Definitely a record that a lot of people have varying opinions on.

I still think Tales From The Lotus Pod (Marz version obvs) is the best, but Black Rain certainly is up there too. I consider Consume Your Soul and The Walls 2 of the best Dark Lotus tracks and possibly 2 of the best tracks on Psychopathic in general. There’s a lot of cool beats and sounds on the album for sure. 

I love Black Rain, I’ll say more about it later but for now.. “Under the Lotus” is thee best intro track of any of the DL albums.. the other 3 are good but Black Rain’s 1st track is dope!

I consider Black Rain to have the best production of the 4, but the worst lyrics.  I rank them like this:

The Mud, Water, Air, and Blood

The Opaque Brotherhood

Tales From the Lotus Pod

Black Rain

The Mud, Water, Air, and Blood has the most cohesive message relating to the concept of The Lotus, and the lyrics had some real work put into them.  

The Opaque Brotherhood has excellent lyrics and strong messaging.

Tales From the Lotus Pod *would* be my second choice, but the message is barely there.  The songs, however, are some of the scariest songs ever put out by Psychopathic.  I really enjoyed the way J told the story of putting actual incantations from a real spell book in the songs, but changing some of it around because scary things started to happen in the studio.  I don’t really believe in any supernatural mumbo jumbo, but it was interesting that years later, Marz said the exact same thing about the songs.  He said he brought in a Black Magic book and they had to change some of the words because creepy things were happening in the studio.  He said this AFTER they’d all had a falling out, so there was really no motivation he would have had to back up J’s claims.  I also like the way the album was put out with almost a straight black cover with no real way to know what you were buying.  

Black Rain has the absolute best production of any Lotus album.  The beats can be scary.  The intro ranks top tier of any Psychopathic intro ever.  My qualm with the album is that the verses were cookie cutter due to 6 members and the songs get very monotonous with very few beat changes and boring, repetitive choruses.  The lyrics just aren’t very good at all.  Could have been a great concept if the songs really had anything to do with the concept at all and if the lyrics had been worked on.  It’s a shame the sound production was so slick.  It was wasted on the least interesting Lotus album.  

Smackblood has it down how I feel. The lyrics in Black Rain are absolutely rushed and generic. That is the biggest flaw with the album, among others. Sort of like how J admitted that “Bizaar/Bizzar” was a stall for time, even though we all love those albums, the content was rushed. There are like 3 or more songs with the same theme, which is “I’m Shaggy or J, and I’ll do this crazy thing”… just framed slightly different with different beats. I enjoy the tracks, but they’re just admitted filler. 

If

Fearless

Whut 

Black Rain has some filler.

And goddamn that Doornail Dorothy chorus

I like black rain as an album, there are a few tracks I don’t like on it but I feel like they really started to get their footing as to just how dark and serious dark lotus should be. I know a lot of people love TFTLP and hate black rain but I feel a lot of TFTLP were just too fucking silly. Shit like gimmie dat blood and bitch I’m sexy? How is that any different from an ICP song from Twiztid, blaze and marz? Black rain had a few stinkers too(doornail Dorothy comes to mind” but overall I liked it.

Their worst album though? Mud water air blood. That album is nothing but reused ideas from previous albums, I said that in the release thread when it came out 10 years ago and I stand by it God damnit every song on that album uses a concept they’ve done before.

I’ll say this, silly or not, “Gimme Dat Blood” and “Bitch I’m Sexy” are among the best live DL tracks to witness. The beats work great live and the mood fits and breaks up the morbid vibe.

I’ve been replaying all the DL albums lately, and TMWAB admittedly isn’t hitting as hard as it did. However, Shaggy’s raps are a billion times better than his Black Rain stuff. Every album he does better on than that one lol

I still go for Opaque Brotherhood as the #1. There’s something going on in that fucking album, it just encapsulates what I want from Lotus. 

Also, who would win in a fight, Doornail Dorothy or Debbie in the Dark buahaaaahaa

Hey, Psychopathic Records! Make a Dark Lotus Best Of album! Shit is nigh impossible, but it would open up curiosities for the 4 main albums and side projects as a result.

What songs would make it? Geez, Louise… this is difficult.

These aren’t all my personal favorites, but I believe a “Best Of” would have to include (but not ever be limited to):

● Ali Baba

● The Walls

● Keep Up

● Villainous

● Juggalo Family

● Consume Your Soul

● Withered

● Let it Rain

● Headache

● Black Rain

● Heinous

● Drunken Ninja Master

● Swarm

● Ka-Boom

● The Crows

● Pass the Axe

I’m already losing it because that list itself was hard to rest upon.

Forgot “Hurt Myself”, “85 Bucks an Hour”, “Graverobbers”.. some unofficial yet official.. what a great group. Barely a bad track among em. Besides Debbie and Dorothy.

Carnivalkilla44 said
“The Drought” has to be on the Best Of list. That’s essentially the track that brings closure to Lotus  

Agreed… basically they should just make a humongous album with every song on it lol

…. Debbie and Dorothy can be bonus tracks.