My 125 Favourite ’90s Hip-Hop Albums
#114 House of Pain - Same As It Ever Was
“Bustin’, flippin’, skippin’ / Just like a stone on a river / You know I’m gonna give her / Whole lot of flavour / Criminal behaviour / Used to be how I made it / But that shit’s overrated / Now I rock rhymes over funky beats / I fuck fine hookers between satin sheets / They say money changes people / But I won’t because / I’m the same motherfucker that I ever was”
House of Pain’s first album was one brilliant novelty single (‘Jump Around’ - the less-stoned stepbrother of ‘Insane in the Brain’) and numerous corny, half-baked Irish-American clichés (‘Top o’ the Morning to Ya’, ‘Shamrocks and Shenanigans’, etc.). It’s not a bad album, but not a particularly great one. This, however, is much better. In fact, it’s almost certainly the best thing Everlast will be ever be a part of, and without a doubt the best thing DJ Lethal will ever be a part of (it’s all downhill toward Limp Bizkit from here).
Having absolutely nothing to do with Talking Heads, despite what the title probably evokes in a lot of peoples’ minds, I guess Same As It Ever Was was the group’s attempt to prove themselves as more than just a gimmick. Whilst I’m pretty sure it wasn’t much of a commercial success, they definitely demonstrate themselves to be pretty talented. Sure, Everlast’s lyrics aren’t exactly poetry, but the combination of his off-kilter, maniacal delivery with the super-hardcore beats provided primarily by DJ Lethal, and you’ve got yourself a pretty angry, pretty fantastic album.
