Coal for Your Stockings

Ghostface Killah’s newly released Ghostdeini the Great (Def Jam) is a hybrid of remix and rarity that, upon closer inspection, should have just been labeled a greatest hits album. Sort of. Latter day signature tracks like “Be Easy” and “Kilo” get flubbed up with displaced verses from Ice Cube and Malice, respectively, both of which put out the fire Ghostface built first time around on 2006’s Fishscale. His classic “All That I Got Is You” collabo with Mary J. Blige shows up untouched, as does Supreme Clientele’s “Apollo Kids” and the Madame Majestic-spotted “Cherchez Laghost,” among others. Previously unreleased good times like the soul-power Blaxploitation-evoking “Slept On Tony” and the seasonally appropriate “Ghostface X-mas,” riding a “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo” sample and cueing itself up with Ghost asking Mrs. Claus for his robe and slippers, keep this dull dart from being completely irrelevant, but even Tony Starks lifers won’t find much in this one.

November’s Theater of the Mind (Disturbing Tha Peace) finds Ludacris subscribing to the same punchlined pathos that got him hos in every area code except the 512. There might be something for Austin here, though. Theater brings out Hollywood’s A-List to guest star: Floyd Mayweather, Ving Rhames, Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, and Spike Lee all show up in some capacity. But Luda also hooks up with T.I. to rep the ATL on “Wish You Would," croons to the ladies with T-Pain on “One More Drink,” and “Call[s] Up the Homies” for a rib-rocker with the Game and Willie Northpole. Those who feel Ludacris has been following the same creative formula since The Red Light District will get more of the same, but you can’t combat the ATL king’s charisma.

Rather than branching out again, Common would have been better suited pushing more of the same on December’s Universal Mind Control (Geffen). Without fellow Chi-towner Kanye West at the executive helm for the first time since 2002’s Electric Circus, Common rides like a novice over Neptunes beats. Their progressive bump and burn mixes with Common’s melodic flow like oil and water, typified by the frantic “Sex 4 Suga.”

“Electricity is definitely there,” it’s just that the Chicago vet’s a step behind the Neptunes. The sole Louis Vuitton Don’s influence on “Punch Drunk Love” evokes the heart of G.O.O.D Music, but Common’s never been a “Gladiator” when handling UMC’s general brashness. Hardest to bear is “Changes,” when daughter Omoye Assata Lynn drops the unreasonable “Change is Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Shakespeare, Assata Shakur, Barack Obama, and you can’t forget Common.” You’ve got to be kidding us, Com.