Jay Z Ranks Jay Z Albums Best To Worst
Last year, before he dropped the hyphen, I undertook the difficult task of ranking Jay-Z’s albums from best to worst. I had my opinions, and the comments section, by and large, did not agree with them. Neither, it turns out, did Jay. The superstar recently ranked his own albums on his Life + Times website, adding a bit of commentary to it. The results are mostly what you’d expect: Blueprint 3 too high, Vol. 3 too low, Reasonable Doubt right on top. But there’s comfort to be had in knowing that even Jay thinks Kingdom Come was pretty shitty. Below, check out the list, and, as a bonus, check out a remix of the Magna Carta Holy Grail track “Tom Ford” with a posthumous guest verse from the great Pimp C.
1. Reasonable Doubt (Classic)
2. The Blueprint (Classic)
3. The Black Album (Classic)
4. Vol. 2 (Classic)
5. American Gangster (4 1/2, cohesive)
6. Magna Carta (Fuckwit, Tom Ford, Oceans, Beach, On the Run, Grail)
7. Vol. 1 (Sunshine kills this album…fuck… Streets, Where I’m from, You Must Love Me…)
8. BP3 (Sorry critics, it’s good. Empire (Gave Frank a run for his money))
9. Dynasty (Intro alone…)
10. Vol. 3 (Pimp C verse alone… oh, So Ghetto)
11. BP2 (Too many songs. Fucking Guru and Hip Hop, ha)
12. Kingdom Come (First game back, don’t shoot me)
(via Life + Times)
(via In Flex We Trust)
Sadly, Jay’s limited himself to solo albums and kept the collaborative ones out, so we might never know how he thinks Collision Course ranks in the canon.