Jay-Z – Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life

Hard knock life. 45 King. RIP. No filler on this one. Bangs head to toe. 98’ summer vibes.

Just picked up a used copy of this pressing through Discogs. I have zero issued with sound. Great bass and very dynamic sound. Don't have any of the issues previously mentioned.

This is... a genuinely bad pressing. It skips excessively on certain songs and the sound quality is pretty mediocre at times (a severe case of audio saturation on "A Week Ago" for example). It really is a shame that record labels are not being more careful when they reissue an artist's catalog on vinyl, because usually fans already own the CD... and pressings like this one clearly doesn't do the vinyl format any justice. I can only recommend you to avoid this pressing.

I have to say, this version of this release was a pleasant surprise. I expected all of the songs to have backwards edits (which I HATE), but it didn't. It was carefully edited with clever sounds and / or omitted vocals where needed. The only song that had backwards edits was the last track "Money Ain't A Thang" which wasn't too surprising since it isn't Jay-Z's song to begin with and was thrown in there to sell the album because that song was super hot at that time.

The 2 big surprises were Track 4 - Ride Or Die & Track 5 - N***a What, N***a Who. Ride or Die sounds a little different with a hype man shouting "Do You Wanna Ride?" in the beginning and the end. This version of N***a What, N***a Who was edited before they released Jigga What, Jigga Who as a single and so they actually start the song with the ending beats (as if it was a DJ edit) and the song is edited all the way through but what's different is the chorus doesn't have any vocals on it except "Jay to the Z" & "recognize girl Jay to the Z" in the background, nothing else, no Amil, just Instrumental. Also some of the skits were taken out which is fine because it gets straight to the music when played. Overall this is a gem worth having in your collection. Pick it up if you see it for sale, you won't be disappointed.