download outkast atliens album ATLiens. Though they were likely lost on casual hip-hop fans, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was full of subtle indications that OutKast were a lot more inventive than your average Southern playas. Their idiosyncrasies bubbled to the surface on their sophomore effort, ATLiens, an album of spacy sci-fi funk performed on live instruments. Largely abandoning the hard-partying playa characters of their debut, Dre and Big Boi develop a startlingly fresh, original sound to go along with their futuristic new personas. George Clinton's space obsessions might seem to make P-Funk obvious musical source material, but ATLiens ignores the hard funk in favor of a smooth, laid-back vibe that perfectly suits the duo's sense of melody. The album's chief musical foundation is still soul, especially the early-'70s variety, but other influences begin to pop up as well. Some tracks have a spiritual, almost gospel feel (though only in tone, not lyrical content), and the Organized Noize production team frequently employs the spacious mixes and echo effects of dub reggae in creating the album's alien soundscapes. In addition to the striking musical leap forward, Dre and Big Boi continue to grow as rappers; their flows are getting more tongue-twistingly complex, and their lyrics more free-associative. Despite a couple of overly sleepy moments during the second half, ATLiens is overall a smashing success thanks to its highly distinctive style, and stands as probably OutKast's most focused work (though it isn't as wildly varied as subsequent efforts). The album may have alienated (pun recognized, but not intended) the more conservative wing of the group's fans, but it broke new ground for Southern hip-hop and marked OutKast as one of the most creatively restless and ambitious hip-hop groups of the '90s. Download outkast atliens album. “In the Cadillac they call us, went from Player's Ball to ballers. ” OutKast “ATLiens” (1996) Tracks. You May Die (Intro) Two Dope Boyz (In A Cadillac) Wheelz Of Steel. Elevators (Me & You) Mainstream (featuring Khujo and T-Mo) Decatur Psalm (featuring Big Gipp and Cool Breeze) 13th Floor/Growing Old. Elevators (Me & You) [ONP 86 Remix] OutKast‘s second album. Release date: August 27, 1996. ATLiens is the second studio album by OutKast, released on August 27, 1996, by LaFace Records. The duo wanted to improve on their 1994 debut album Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and gain respect for the growing Southern Hip Hop scene. OutKast recorded ATLiens in sessions at several Atlanta studios—Bosstown Recording Studios, Doppler Recording Studios, PatchWerk Recording Studio, Purple Dragon Studios, and Studio LaCoCo—as well as Chung King Recording Studio and Sound On Sound Recording in New York City. The record features outer space-inspired production sounds, with OutKast and producers Organized Noize incorporating elements of dub, reggae, and gospel into the compositions. Several songs feature the duo’s first attempts at producing music by themselves. Lyrically, the group discusses a wide range of topics including urban life as hustlers, existential introspection, and extraterrestrial life. The album’s title is a portmanteau of “ATL” (an abbreviation of Atlanta, Georgia) and “aliens”, which has been interpreted by critics as a commentary about the feeling of being isolated from American culture. ATLiens debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, and it sold nearly 350,000 copies in its first two weeks of release. The album was very well received by music critics upon its release, who praised the record’s lyrical content. It has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of two million copies in the United States. The album spawned the singles “Elevators (Me & You)”, “ATLiens”, and “Jazzy Belle”. Since its release, ATLiens has been listed by several magazines and critics as one of the greatest Hip Hop albums of all time. (Wikipedia) 20 Years Later, OutKast’s ATLiens Is A Masterpiece Of Space & Time. True to its extraterrestrial theme, OutKast’s 1996 sophomore album ATLiens was of another world. Like the “Paid In Full” vocal sample proclaimed, André 3000 and Big Boi added “ new color, new dimension, and new value ” to the mid-’90s Hip-Hop ethos. Arguably, this came at a time when Hip-Hop’s soul needed it the most. Twenty years later, OutKast has proven that they were on the frontier. To understand ATLiens’ landing, one must remember the album arrivals through August 27, 1996. Tupac Shakur had left prison with a two-piece West Coast Rap classic in All Eyez On Me . Vitriolic, wrathful, and fast-living, those two discs were not unlike the Thug Passion ‘Pac swilled while making it. Like the Hennessy and Alizé cocktail, All Eyez packed a ferocious bite underneath its sweetness—an intoxicating grandiose escape from reality. The Fugees had made an album in The Score that elegantly transported itself through samples, covers, and the dynamic melodic range of the New Jerusalem trio. An underground Hip-Hop group, the Refugees predated Eminem and the Black Eyed Peas in showing just how some (Nappy) Heads could be embraced by the pop masses. Jay Z made Reasonable Doubt , and Nas followed with It Was Written . In both cases, two old school Rap-rooted MCs were fitted with tailor-made sample beats, mafioso imagery, and a strong departure from the artists’ previous pool hall battles and park jams. Put another way, Hip-Hop was winning with cinematic themes and ’70s and ’80s hit retreads (see: “California Love,” “Killing Me Softly,” and “Street Dreams”). Additionally, from Tupac spitting at Biggie, Nas dissing both ‘Pac and Big, and Big dissing ‘Pac on Jay’s album–and a low-key jab of The Fugees aimed at Jeru The Damaja), beef seemed necessary to top the charts. OutKast had no controversy to offer. ‘Dre and Big were the ones who sat back and rather politely accepted their award for “Best New Rap Group” while Death Row and Bad Boy Records stirred the pot at the 1995 Source Awards one August earlier. Even when the crowd booed, 3000 told the entire Paramount Theater (including Dr. Dre, Suge Knight, Snoop Dogg, Puff Daddy, Biggie, Lil’ Kim, Fat Joe, Bone Thugs-N- Harmony, and others), “But it’s like this though: I’m tired of close-minded folks. It’s like we got a demo tape that nobody wants to hear, but the South got somethin’ to say. That’s all I got to say.” Perhaps Suge, Puffy, and Biggie weren’t the only artists to leave Madison Square Garden’s Paramount Theater on August 3 with a vendetta. In April of ’95, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik had already earned a platinum plaque—no small feat for a debut. With 54 weeks between those boos and ATLiens , perhaps OutKast built its spaceship, not unlike the one Kanye West would rap about eight years later. In 1996, everything seemed bright lights, polished, overblown—Rap at its most decadent. The Fugees were shooting videos replicating James Bond spy missions. Nas was recreating Martin Scorsese montages, and ‘Pac and Dre were going Mad Max , with two big-budget videos to alternate mixes of the same hit record. When “Elevators (Me & You)” released in July, OutKast stayed home, quite literally. “ ’96 can be that year that all you player haters can bite me ” touted Daddy Fat Sax, perhaps grabbing his crotch facing the jeering peers from The Source Awards. The single and its video were deeply stripped down. The content was autobiographical OutKast, and it captured the charms and pace of the South in one melodically addictive record. The gold single would go to #12, a stark contrast sonically to records released by De La Soul, Nas, and A Tribe Called Quest of that month. While peers were lifting Zapp, Bob Marley, and Kurtis Blow, OutKast tapped into Rockabilly/Country icon Carl Perkins, in a manner that did not even sound like sampling. If Hip-Hop is the language of the drum, OutKast let their self-produced beat play the backseat to their own vocal instruments. Rap had started to mimic studio wrestling with its feuds, bouts, and hyped storylines. OutKast’s comic book endeavor was ironically one of the realest in ’96. “Elevators” is a song about everybody coming up, and the group’s video contrasted the pair’s proud Blackness with their own message reaching listeners who could relate beyond race. From graduations, to 10 year-old cars, the song was Southern simplicity—using the planetary imagination. A month later, when the album followed the single, things were even more interesting. From a Portuguese prayer-poem at the album’s intro, it was a far cry from the usual commercial Rap theatrics. In the era of rappers killing one another on wax, OutKast looked their own mortality straight in the eye on “You May Die,” which states that there is nothing new under the sun (a sentiment Nas would use later, on “No Idea’s Original”). The evocative moment felt like a prayer before a mission into the unknown—exactly where the Dungeon Family leaders were headed. By Track 2, “Two Dope Boyz (In A Cadillac),” OutKast stated their Rap position with, “ in the middle, we stay calm, we just drop bombs. ” While the record easily applies to the clashing cultures in Greater Atlanta, Georgia, it also may explain ‘Kast’s place in the genre. While the coasts were packing heavy artillery on wax and to industry events, OutKast stayed quiet, making only their art explosive. The message was sent early on an album that celebrated its poetic license, density, and abstract points of view.