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Consumer Guide: Heads, Future and Past
Finally a chance to catch up on all those new bands. Well, maybe not bands exactly . . .
AFRICAN UNDERGROUND VOL 1: HIP-HOP SENEGAL (Nomadic Wax)
According to the label head's senior thesis, there are 3,000 hip-hop
acts in Senegal, so a big up to BMG 44 and Omzo, who take the lead
tracks here after highlighting Trikont's 2002 Africa Raps. But
where that music was Senegalese first, this sounds like the true
Afrofunk. Flow yeah yeah, and the label guy says the lyrics are
conscious, although the few in English could be sharper and are
welcome anyway. But here, there, and everywhere, the techno-flavored
synth/guitar splats of international hip-hop sink their hooks into
frantic gutturals of unknown meaning. A MINUS
THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: One Way Out: Live at the Beacon Theatre (Sanctuary/Peach)
The best live album of their career because both age and youth suit
them, and because--just compare this 2003-vintage double-CD to the
recently dug-out Atlanta International Pop Festival set or the
expanded Live at the Fillmore East--they're better now than
they ever were. Right, the original Allmans were true visionaries, and
there's no reason to think Warren Haynes or Derek Trucks would have
become what they became in the blank space that vision filled. But
both have more chops than 2001 layoff Dickey Betts or, sorry, Duane
himself. On their solo/leader records, both prove better-than-average
virtuosos. But in the band context they have the good sense to play
Duane's kind of music. Power audio, curtailed drum solos, and songs
not yet buried alive in the uncharted expanses of the Allmans' live
catalog finish the concept, and at 55 Gregg finally sounds as if
there's more to a man's life than the parlous fate of his latest
erection. A MINUS
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EMINEM: Encore (Aftermath)
Any lingering doubts that puking and diarrhea noises might effectively
forestall maturity were allayed by the crinkled noses and pursed lips
they've elicited from arbiters of creativity at Billboard and
Cokemachine-glow alike. Except to report tediously that he
sounds bored and complain ad infinitum that he's obsessed with the
love of his life (plus, right, the beats are no good, details later),
how else to objectify the cycle of disinterest inevitably inspired by
the mainstreaming of 8 Mile? Me, I say good riddance to his
rock dreams, so much vainer than his mosh dreams, and note that said
noises are hard to listen to, which is a compliment. Funny, catchy,
clever, and irreverent past his allotted time, he can't make records
this good forever--no one else has. But I also note that the mostly
unreviewed three tracks on the bonus disc keep on pushing--"We as
Americans" is a high point. That's rare. A
THE FUTUREHEADS (Sire)
There's that Ramones sense that songs should be short like life, and
that XTC sense that songs should be complicated like life. So who
could expect these young Brits to understand life, except to suggest,
sometimes observantly and sometimes rhetorically, that it's dangerous?
They don't fulfill the promise of the wonderful title "The City Is
Here for You to Use." But they do make the most of the bitter novelty
"First Day," which starts fast and ends double-time, just like that
job they were so lucky to get. B PLUS
MCENROE AND BIRDAPRES: Nothing Is Cool (Peanuts & Corn)
Like most beatmasters, Vancouver's finest thrives with a partner, and
although local legend Birdapres pitches in on music as well as words,
it's really the collaborator's spirit and reach that make this a
find. Effectively, McEnroe's Disenfranchised was a concept
album about the indie-rock business. Still defiantly scenebound, this
is a party record for people so determined to pursue their own idea of
fun they're ready to go back to their j-o-b's on a buck-and-a-half's
sleep. Bush and his war and even his economy loom over these Canadian
pleasures, but that permeable border affords psychological
protection--the beats are danceable in practice as well as theory, and
there's no sense of hiding from grim reality. Living in it, that's
all. Exemplary. A
NAS: Street's Disciple (Columbia)
Its double-CD sprawl is ambitious not hubristic, imposing not
indigestible--squeezes onto a C-90. There's devil and Jesus-killer
obscurity up front, electoral asininity later, but in general Nas
finally seems comfortable with his (black) humanity. He's responsible,
thoughtful, and compassionate, never mealymouthed, so that his
political misprisions and retrospective sex boasts function like
Eminem's latest sound effects--they keep him incorrect. If this means
"Prescott Bush funded Hitler" is ignored on the op-ed page, Nas is
barred from that realm anyway, and the information certainly does his
faithful more good than, for instance, the distracting fantasy that
Prescott's heir planned 9/11. The shout-outs to Bojangles Robinson,
Stokely Carmichael, Redd Foxx, Fela, and Miriam Makeba are right on
time. And when he and his pops get together on a blues, Muddy Waters
is in the house. A MINUS
PETE ROCK & C.L. SMOOTH: The Best of Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth (Good Life) (Elektra/Rhino)
I missed these guys--too smooth and insufficiently rock, I guess. That
was deaf. In this distillation, Smooth's rapping rivals Rakim's, and
Rock is an all-time DJ. Credited samples are few, but the music's pure
rhythmic pleasure returns us to those thrilling days of yesteryear
before property rights trumped art: as dense with borrowed,
distressed, and performed elements as the Bomb Squad's sometimes, only
flowing rather than explosive. Smooth recalls a wiser time as well:
conscious not self-righteous, ghetto not thug.
A MINUS
THE VULGAR BOATMEN: Wide Awake (No Nostalgia)
Between their flat rhythms and their undemonstrative vocals, this
long-running hobby band have to hit it just right to hit it at all,
which on this retrospective happens most of the time: if not sweet
tunes, then sharp lines or even driving grooves. So cannily
generalized they make the polite romantic disconnections of academia
stand in for those of all white middle-class America, their songs
sound like what Ricky Nelson might have sung if he'd grown up to be a
manager in the conglomerate that bought the Emporium rather than the
wastrel who pursued a musical career. A MINUS
PAPA WEMBA: 1977-1997 (Stern's Africa)
I know just two tracks of 18, both from import albums; most of the
first disc began its life as seven-inch vinyl. But beyond Franco, who
bought vocalists in bulk, no one in soukous amassed a catalog of this
strength in the '80s, much less the '90s. The audio is shrill at
first, and the lead track's guitar is as crude as it got in Zaire--but
also, how rock and roll, as exciting. Always conscious of country and
city, Wemba has been the rare African to hold his own with
synthesizers, yet homes in on two village chants. He deploys manly
shout, girlish falsetto, gritty tenor, and mellow midrange to
describe, explain, celebrate, ululate, sigh, cajole, declare his love,
and state the facts. And ever since Zaiko Langa Langa, he's led one
hell of a band or another. A
Dud of the Month
CHERIE (Lava)
The subject of a painstakingly hedged 2003 John Seabrook profile in
The New Yorker, she's a teenage Whitney-Celine-Mariah wannabe
who's more fun than Hilary Duff and less fun than Ashlee Simpson. Two
and a half years and several million bucks in the marketing, her debut
album failed to chart after its modest dance hit skyrocketed all the
way to 99 on the Billboard Hot 100. In principle, this is an
ideal time for an American idol who is both French and--ooh la
la--Jewish. But her flop feels like a victory nonetheless.
C
Additional Consumer News
Honorable Mention
- Gwen Stefani: Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
(Interscope): Turns out the problem wasn't ska per se--it was No Doubt
("Bubble Pop Electric," "What You Waiting For?").
- Saucy Calypsos Volume One (Ice import):
Trinidadians and their filthy sex habits risk Jah's wrath (Lord
Canary, "Dr. Beckles Clinic [Tent]"; Mighty Sparrow, "60 Million
Frenchmen").
- New York Dolls: Live From Royal Festival Hall,
2004 (Attack): They haven't slowed down, the world's speeded
up, but though it's good they're more together, it's bad they're more
dead ("Human Being," "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory/Lonely
Planet Boy").
- Enjoy Every Sandwich: The Songs of Warren Zevon
(Artemis): It wasn't just Schmeagles who envied his sarcasm and gusto
(Jordan Zevon, "Studebaker"; Adam Sandler, "Werewolves of
London").
- Le Tigre: This Island (Strummer/Universal): Taking
leftism pop--that one's tough to pull off ("Viz," "I'm So
Excited").
- Sufjan Stevens: Seven Swans (Sounds Familyre):
Pretty battles evil in the service of kind ("The Dress Looks Nice on
You," "In the Devil's Territory").
- Danger Mouse: The Grey Album (no label): It's tricky
to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time--it's tricky,
tricky, tricky, tricky ("99 Problems," "Change Clothes").
- Britney Spears: Greatest Hits: My Prerogative
(Jive/Zomba): Her heart, her soul, her aesthetic maturation ("Oops
. . . I Did It Again," " . . . Baby One More Time").
- Anubian Lights: Phantascope (Rhythmbank): Twice
removed, Adele Bertei contorts herself ("Wild Winter," "Way Gone
Man").
- Lif Up Yuh Leg an Trample (Honest Jon's import):
Hard dancehall soca surrounds improbable nominee for best Iraq II song
extant (Andre Tanker, "Food Fight"; Dawg E Slaughter, "Trample").
- Ashlee Simpson: Autobiography (Geffen): The real
Avril Lavigne ("Autobiography," "Lala").
- Jet: Get Born (Elektra): The juice and talent to
make their retro happen without the brains or vision to run with it
("Rollover D.J.," "Look What You've Done").
- Luna: Rendezvous (Jetset): Confidence, languor,
fatigue--having established all three, they average them and say
goodbye ("Speedbumps," "Astronaut").
- The Donnas: Gold Medal (Atlantic): Next stop,
matrimony--either that or their own line of porn flicks ("It's So
Hard," "It Takes One to Know One").
- African Groove (Putumayo World Music): Ethnotechno
from the ethno side (Badenya Les Frères Coulibaye, "Boroto"; Madeka,
"Mokoto").
- Shiyani Ngcobo: Introducing Shiyani Ngcobo (World
Music Network import): A generation late, South Africa gets its
postcolonial neotraditionalist ("Isothothobala," "Yekanini").
Choice Cuts
- William Shatner, "Common People" (Has Been,
Shout! Factory)
- Stuart Rosh & the Geniuses, "When the Words Won't
Come" (Accept No Substitutes, Winged Flight)
- The Wrens, "Bus Dance" (The Five Mod Four/The Wrens:
Split CD, Contraphonic)
- Merle Haggard, "Goin' Away Party"
(Unforgettable, Capitol)
Duds
- Chet Baker: Love Songs (Columbia/Legacy)
- Coheed and Cambria: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth
3 (Equal Vision/Columbia)
- Daara J: Boomerang (Wrasse import)
- Hilary Duff (Hollywood)
- Iron & Wine: Our Endless Numbered Days (Sub
Pop)
- Jay-Z/Linkin Park: Collision Course (Warner
Bros./Machine Shop/Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam/MTV)
- David Kilgour: Frozen Orange (Merge)
- Marah: 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (Yep Roc)
Village Voice, Jan. 18, 2005
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Dec. 28, 2004 |
Feb. 8, 2005 |
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