In my ongoing attempt to gain some sense of accomplishment from my days work, I undertook a listening project. I listened to each album that the Source awarded five mics too. While the list is not complete, and a bit off at times (Lil Kim?), it was a great listen.
Starting with the first album, I listened to each one in full, in order from first to last. While I was around for all the albums the first time around, there where a few that I missed out on for one reason or another. I found many new-to-me albums that I now love. For instance, I despised Biggie when he first came out, largely because Puff was talking and making stupid noises all over his songs. But going back and listening to the complete album, it's great.
It was a fascinating tour of hip hop history, I could hear the evolution the music. One of the things that really stood out was how far ahead of their time, musically, the Beastie Boys where. Their production value was astounding compared to LL, Run DMC, and BDP.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in hip-hop, especially if you where born too late to catch the albums the first time around.