I keep listening to silence of the hams and pppow and man i wish J was this clever lyrically again, the multis are nuts.. I fucking wish this is what soopa villainz ended up being

Noawareness said
I think someone or something just needs to humble J again. In his mind, he's surpassed his peers and he's surpassed the people he came up, underneath. They won awards that none of his idols/peers have won, they sell more albums/merch than anyone else in their peer group, the people who leave never surpass them and a lot of them often fail, the FBI have targeted them, the mainstream are now calling them legends (shade45, nojumper, steve-o, Kesha). To him, he's above everyone and nothing is pushing him. 

This along with how bitter he is with people leaving psychopathic, his relationships and these people finding their own success is clearly leaving him with a "me against the world" mindset. 

A good boss wants to elevate the people underneath them and make their employees better than them so they can eventually surpass them. This is a way of protecting your future and building bridges that you can always cross, no matter what happens to you in your life. Right now, J could really do with a few bridges to cross, imo, but he's burned so many due to always wanting to keep everyone beneath him and not to push anyone too much, in fear they might surpass him (just look at the history of promotion of pay artists).

He needs to come back down to earth and realise that he is never as good as when he's surrounded by people who push him and challenge him. He also needs to realise that he challenges other and makes them better too, but you can't challenge people when you have that "it's me or them" attitude.

Maybe all this recent bad press and poor reception to the music and his behaviour will wake him up and give him some of that anger and hunger back. Obviously it's not good to be angry but any emotion is better than nothing, when it comes to art.

I know that all sounds really presumptuous but just my opinion after like 20+ years of being on this rollercoaster.

Maybe I'm just looking at it too deeply. Maybe he's just going retarded in his old age. Maybe I'm just a fucking idiot.  

I know people hate armchair psychology but what is a forum but a place to share ones ill-informed opinions anyways, so I say let's fully lean into it.

I think J has massive control issues based on a history of trauma that he refuses to address. And he got lucky, in a sense, because this lead to massive success for him, but these things have a habit to crash down on us years down the road. I don't think it's a new revelation, we all know how controlling J is, we have heard it from tons of artists and we can see it throughout the history of Psychopathic.

J's shitty father leaving them at such a young age probably lead to extreme fears of abandonment and the Juggalo movement was the result of that. Because J basically created a new family, a whole lot of people who are loyal to him and make him feel loved like his real family never did. What's the number one thing that outside artists who have a big Juggalo following always say about Juggalos? That they are fucking loyal.

Cynics always say the whole family thing is just a ploy by ICP the genius business men. But no way.. J really needs that shit. What happened when they couldn't tour anymore and J didn't get to feel that loyalty and love from the masses of Juggalos first hand? His mental health apparently dropped fast and he instantly started inviting these people to his house.. during a pandemic.

His control issues go even further than that, though. He literally created his own world. But not just in terms of having created a whole new subculture that thinks of themselves as a family and is loyal to him, he created his own metaphysical belief system, that he really seems to believe in, or rather, chooses to believe in. Shangri-La, the dark carnival, the butterfly, 17, his personal interpretation of karma, all the supernatural shit. I think most Juggalos don't really believe in "the power of the dark carnival", but I think J quite literally does.

I come back to his believe in The Secret, the idea that you can manifest whatever you want, you just have to believe in it hard enough. And J has been quite clear that he doesn't just mean the pragmatical implications of it, but that the universe will make it happen. The universe will bend to your will. The ultimate control fantasy.

So I think Noawareness is right about J not wanting to anyone to outshine him and get bigger than ICP. But it's not because he has become a megalomaniac, it's because people who get big enough can leave him. And that's exactly what Twiztid and half of the roster did, and that's why it's so fucking painful for him to accept that and get over it. So I don't think "humbling him" would have any effect tbh.

And btw, eventhough this doesn't apply to everybody, I do think people attract like-minded people and people with similar issues. I think you can see these control issues and fears of abandonment throughout the Juggalo community. That's why we still give a shit about any rapper who has been associated in any way with the Juggalo world, like Myzery for example. Because when it comes to fandom, what really is loyalty but obsession? And what is obsession but a desire to have some control over some isolated aspect of your life. And that's why Tech N9ne experiences the Juggalos as extremely needy, always needing validation "are you still down? why do you never mention ICP?" and shit. It makes sense of course, because a lot of Juggalos have had shitty upbringings and have been feeling like outcasts their entire lives, i.e. the people who don't fit in, who are unwanted and unloved.

I think J has been fighting reality for all of his life, but the thing is, he has been winning for a long time and it was fruitful. Right now he is losing because reality has not been complying (Twiztid leaving, issues with the Gathering, not being as productive as they'd need to be to pull off all of these projects they keep announcing).
I recently watched some old Hitchcock movie and there was a quote in there that I really liked: "you can't keep bumping your head against reality and keep denying that it's there". And I think that's exactly what J is still trying to do.

Edit: in this interview with the pornstar, Kaiia, there was a small moment that I think is illustrative of this as well. So J is trying hard to hit on her and once again reality just says "no" and you can tell it messes with him. He is trying to make it funny, but still, we feel the frustration. He asks her whether she is in any way available and Kaiia tells him no, she's in a relationship. But J keeps fighting (once again: against reality) and tries to poke hole to find an entry, where somehow she is open to him: "is it an open relationship?" and she doesn't really disagree so now he convinced himself that there is a chance. And Shaggy picks up on it. He starts laughing and says:
"He told her to say that she is available, and she did and now he's sold on it. He just totally fell for his own draft!"

Nah, Joe's fine. It's y'all that are crazy.

BZA said
Even stuff like putting West Verner Avenue on a jokers card, that's a forgotten freshness song at best.. if you don't live in Detroit who cares? How is that song important enough to be on a card  

That song and Low, really didn't feel right on a jokers card, imo.

Pigg said
I feel like since the tempest they've had trouble discerning which songs belong on the album proper and which songs belong on the outtakes.

 

Eye of the Storm blows The Tempest out of the water.

Mighty Death Pop Extra Pop Emporium has a few songs that should have been on the main album.

The Marvelous Missing Link Outtake intros, title track, and almost every song on the outtake albums should have been on the main records.

Flip The Rat has several songs that could have replaced the stinkers on FFF.  

I especially agree with the comment about the MML outtakes. I did not much care for either of the MML albums aside from a few tracks, but when the outtakes came out and I gave those a listen, I was really fuckin surprised. Like damn near everything on that is better than damn near everything on the MML albums. I don't know if they just didn't think they fit in or what, but a lot of those songs were really fuckin cool. 

Chevy2Dope said

I especially agree with the comment about the MML outtakes. I did not much care for either of the MML albums aside from a few tracks, but when the outtakes came out and I gave those a listen, I was really fuckin surprised. Like damn near everything on that is better than damn near everything on the MML albums. I don't know if they just didn't think they fit in or what, but a lot of those songs were really fuckin cool.   

I’m one of the few who agree most of those tracks list should stay intact.

As much as I like phantom and the outtakes they would just sound like random songs to me on like lost or something. 
they slap but like they wouldn’t make sense to me. 
maybe I’m biased. 
but I always think most ppl just like those song more as opposed to them making sense. Not saying that’s what u doing just talking.

and like I remember like some of those songs got like typos in them lol

like when they “humility” to mean they get embarrassed I dunno

bayAreaShaman said

I’m one of the few who agree most of those tracks list should stay intact.

As much as I like phantom and the outtakes they would just sound like random songs to me on like lost or something. 
they slap but like they wouldn’t make sense to me. 
maybe I’m biased. 
but I always think most ppl just like those song more as opposed to them making sense. Not saying that’s what u doing just talking.

and like I remember like some of those songs got like typos in them lol

like when they “humility” to mean they get embarrassed I dunno  

Yeah I get what you mean, it goes along with how maybe some of the tracks they liked but didn't think it fit the flow with the album or the theme or whatever, though like you pointed out MML Found (well, both of them really) have some pretty random lyrical content. Shit like "The Monster" and "The Dream" could have easily been on Lost and fit the theme a lot better than some other tracks did, but oh well, at least they still released them and we have them. 

I was never too big on the Phantoms EP but the actual title track itself, "Phantom", is the absolute bomb. It was produced by Seven and it has the type of sound and content that ICP's really all about to me. 

Death pop was the last album that felt like they gave it their all, and that was 9 years ago :(

Isn't that happening again? Ding ding doll was thrown out right?

Flip the Rat has to be outtakes indeed. We know Friend Request was intended for FFF during the recording sessions. Plus back when the first single for FFF came out, it was never said their was gonna be a companion EP to my knowledge.

Lure has to be indeed outtakes as well. It was documented before YYB was actually unveiled ICP was working with AAF. They never said anything about Lure on the seminar stream. All that was said was YYB was coming and to be followed by three seeds. All of those suddenly have been delayed. Then Lure was announced as a random give away.

I partially don't know if I want the seeds to happen. I'd rather ICP focus on ONE entire album. Put their energy into it rather then 4 albums. Times working against ICP in their late 40s. Just release Yum yum Bedlum, tour for it, make a few music videos. Then begin work on the 6th joker card of deck 2. Save some ideas and concepts for deck 3.