Just to avoid any minor confusion, #1 is the worst.
- Grandmaster Flash - The Bridge: Concept of a Culture
- MC Chris - Part Six, Part One
- Busta Rhymes - Back on My B.S.
- Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D.
- Guru - 8.0 Lost & Found
- DJ Quik & Kurupt - BlaQKout I thought this album had potential. Kurupt at one point in the late 90s was my favorite emcee. DJ Quik usually puts out solid albums, but they don't really match my taste in music. If DJ Quik controlled the direction of the music and Kurupt controlled the direction of the vocals, this could have been a pretty good album. Unfortunately Kurupt was just trying to be like DJ Quik for most of the album. Collaboration albums only work if the artists meet halfway. In my opinion, this isn't even a good album, much less one of the best hip hop albums of the year.
- Major Lazer - Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do I don't really care for dancehall music, so I definitely judged this album with an initial bias, but this doesn't even sound like a great album for a dancehall album. It sounds like an album that pretentious douchebags that don't listen to dancehall praise because they think it sounds so different and innovative just because Diplo isn't known as a dancehall musician, even though it doesn't really sound that different than other dancehall albums.
- The Lonely Island - Incredibad The Saturday Night Live skits are funny. I'll admit that, but why would anyone want to just listen to this crap? If you found this album entertaining for more than one listen and you're more than 14 years old, you should have yourself tested for mental retardation.
- Drake - So Far Gone I actually like this mixtape. It made my best mixtapes list, but I've seen this listed as one of the top 5 releases of 2009 so far several times. Not just the top 5 mixtapes...people actually think this is better than almost every album that's come out this year. It's not THAT good.
- Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Dark Night of the Soul Note to underground hip hop fans: just because a hip hop producer works on an album that isn't hip hop, it's not automatically a great album. Most of the people that praise this album wouldn't listen to it if it didn't have Danger Mouse's name on it.
These albums had potential to be good, or even great, but failed to live up to that potential.
- Street Sweeper Social Club - Street Sweeper Social Club
- Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D.
- Eligh & Jo Wilkinson - On Sacred Ground
- Saul Williams with The Arditti String Quartet - The Dead Emcee Scrolls
- DJ Quik & Kurupt - BlaQKout
- AZ - Legendary & G.O.D. (Gold, Oil & Diamonds)
- Guru - 8.0 Lost & Found
- Stoupe - Decalouge
- Illogic - Diabolical Fun
- Esoteric - Serve Or Suffer
