Thank God It's Friday (Friday - Soundtrack)

Member Name: XICripZ

Product:	Friday - Soundtrack
Date:	19/09/08 (180 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of bangers

Disadvantages: A few tunes let it down

This is the soundtrack to the film "Friday", in which urban West Coast life is played out over a 24-hour period and has Ice Cube and Chris Tucker pass the time smoking weed. To stay in line with the plot, this assortment of tunes includes music from the West Coast with Gangsta Rap, Funk and R&B of the time (1995).

1. "Friday" - Ice Cube

Here you have the ultimate start to the "Friday Soundtrack" as you have the star of the film, Ice Cube, performing a top-quality Gangsta Rap track to celebrate the weekend. Although you are bound to think that a track which is so relevant to the film is boudn to sound god, I would have liked it just as much without seeing the film before it as it is one of the West Coast's top rappers doign what he is best at, and doing it well.

**Five Stars**

2. "Keep Their Heads Ringin'" - Dr. Dre

This was the big single from the album and stands as one of Dr. Dre's biggest to date as it reached number ten in the charts and topped the Rap Singles rankings. It has him sample work of KRS-One, who adds to the fact that this is straight Gangsta Rap. It's hard to fault it as so much is added with some singing from Nancy Fletcher, his own production (alongside Sam Sneed).

**Five Stars**

3. "Friday Night" - Scarface

To continue the high quality of the opening of this release, yet another big name gets a chance to show off what he can offer for this release, here the Dirty South OG of the Geto Boys, Scarface comes with some harcore raps for extra power before we get into work from lesser-knonw artists in this genre.

**Four Stars**

4. "Lettin' N***as Know" - Threat

This one took a while to really get into, but after about three listens to this one it all seems to come together nicely. I was unawre of this artist prior to this album, but once I heard this West Coast Gangsta rapper, at work, I recognised that he was one of the under-estimated ones of the time, and never really got a big break.

**Four Stars**

5. "Roll It Up, Light It Up, Smoke It Up"- Cypress Hill

I'd say that this is the most relavent track on the album, and by reading the title you get this impression immediately, however I wouldn't say that it is at all a good one. I've never been into Cypress Hill an dwhen you are unable to relate to their music, it makes it even more diffiuclt to connect with them, but the voiceof B-Real put me off so much that I was unable to remain focused upon whhat was said. i could only feel the laid-back mood of the recording.

**Two Stars**

6. "Take A Hit" - Mack 10

This one is rather inconsistent as at times I see it as a decnet West coast rap tune, and then other times its simply average, and I can't really find much in it. To reselove this I thought that I should go for the latter as it doesn't really stand out amoungst the rest of the material for something to listne out for on the album.

**Two Stars**

7. "Tryin' To See Another Day" - The Isley Brothers

Although as an entire package, I didn't think that much to this particular track on the record, I could really appreicate all that this one had in it, espcially looking at it as a fan of West Coast rap music at the time. Some may be confused by this statement, however when you hear it you get a strong sense of Soul and R&B taking influence from the sounds of Gangsta Rap and G-Funk at the time, instead of having it the other way around, and it all worked together amazingly well.

**Four Stars**

8. "You Got Me Wide Open" - Bootsy Collins

This is soulful groove from Bootsy Collins and it certainly works well after having heard The Isley Brother before them, however it seems to drag the pace down a little too far for the tune, and has it verging on irrelvence to the theme of the film. Additional words from Ice Cube add to it though as he shows his support of his music being a part of the "Friday" project.

**Two Stars**

9. "Mary Jane" - Rick James

This is another big tune from the soundtrack and has Rick James perform one of his classic cuts from his debut album. This one its in with the film as it is often stated that "Mary Jane", in the title, refers to cannabis, rather than a girl as it would seem. Therfore making it perfectly relavent to this LP. I know it more as the Mary J. Blige version, but this original composition is equally as strong as it introduce=s some Punk-Funk to the variety of this release.

**Four Stars**

10. "I Wanna Get Next to You" - Rose Royce

I'm going to make this one short, because it really doesn't deserve much time. It is a ballard, which doens't have a place in this album.

**One Star**

11. "Superhoes" - Funkdoobiest

I really struggled to pick much out of this which was worth listening to as I didn't really get anything in it at all. Here you have Some unknowns performign some Chicano (Latin) rap as what you tend to see from Cypress Hill, but this was even worse and had few positive points.

**One Star**

12. "Coast II Coast" - Tha Alkoholiks

After hearing this tune, I was forced to listen to more from Tha 'Liks because heere they showed me that they were anyother undergroujnd ground who deserve wide-scale recognition with some extraoridnary word-play and complex lyricism (although it may be a little too far considering the nature of the film, and what state the listner may be in at the time).

**Five Stars**

13. "Blast if I Have To" - E-A-Ski

I was relatively unimpressed by this tune as it was very predictable as an unknown West Coasters simply gos for typical raps about things which go on in LA and what life is like for a 'gangsta', nothing out of the ordinary or special about it.

**Two Stars**

14. "Hoochie Mama" - 2 Live Crew

Altough I wouldn't say it's anywhere near being a good track (with misogenous lyrics, which are highly repetitive), but thoroughly enjoyed listening to this recording as it has the 2 live Crew performing somm good old Miami Bass to get you into the feel of the mid-nineties again. The beat for this is just what you want as they blend Hip Hop and House for great effect, especially with a bouncing bassline which keep youy moving.

**Four Stars**

15. "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" - Roger Troutman

Here we have a funk cover of the Marvin Gaye classic cut "I Haerd It Through The GrapeVine", and in the fahsion of typical work from Roger Troutman's group Zapp (& Roger), wen have him perform the whole thing with the aid of his vocoder. The best way to describe it is beign the T-Pain of his day, but the original, and with a more robotic voice. It is extremely effective as ever, but the funk isn't as exciting as in other work by him.

**Three Stars**

I really enjoyed listneing to this release, and I foudn that the blend of genres seemed to work so well as they were all unified in performing tunes which all related well to the film, and what it was about. It is highly varied with some hardcore Gangsta Rap alongside smooth ballards, but the balance of these is what makes this record work so well.

Summary: "Friday" soundtrack