The Pharcyde Album: “Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde (Explicit)”

This album was the soundtrack to my high school senior life in '95. It was always playing when my friends and I would be chillin' or getting up to no good. I began to have this haunting yearning to have it again (I was stupid enough to never have bought it before) and I would hear ghostly melodies and hilarious lines swirling in my mind every now and then , and it would almost make me cry -- I wanted to find it, but no one, not even who I considered to be hard-core hip hop aficionados even knew who I was talking about when I'd say: Do you have The Pharcyde? The blank look on their faces would blow my mind! It's been calling to me ever since: Passing Me By is one of the most sad, yet beautiful, songs ever. And who couldn't relate to the excitement that QUENTIN'S ON HIS WAY AND IT'S OKAY?! If you love chilled- out, sometimes hyper, but always sincerely crazy music, check this out before it disappears off the face of the Earth. I'm gonna make my grandkids listen to this, because this is an amazing specimine of feel-good music (which is so much nicer when shared with your homies.) I'm so happy I finally found it here! I was beginning to think it was out of print. Yo, five stars and then some!

First things first - this is a hip hop classic, one of my all time favorite albums and one of the greatest albums to come out of the genre. This review in no way reflects my feelings on the music, which will always have a special place in my heart; it's about the mp3 formatting, which leaves so much to be desired. Each track as a two second pause hard encoded into the audio! This is one of those great musical experiences where ideally one track flows straight into the next, but instead, each track ends with a jarring silence, then picks up with a bit of the beginning of the next track, then the next track starts right away. I'm guessing whoever encoded this album for download from Amazon either did a subpar rip, or - even worse - transcoded older mp3s from the era when a short buffer was built into each file.

And what's more, this is labeled explicit - but the singles are edited!

Overall I'm terribly disappointed, the price is great and, again, this is one of the definitive albums from both the genre and the era. I was so excited to find it here for so cheap! Some will of course think I'm being overly picky, but of all the mp3 albums I've bought from Amazon, this is the first time I've run into either of these problems. If I had any inkling that either problem was present, I would have looked to other sources to get my nostalgia fix.

If you listened to the Pharcyde recently and never heard of them before, you'd swear they were new. They were just filthy back then, but still their tracks and freestylin' go way beyond what the radio players put on. I don't know why hardly anybody's heard of them, but at the same time I'm glad because I didn't want the Pharcyde's music being played out by everyone. Every damn song on this CD is good. Most props go to 'On the DL', 'Soulflower', 'Officer', 'Passin Me By', 'Otha Fish', and 'Ya Mama'. SlimKid Tre is like the most unique rapper I've ever heard (listen to Otha Fish, and you'll know what I'm talking about.) If you don't have this album yet, GET IT! Cuz if all you're listening to is Puffy and Mase, you really are missing out on true hip-hop.

Anyone who likes the hip-hop sound with a little bit of mellow atmosphere to it, then this is the album for you. A CD that truly never goes out of style. A definite buy to add to any hip-hop fan's arsenal.

You can't beat this album, durring a time when everyone acted like a gangsta. And being harder then the next man was the idea. It was so re-freshing to hear this album. It's permenitly on my top 10 album list. It was so cool how they didn't seem to care what anybody thought about them. Being able to be goofy like this on record was a nice change of scenery (at that time) Sure, Biz Markie did it, as did a few others. But, this was a group of fools! They never take themselves too seriously, there are a few moments, where they dip into a real topic, Passing Me By is a good example. A very mellow song about love, with one of the best samples ever (Quincy Jones) But, they flipped it at the very end and added a sample of somebody burping, throwing the entire song off.

"Officer" is my favorite song, I love the beat and the lyrics are so crazy. When Phat Lip starts it out (mis)quoting a famous Chuck D line "I got a letter from the DMV, the other day... I opened and read it, it said they was suckas!" Is so classic, 10 years after I first heard it, I still smile at that one. The song has the illest story, it's funny as hell. As emcees, they shine, being as silly as they are, you have to have real skills to hold anybodies intrest. And silliness aside, they were true B-Boys, who have much ability on the mic. The lighthearted, relaxed vibe this album has is perfect when you want to get away from "the world" Mostly every track is a standout. Even the skits are good. "Quinton's on his Way" is redlicious. I have heard it probably 500 times, but it still manages to amuse me. This is a MUST OWN album, regardless of if you're 30 and remember it when it dropped, or 20 and never heard of Pharcyde (shame on you!) I have bought 3 copies, as a lot of the other reviews on here have done. And we'll all agree, it's worth it. Hell, if my copy gets lost or broke, I'll buy another, and another.

This is truely one of the great Hip-Hop gems. Outstanding production, great lyrics, off the wall topics, and nutts concepts make it classic.