Peter Holslin is the seventh member of New Edition. I was two years old when Don’t Be Cruel came out. Bobby Brown was not a name I recognized. I knew nothing of this New Jack Swing classic. My only experience with New Jack Swing would come a few years later, with Vanilla Ice’s cameo on […]

Brian Michael Payne is a Buddhist prodigy. Throughout this “The Corrections” series, writers have been grappling with the question of slept-on albums. But for my entry, I wanted to share a correction made to my music listening habits that has affected my entire life. It’s a journey I’ve just started on and one of the […]

Joshua Lerner died for your sins. Reading Just Kids, Patti Smith’s poignant retelling of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and their magical early years in New York, provides a lot of context for her music. She wrote a song for Janis Joplin. She liked dancing to the Marvelettes. Dylan was her idol, but it was […]

Max Bell wrote his own eulogy with cocaine hands. While the attacks of 9/11 aren’t mentioned explicitly, El-P’s Fantastic Damage might be the only N.Y. hip-hop album from 2002 that sonically captures the horror of the terror alert era.  Though there’s really not much competition. Cam’ron’s Come Home With Me dropped the same day (May […]

Slava P wrote this while wearing Coolwater Cologne. You’re sitting in the passenger seat of a car. It’s a hot, muggy Los Angeles afternoon and you’re with your friend in his low-riding convertible, cruising down the boulevard as the wind gently pushes upon your jehri curl. The soundtrack for your excursion consists of melodic synthesizers, […]

Abe Beame wants you to consider to “The Infamous Prelude” before reading this. It’s incredible that this was my first time going through Kool Keith’s 96 classic, Dr. Octagonecologyst. It arrived smack in the middle of my burgeoning love of underground hip hop. Sure, there was Biggie, Jay-Z, Nas, P.E., all the obvious cultural touchstones […]

The Corrections is a series where Passion of the Weiss staff writers listen to a classic album that they somehow never heard. Round 2 comes courtesy of Son Raw. So why have I never heard Rounds? Well gather here children and let me take you back to 2003: Bush was invading Iraq, 50 Cent was […]

No matter how much of a music nerd you are, there are albums that you’ve inadvertently skipped. Whether it’s due to age, oversight, or just plain ignorance, even classics sometimes slip through the cracks. “The Corrections” is a recurring feature intended to remedy this oversight. The idea is simple: the Passion of the Weiss staff […]