Choice Is Yours Vol. 71: Hard to Earn vs. Midnight Marauders
Gang Starr – Hard to Earn (1994)
Vs.
A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders (1993)
The Game is simple… if only one could exist which would it be? What’s more important… personal relevance, cultural significance, or simply being the better album all other things aside? Choice is yours…
- My Pal the Crook
March 30th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Gang Starr.
March 30th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I wish I was familiar enough with either album to vote. I do know, however, that ‘You Know My Steeze’ is one of the greatest hip-hop songs ever. I’ll stay in the peanut gallery.
March 30th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Hard to Earn!
March 30th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Midnight Marauders is my shit, but Gang Starr is also crazy its a toss up!
March 30th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Midnight Marauders was the soundtrack to some of my best summer nights, so I gotta go with TCQ. Much love for GS though.
March 30th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Very tough call… I’m going to go with Midnight Marauders but that’s really only out of personal preference.
March 30th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
This is the hardest one of these yet.
Probably say Midnight Marauders only because Daily Operation and Moment of Truth are solid albums, more so than any other ATCQ albums.
I think I could live without Hard to Earn…probably…maybe.
March 30th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
You know that ATCQ have another little album by the name of Low End Theory that oh I don’t know, most people would agree is petty solid.
March 30th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
I bought Midnight Marauders the day it came out as a 7th grader, but it doesn’t have a guest spot from Lil Dap like Hard To Earn does. Plus, Mass Appeal and DWYCK are forever classics.
Real close call: “lemonade was a popular drink and it still is” vs. “i like em brown yellow puerto rican and haitian”…
I give it to Midnight Marauders. It was a coherent album from start to finish – both continuing and reinventing the sound from Low End Theory – and added its own share of classics to the canon. Plus personal nostalgia carries it over the finish line for me.
March 30th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
sorry to say it Midnight Marauders is a better album than Low End Theory. I used to think the opposite, but not so much anymore…
March 30th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Hard to Earn.
March 31st, 2010 at 3:57 am
Midnight Marauders…
I would choose Moment of Truth over it though
March 31st, 2010 at 10:11 am
Hard to earn. Top 5 hip hop album ever made (my opinion).
March 31st, 2010 at 11:09 am
Midnight Marauders. it influenced more than just hip hop. i was into it way before gangstarr. gangstarr was an aquired taste for me as a youngster.
March 31st, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Def toughest CIY yet! Gotta go with Tribe, but it’s a photo finish on this one. While HTE was a nearly perfect album, MM just had more creativity in concept.
March 31st, 2010 at 3:54 pm
damn this is hard im a big biiig fan of ATCQ and gangstarr is dope as fuck
so idk
ehh fuck it
ATCQ all the way
March 31st, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I never did like ATCQ but liked “Award Tour” so I bought the album.Big mistake!!!
Gangstarr gets this one.
March 31st, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Gotta go with ATCQ but Gangstarr is legend.
April 1st, 2010 at 2:58 pm
why cant the all get along…
oh yeah, thats the game…
ill give it to the tribe by the mood this evening, but both albums are a must for pretty much anyone…
April 4th, 2010 at 6:49 am
Hard to Earn. I can listen to the whole album through and through. The Jeru and Little Dap joint was one of my favorites, especially since each mc had their own beats that fit them.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:01 am
[...] was just a few weeks ago that I pitted Gang Starr’s Hard to Earn against A Tribe Called Quest Midnight Marauders in an edition of [...]