Artist: G-Unit
Album: Terminate on Sight
Label: Interscope / Shady Aftermath / G-Unit
Release Date: July 1st 2008
Track listing:
1) Straight Outta Southside
2) Piano Man
3) Close To Me
4) Rider Pt.2
5) Casualties of War
6) You So Tough
7) No Days Off
8) Terminate on Sight
9) I Like The Way She Do It
10) Kitty Katt
11) Party Aint Over
12) Let It Go
13) Get Down
14) I Don't Want to Talk About It
15) Ready or Not
16) Money Make the World Go Around
RAPCENTRAL REVIEW:
Terminate on Sight is the long awaited (by G-Unit fans) sequel to 2003's ''Beg For Mercy'' which was... by all accounts, a very poor album (and that's
being generous). What went so wrong with Beg For Mercy was mainly the fact that the various members of G-Unit seem to (collectively) produce really
repetative and extremely boring songs, spouting the same ''G-Unit Soldier, Gangster'' kind of message over and over again until you just want to slit
your throat with the G-Unit album you just broke after you threw it across the room and stomped on it. But, i digress... Beg For Mercy was a terrible
album, however what really matters is whether or not G-Unit have lived up the legacy of its predecessor.
The answer is predominantly yes, if you've been a bit impatient and scrolled down to my rating/s then you will see that i absolutely hated this album.
So why is this album quite so bad ? Well the main reason is that 50 Cent & friends didn't learn from their mistakes 5 years ago. In my opinion
G-Unit should be nothing more than a publicity group and stick with making their own albums rather than collaborating on a 16 track album, the album was
of average length for a rap album... however it seemed to only have about 3 different songs which lasted about a day each (i dont mean literally) what
i mean is, most of the songs are all the same : ''im a gangster, i shoot you, i'm with G-Unit'' etc and for this reason if you dont reach for the skip
button it seems as though you're listening to the same song for about 20 minutes with a short pause. 50 Cent's trademark solo hooks are also below par,
bringing most of the songs into my category of 'useless' in every sense of the word.
The only interesting thing about this album is the ongoing fued with ex-G-Unit member and featured artist in this album, Young Buck. I notice that Young
Buck doesn't feature on the cover of the album but features quite heavily on this album (and probably contributes the best performance). I'm sure most
people will agree that Tony Yayo is probably the worst member of the inner-circle of G-Unit, and he also features heavily on this album, unfortunatly.
Young Buck features on by far the best song on the album ''I Like The Way She Do It'', and saves the song from being another 50 Cent song which
has a good beat, but is completely ruined by ridiculous lyrics and pathetic flow. For an example of this, look at 50 Cent's opening ... yes i mean the
''I'm special Ed, i get special bread'' nonsense !
There are very few songs on this album that are actually worth mentioning. I mentioned 'Rider pt.2' in top tracks PURELY because the decent beat wasn't
completely ruined by the verses on it. By far the worst track of the album is 'Kitty Katt', and if you give it a listen you will see why (it's highly
irritating), although most of the songs on this album are appauling, Kitty Katt is painful to listen to. This also applies to the song which features
Jamaican dancehall artist Mavado (the only non-G-Unit member featuring on the album). It is painful to listen to, though i hesitate to put it all down
to Mavado, as i know G-Unit have a habit of bringing out the worst in featured artists.
So are there any redeeming features about this album ? the answer is that there are very few. I think that the album would have been better if it was
released as a CD of instrumentals and that way atleast upcoming MCs would buy it for beats and would have some kind of use for it other than a possible
projectile weapon against those slightly annoying G-Unit fans who blindly love all G-Unit material no matter how bad it is. The main redeeming feature
is that the beats are decent, though they seem below standard for an album featuring 50 Cent. For this reason perhaps 50 is smarter than what we give him
credit for, not wasting alot of money on beats for G-Unit saving them for his own albums which will undoubtedly sell more.
My closing thoughts on this album are, yes its still terrible. I think that the main reason for the album being so terrible is that G-Unit itself is
terrible. Now that Young Buck has gone, there is nothing saving G-Unit from becoming the worst rap group of all time, and if this album is anything to go
by then another G-Unit collaboration album might see this come to reality in the near future. I think another cause for the album's low standard is 50's
ego, refusing to give TOO much money and effort into G-Unit collaborations and instead saving them for his solo efforts, which is in my opinion what he
should do. However without 50 Cent collaborations will any G-Unit members see themselves on MTV at all ? it's doubtful ... only time will tell what happens
with the increasing rocky-ness of the relationship between members of G-Unit, and their increasingly poor attempts at making music.
- Shenron
TOP TRACKS:
1) I Like The Way She Do It
2) Piano Man
3) Rider Pt.2
RAPCENTRAL OVERALL RATING:
1.5
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ALL MUSIC GUIDE REVIEW:
There's a five-year gap between the unleashing of G-Unit's debut album — 2003's Beg for Mercy — and the more casual dropping of the follow-up, T.O.S., as in Terminate on Sight. Even so, 50 Cent's crew remains the thing that anchors his hip-hop career, connecting him to the streets through mixtapes, guest appearances, and venomous beefs with other rappers, including two of its own. The war with former member the Game is ongoing, but what's new here is the dismissal of Young Buck, a complicated matter that had Buck playing the thoughtful thug in turmoil while 50 acted as the unforgiving hard boss, G-Unit's supreme capo. As the album dropped, Buck was out and his five T.O.S. tracks are relics from the mixtape world, albeit worthy ones that deserve their aboveground status. Throwing its guns in the air and making the club rumble, the addictive "Rider, Pt. 2" is quintessential G-Unit, and when Buck declares "Even if 50 drop me/I still wouldn't sign" on the cut, it's a drama-filled bonus for fanboys. Buck also figures into "I Like the Way She Do It" — a typical 50 club track in a "Candy Shop" style — and the thug pledge of allegiance "No Days Off," a track where he feels the odd man out. Without him, the trio of 50, Lloyd Banks, and Tony Yayo is a lean and tight attack unit with Banks as cool and cold as ever, while 50 and Yayo come off as newly inspired. 50's return to form finds him delivering sly lyrics like "I'm a workaholic/A ghetto version of Mozart/I move the keys/They call me the Piano Man" and making the hood rock like it's 2003 all over again. On the other hand, Yayo has never sounded so good, stepping his game up with a faster and more urgent style dropping wittier lines like the title track's "I kick Game like Pele and Beckham." The minimal, Dre-influenced beats are back in abundance, most supplied by those promising unknowns 50 always seems to discover, save superstar productions from Don Cannon for "Let It Go," with gun-talking dancehall superstar Mavado as guest vocalist, plus Swizz Beatz, who brings the blitzkrieg to "Get Down." If there's a reason to be disappointed it's that the broken promises — the announced Eminem, Dr. Dre, and Lil' Kim tracks are missing and "Straight Outta Southside" isn't really a commentary on the Sean Bell shooting after all — could have made this a more well-rounded effort. T.O.S. isn't an around-the-world affair, and with the Buck tracks included — as good as they are — it isn't thematically sound either, with 50, Banks, and Yayo relaunching G-Unit one minute, then re-creating Beg for Mercy the next. Even with its wobbly mix of yesterday, today, and a better tomorrow, T.O.S. is much closer to classic than failure and should reassure fans that this slow-moving tank is pointed in exactly the right direction.
by David Jeffries
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1.5 u evil bastard surely a 2 for effort
