Potential

I’ve come across an album with the potential to be added to the 2000-2004 list: Devin the Dude’s mis-named To tha Extreme (2004). Rarely do I like a record so relaxed all the way through. This was the record Marvin Gaye would’ve made if he’d had a sense of humor. The subject matter limited to weed and sex, sometimes both in the same song, and it’s funny throughout with not one skit. Devin gets played by a freak, rides a plane high, is denied a nipple tickle, receives his comeuppance from a muscle-bound Jamaican, and fails to pay his parking tickets. Apparently, Ray Stevens (ca. “The Streak”) is a guess vocalist portraying a rapping redneck cop, “this street is ars/we seldom see rims like ‘at with a yellow stripe ‘round the tars.” A bizarre but sweet musical equivalent of “can’t we all just get along” closes out the album, and it includes both an admission of dictionary failures and the word “combinate.”

Drawback: On some of the “romantic” tunes, there’s that synthesizer wash that sounds like the way xmas tree icicles look.

I suspect the record will end up in the B range, since its strength is entirely in the lyrics. His vocals, samples, music, and beats are not really remarkable in any sense.