The Black Album was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it received an average score of 84, based on 19 reviews.[2] AllMusic's John Bush claimed Jay-Z was retiring at his peak with the album.[3] Vibe magazine said it was remarkable as an apotheosis of his genuinely thoughtful songwriting and lyrics "delivered with transcendent skill",[13] while Steve Jones from USA Today said even with "top-shelf work" from elite producers, the album was elevated by Jay-Z's uniquely deft and diverse rapping style.[12] Writing for The A.V. Club, Nathan Rabin felt Jay-Z returned to "brevity and consistency" on an album that demonstrated his lyrical abilities and, more importantly, hip hop's best producers.[14] Jon Caramanica wrote in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) that The Black Album was both "old-school and utterly modern", showcasing Jay-Z "at the top of his game, able to reinvent himself as a rap classicist at the right time, as if to cement his place in hip-hop's legacy for generations to come".[15]
In 2005, The Black Album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album,[17] losing to Kanye West's The College Dropout at the 47th Grammy Awards.[18] It was ranked number 349 on Rolling Stone's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, and rose to number 155 on the list's 2020 edition.[19][20] Pitchfork ranked The Black Album at number 90 on its decade-end list of the top 200 albums from the 2000s,[21] while Slant Magazine ranked it seventh best on a similar list.[22] In 2012, Complex named it one of the "classic" records of the previous decade.[23]
The Black Album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 463,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen Soundscan.[24] This became Jay-Z's sixth US number one album.[24] Another note on the alter was that the Black Album also blocked the soundtrack to the Tupac Shakur documentary, Tupac: Resurrection, and the G-Unit debut album, Beg for Mercy, from the top position. Both albums charted at numbers two and three respectively.[25] In its second week, the album dropped to number four on the chart, selling an additional 288,000 copies.[26] In its third week, the album climbed to number one on the chart, selling 288,000 more copies.[27] In its fourth week, the album dropped to number ten on the chart, selling 124,000 copies.[28] On August 16, 2005, the album was certified RIAA Certification triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of over three million copies.[29] As of July 2013, the album had sold 3,516,000 copies in the US.[30] According to Billboard, it became Jay-Z's top selling record of the 2000s and the 136th highest selling record of the decade in the United States.[31]
Three singles were released from the album and appeared on the Billboard charts. "Change Clothes" and "Dirt off Your Shoulder" both reached the top 10 of the Hot 100, while "99 Problems" peaked at number 30.[32]
In December 2004 Roc-A-Fella Records released The Black Album on vinyl with no beats underneath Jay-Z's lyrics, spurring producers and DJs to rework his farewell disc into creations such as The Brown Album and even The Grey Album, by Los Angeles producer Danger Mouse, which combines Jay's words with music from the Beatles' self-titled album (also known as the "White Album"), breaking with the Roc-A-Fella's tradition of not releasing acappella 12-inches, so producers could "remix the hell out of it."[33]
Several notable reworkings were released but of all the remixed albums, The Grey Album was the most popular. The hype around The Grey Album gained notoriety when EMI attempted to halt its distribution despite approval from Jay-Z and the two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.[34] EMI ordered Danger Mouse and retailers carrying the album to cease distribution.[35] Music industry activist group Downhill Battle responded by coordinating Grey Tuesday, an electronic civil disobedience event held on February 24, 2004. Participating websites posted copies of The Grey Album for free download for a 24-hour period in protest of EMI's attempts to prevent distribution of the mashup on the grounds that sampling is fair use and that a statutory license should be provided in the same manner as if an artist were to perform or record a cover version of a song. Hundreds of web sites publicized the event with 170 hosting the album for download. Over 100,000 copies were downloaded on that day alone.[36] The legal repercussions of the protest were minimal; a number of the participants received cease and desist letters from EMI, but no charges were filed in connection with the event.
01 Intro [w. Ryan Schreiber]
For Shawn Carter, the last seven years have been ridiculous. In 1996, he came up from an impoverished childhood in New York's Marcy projects to record a debut that would eventually come to be considered one of hip-hop's landmark albums, and spent the succeeding six years dominating Billboard charts, filling the East Coast void left by Biggie's death, and building a hip-hop empire to rival Puffy's Bad Boy Entertainment. In that time, he's seen as many failures as successes-- critics panned him for selling out after the critical reverence of Reasonable Doubt, La Roc Familia was a disaster from any angle, and, by Jay's standards, last year's The Blueprint 2 couldn't even claim to be a commercial success. Still, he's come out on top time and again: Today, he's reclaimed the title as hip-hop's reigning emcee, and his Rocafella record label, clothing line, and film company together are said to be valued at more than $4.4 billion.
So why would he want out now, at the peak of his popularity? The Black Album, touted as his final release, offers some answers, though none as clear-cut as what may or may not be the truth: that it's all an elaborate publicity stunt. Or maybe it's not: Jay has cut an album every year for the past seven years; that he'd want a break of some sort now is understandable. Certain lyrics hint that this isn't the last record he'll cut, but if that's true, will his game still be as tight when gets around to the comeback? It's anyone's guess, and that mystery is part of what makes this album such an intriguing listen.
The prospect of hip-hop's finest producers laying down tracks for the final LP from the rap world's brightest talent has made The Black Album one of the most anticipated rap records of the decade. What's stunning is that it delivers rap's greatest career-ender since Outkast's Stankonia. Even in falling short of Jay's classics, Reasonable Doubt and 2001's The Blueprint, it manages to eclipse 1999's brilliant Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter as his third-best album-- which in itself makes it one of the year's best.
05 Change Clothes [p. Neptunes; w. Ryan Schreiber]
The first single! And you know it's a hit already 'cause it's rocking the world's most reliable (and expensive) hip-hop production team. But no, and here's why not: The Neptunes, talented though they may be, have spread themselves a bit thin lately, coasting on Neptunes-by-numbers beats and Pharrell's by-now-goddamn-insidious falsetto. "Change Clothes" is, unfortunately, one of their worst productions since Busta's "Pass the Courvoisier"-- the vapid, forgettable chorus and cheesy piano loop are the obvious product of an off day in the studio. Jay fares no better, like he almost knows it's subpar-- just spits out a couple recycled lines, and forgoes his visual style to make room for crap like, "Young Hov in the house it's so necessary/ No bra with the blouse it's so necessary/ No panties and jeans that's so necessary." If they could afford to cut the Dre-produced "The Theater", surely this-- one of two Neptunes productions on a 14-track album-- could have been scrapped, too.
07 The Threat [p. 9th Wonder; w. Sam Chennault]
I can't decide what's stranger: that Little Brother producer 9th Wonder contributed a track on Jay-Z's final album, or that he's flipping a sample of R. Kelly. But it's 2003, and the entire underground/mainstream divide has been so flipped and conflated that it should come as no surprise. Nor should 9th's tendency to sound both hopelessly derivative and endlessly enjoyable; the track's rolling piano line and classic boom-bap breakbeat recall a smoother Primo, or a Pete Rock on autopilot.
12 Lucifer [p. Kanye West; w. Rob Mitchum]
On first listen, "Lucifer" comes off a bit too close to flavor-of-the-month material for an album that promised to avoid easy singles: The accelerated Max Romeo sample could be construed as pandering to the Jamaican influences back in favor with hip-hop, and the refrain, "I'm from the murder capitol where we murder for capital," is wordplay a little too beginner's-level for Hov. Fortunately, his verses make up for these slights by following an incredibly intricate structure, somehow managing to land on religious imagery every time the sample comes up, while Kanye's beat retains a snaky bounce without going down the obvious ragga route. If it does indeed end up a single, like "Beware of the Boys" it'll still be jagged enough to stand out in the trend-pile.
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