave could just be a retread of Tell Em What Your Name Is and Scandalous (and I honestly would have been fine with that). Instead they went very electric guitar heavy and even though I see what…

Completely agree with Blueprint and American Gangster. Both are much stronger than most of his other albums.

Ha, that's actually a tough call because it is that good. I should have clarified my list by saying that Illmatic wins by a mile over Reasonable Doubt. My point was more that I think Reasonable Doubt and Blueprint are better overall albums than Stillmatic or God's Son. I could understand the disagreement with that…

Well you have to give him those 10 years in order to get him to get him for the next 4-5 years of productivity. As with everything bad, it's all the Yankees fault.

I love Nas too and was firmly on Nas's side during the beef. At the time I loved both The Blueprint and Stillmatic but leaned toward Stillmatic. Looking back at both albums now though I gotta give the edge to Blueprint. If Nas had trimmed some of the fat (Braveheart Party) I think it would be held in higher regard…

Thank you for including Black Joe Lewis. Just missed my top 5 of year but anything they put out for the rest of their career will be purchased by me. Probably my favorite live band right now too.

50 Cent was pretty big in 2003 so trading a 10 year old CD for his entire catalog is a steal.

This thread has given me a newfound appreciation for AV Club comments. You all have awesome diverse taste and I feel like listening to everything in this thread is going to keep me satisfied for a long time.

Rap Only Top 5:
Kanye - Black Skinhead
Schoolboy Q/Kendrick Lamar - Collard Greens
Run the Jewels - Banana Clipper
Drake - From Time
Kendrick Lamar/Jay-Z - Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe Remix (Jay-Z's verse on this gave me such high hopes for MCHG, which made it even more disappointing)

No, that has to go to Season 1 of The Newsroom. That show not only aims to be a prestige drama but THE prestige drama and fails completely. It's a show that's pretty much tailored to me (young liberal from the northeast who is fascinated with the media) and yet I found every element of it completely grating.

I'm right there with you on Vampire Weekend, Yeezus and Relektor. It will be interesting to see if Reflektor has the staying power of the other two though. I still listen to both of them pretty consistently.

Oh and Nothing Was the Same. After the love Take Care got on this site I'm surprised to see the follow up not on the list.

In the reader poll I had a tough time choosing between Yeezus and Modern Vampires of the City, ending up going with Vampire Weekend but I'm still listening to both pretty consistently. The only real standouts that I thought were missing from the List were Danny Brown's Old, Run the Jewels, and Reflektor. Overall…

The Philadelphia Experiment - Call For All Demons
Q-Tip - Shaka
RJD2 - 1976
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - Get Yo Shit
A Tribe Called Quest - Description of a Fool

I feel you on the remake thing. And I've been accused of being too forgiving with Spike so I get it. Do the Right Thing and 25th Hour are two films that helped me love cinema in High School so I tend to root for him.

No, I don't mean that people will rush out and see the original (unfortunately I'm too cynical about the movie going tendencies of most Americans to expect that). I mean that if Spike adapted this story well, audiences that would never have seen the original under any circumstances would at least get this version.

Yeah but Psycho is a widely known, widely viewed, English language classic that was remade literally shot for shot. It didn't update anything or bring the story to a new audience.

Yup, agreed. Kind of funny that after specifically starting off the sentence with "don't take this the wrong way" Sims seems to have taken it the wrong way.

Honestly, when I think about it, we also watched the Olivia Hussey version and had to write about the differences between the play and both movies. Romeo + Juliet stuck out for me because I specifically remember my English teacher telling us we were watching it because she had a crush on Leo.

The ones I specifically recall..
English:
Harold and Maude
Do the Right Thing
Romeo + Juliet
The Nightmare Before Christmas