Various Artists

This Is Hip-Hop (X-Ray)

This Is Hip-Hop is the wrong name for this triple-disc compilation. What it should be called is This Is the Only Hip-Hop That Our Broke Asses Could Afford to Put Out. Although billing itself as a definitive collection of rap tracks, it somehow manages to skip Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, Biz Markie, N.W.A., Public Enemy, Ice-T, Erik B. & Rakim, Run D.M.C., Salt-n-Pepa, the Beastie Boys, Big Daddy Kane, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Wu-Tang, Diddy, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, Nas, Tupac, Busta Rhymes, Gangstarr, DMX, Outkast, the Fugees, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mos Def, Common, Kanye West, 50 Cent, and the Roots.

"Who is left?" you may ask. Well, Snoop, the Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa, Fat Joe, and Mobb Deep. But with the exception of Mobb Deep's "Got It Twisted", the tracks from these artists are obscure joints, not classic bangers. And they're interspersed with subpar West Coast g-funk and gangsta rap records from dudes like Big Blue and Klorefil. Who? Exactly.

In the age of the iPod, you have to do a hell of a lot better than that. This outing makes last year's less-than-stellar Hip-Hop Box from Universal look like the Illmatic of boxed sets.