When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold - Standard Edition [Explicit]

I listened to this album because I got into a near brawl with some idiot kid who said slug was a better mc than Redman, which is quite simply not correct. Of course, if you agree with that statement, you should just give up and stop listening to rap music, because you obviously don't understand anything about it.
I don't really care about Atmosphere at all and I don't really like any of their albums all that much except Overcast, and haven't really cared to hear anything new from them for about five years now. So I wasn't really expecting all that much.

Anyway, he swore up and down that this album had some "SUPER DOPE ILL RAD TIGHT BANGERS!" and that I should stop being so ignorant and support indie culture and blah blah blah blah the same old bullsht rap debate that kids who know absolutely nothing about hip hop always start and always think they win. I told him that I would check out the album and let him know what I thought. I wasn't really all that surprised to hear the thoroughly boring tirade of nonsense that Slug always does. Great, bizarrely aggressive metaphors to get stoned 15 year old boys to sit around and try to decipher all day so they can think its substantive, and songs about girls to keep drunk 15 year old girls all in a frenzy because they discover that "this rap stuff's pretty cool!"

I gave this album 5 stars because I felt so vindicated by it being as boring as atmosphere always is.

Ok... straight up... this is Atmosphere in one of its finest forms... you can here the maturity and development of a group that has been in the business for as long as they have... Though this time around its not for the hooks and break beats such as "Stricly Leakage" or their "Sad Clown Bad Season" albums were... this album is more for slugs amazing story telling ability... and his inexplicable way of being able to paint the song in your mind with what he says... with that being said... Atmosphere comes out on top this year as one of hip-hop's most influential groups and albums to date... with its raw musical prowess with the likes of "You", "The Waitress", "Like The Rest of Us", and "Guarantees" as well as the smoothed out sounds of "Yesterday", "Dreamer", "Shoulda Known", and "Wild Wild Horses"... this is album is a big pick me up for the year... and its Atmosphere... just a ten letter word... enough said... enjoy...

The innovative duo of Slug and Ant that makes up indie-rap pioneers Atmosphere has never been afraid to scare away the mainstream. When Life Gives You Lemons opens up with the classiest piano line this side of Norah Jones and an unadorned drum beat, the spotlight squarely on the two rappers' effortless flow and city-street lyrics. Needless to say, it sounds nothing like on contemporary rap radio.

The focus is on Ant and Slug's gritty, industrial-colored lyrics and simple, rhythmic flow, telling black-and-white stories of crime, drugs, the projects, and any number of other things that influenced the two as they grew up in Minneapolis. "Dreamer" brings out the woodwinds and horns in a catchy fable about teen pregnancy while "The Waitress" wallows in funky bass and a bird-like flute while it unweaves a story about its subject. While occasionally the duo's unremarkable voices tend to blur together and the lyrical matter is unrelenting, the ingenious production keeps things from going stale.

Neither is as technically talented as rappers like Nas or Twista, neither boasts the advanced studio wizardry of producers like Kanye West or Timbaland, and neither indulges in gangster posing like Young Jeezy or 50 Cent, but Atmosphere's unique combination of realism and straight-to-the-point beats makes their latest another gem in a long line of excellent underground releases.

Just recently got into the music of atmosphere, a friend gave me a mixed cd with one of there songs on it and have loved them ever since. I only have 3 albums but this is my favorite so far!! And I have to love that they are from Minnesota!! They have to be great if they are from MN, aren't we all...lol! I can't say it is the best one they have done because I don't know all of them, but it was flipping awesome!!

Only songs on this album that I gave a 5/5 star rating was 1, 7, 9, 10. I gave 2, 4, 6, 14, 15 4/5 stars. On most tracks either the rhymes shine or the beats shine but hardly both at the same time which really creates a 5 star track, have to have balance. Now that atmosphere has created their worst album, in my opinion, and still got 3 stars has a lot to say about how good they really are BUT you can only survive on past musical accomplishments for so long. For some reason ants production and slugs rhymes just werent all there..getting old maybe.