Money, and particularly its distribution among group members, had begun to become an issue. Interpersonal relationships were beginning to sunder Rza's leadership, once iron-fisted and single-minded, was weakening as the individual members' stars began to rise. Wu-Tang Forever was the Clan's coronation, but it also showed that no sooner had the ceremony begun than that crown had started to slip. Rather, what we can - particularly with 20 years' distance - see as the single factor that best explains the record's limitations relates to the changing circumstances within and around the group. Nor, ultimately, is it the change of musical direction Rza's production - and that of True Master, 4th Disciple and, for one track, Inspectah Deck - signalled, though for the most part the new-found sonic cleanliness and the crisp aural patina fails to engage as completely as the first group and solo albums' dust-encrusted aesthetic. Forever offers as rich and dense a set of raps as anyone could have wished for, though the thematic consistency that had given previous records (particularly Gza's Liquid Swords and the Clan's debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)) such a sharp edge is sorely missed. In truth, the album's problems are not to be found in the lyrics: for the most part these live up to the hopes many fans had before release. It wasn't as if the group themselves hadn't understood the risks they were running - Gza's first lines on 'As High As Wu-Tang Get' outline the problem, and propose a sage solution, even though he wasn't writing about the Clan but at unspecified inferior rivals: "Too many songs, weak rhymes that's mad long," he raps "Make it brief, son - half short and twice strong."
WU TANG CLAN FOREVER ALBUM COVER FREE
A parlour game developed around what track listing fans would have used to create a killer single-disc album out of the bloated whole: at times, this correspondent has felt that the record might have to be condensed down to the size of an EP before it could be free of filler (though at other times one has acknowledged that assessment is unfairly harsh). Despite the initial sense of awe provoked by its sheer scale - 26 tracks, two hours, 90-plus verses from the nine full-time Clan members and increasingly integrated associate, Cappadonna - over time, fans began to realise that less could quite easily have been more. Yet Wu-Tang Forever is not, in the final analysis, a particularly great record. From any of these perspectives, the album was a significant achievement. It was the culmination of the brilliant five-year plan conceived by the group's de facto leader The Rza, which not only turned the Clan into one of the biggest and most important groups in hip hop history but changed the way the music industry worked. The first hip-hop album to go straight to the top of the mainstream album charts in both the United States and the UK after its first week on sale, the sprawling, ambitious double CD was conceived on a truly epic scale, and the widespread euphoria its release and immediate success provoked meant the record appeared to have lived up to even some of the more stratospheric expectations that existed for it. There are a number of undeniably impressive facts to weigh about the second Wu-Tang Clan LP.
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