Consumer GuideLooks like African catchup month--the Earthworks releases below have been out since late '92, though not so's anyone noticed. Worse still, my Afrocentric Pick Hit rereleases songs already rereleased. The beauty part is, it also redefines them.
BIZ MARKIE: All Samples Cleared (Cold Chillin'/Warner Bros.) Singin' in the rain 'cause he got the audacity, Biz returns from legal limbo to mumble, spritz, fart around, cop a hit from McFadden & Whitehead, ride four different versions of "Get Out My Life Woman," and rhyme "audacity" with "Butch Cassidy." From "Family Tree," which builds off 20 first names, to "The Gator," which cuts to the beat in the interests of asthma prevention, he never tries harder than is absolutely necessary, and seldom comes up less than beguiling and hilarious. Masterstrokes: the positive "I'm a Ugly Nigger (So What)," in the great tradition of Huckleberry Finn, and "I'm Singin'," in which he does for Gene Kelly what he tried to do for Gilbert O'Sullivan--and nobody is stupid enough to stop him. A MINUS [Later]
JIVE SOWETO: THE INDESTRUCTIBLE BEAT OF SOWETO VOL. 4 (Earthworks) By now the availability of South African pop far exceeds the needs of the curious, and there's no way any of Trevor Herman's four follow-ups to Indestructible Beat is as essential as Ladysmith's Classic Tracks or Mzwakhe's Resistance Is Defence or Mahlathini's Paris-Soweto or Shanachie's Heartbeat of Soweto. But for the converted, each has its distinct rewards. Featuring six tracks by the Soul Brothers, whose slick arrangements and syncretic harmonies have made them mbaqanga's top sellers, this one abandons basso groaners for the high-end registers of hectoring chatterbox Ihashi Elimhlophe, theatrical interloper Mbongeni Ngema, and pop idol Steve Kekana. It makes itself useful on sonic differentiation alone. A MINUS [Later] MAHLATHINI: King of the Groaners (Earthworks) Powered by studio stalwarts who know their own strength, the music he's aimed for since his early-'80s comeback has been a runaway train, as unwithstandable as a prime metal anthem. And the late-'70s stuff on The Lion of Soweto often seems despondently formulaic. This early-'70s music is spare, exploratory, feeling its cornmeal--always less luxurious than the songs of his maturity, sometimes more fun. And let's hear it for Alfius Madlokovu, whose bass has strings. A MINUS
MTV PARTY TO GO VOL. 4 (Tommy Boy) At the same moment Vol. 3 convinces me I can live forever without "Baby Got Back," Mary J. Blige, "I'm Too Sexy," and (House of Pain's) "Jump" (and don't much like "Deeper and Deeper" either), the simultaneous Vol. 4 firms up my affection for "They Want Efx," En Vogue, "Give It Away," and (Kris Kross's) "Jump" (I kind of dig "Baby-Baby-Baby" too) (and hey, "Hip Hop Hooray" and "Back to the Hotel" are cool, and RuPaul you know about). It's enough to renew my faith in confluences of taste--sometimes even dance disposables sort out. So what if the higher-grade collection mines higher-grade albums--these are remixes, right? Kris Kross's has Super Cat on it. Fun. A MINUS [Later] PAVEMENT: Watery, Domestic (Matador) The rumor that the title means "watered-down, not wild" would bewilder music-lovers outside Indieland. Though it does comprise four distinguishable, hummable songs, it isn't anything the big guys would call pop music, just a dandy outro for the EP compilation below. And since nobody this good lives in Indieland forever, it raises the question of what they'll do for an encore. As they brag, admit, or observe, they've got "so much style that it's wasted." Which means the content problem is staring down their throats. A MINUS [Later] PAVEMENT: Westing (By Musket and Sextant) (Drag City) This concept CD about the limits of vinyl fetishism--23 cuts off EPs, flexidiscs, and other ephemera you may have read about or even purchased--is the ideal way to hear rather than collect their catchy song-noise. Even irritating instrumental doodads like "Krell Vid-User" gain presence (fuck "warmth") in digital form, and besides, if you get too irritated you can zap 'em. Pretend this is all that remains of a great art-punk band that never wert and chances are you won't want to. A MINUS [Later] LIZ PHAIR: Exile in Guyville (Matador) She's a rebel, and if all goes well, also a pathfinder, which isn't certain mainly because the acts and attitudes that make her a rebel are so normal. Her number of partners may be over toward the right side of the bell curve, and she may have commitment problems too. But for at least two decades, bohemian women of a certain age have displayed this much desire, independence, bitchiness, self-doubt, and general weirdness--while continuing to pin down the unmanly emotional apercus that make "Dance of the Seven Veils" and "Divorce Song" so gender-specific. They can behave this way if they want--they're just not supposed to come out of the closet about it. And while Phair knows more than enough about tunes and guitars to challenge the taboo, the weirdness level of her spare, intuitive, insinuating demos-plus is bohemia-specific. Which is fine as far as it goes--apt, even. But not necessarily pathfinding. A MINUS [Later: A] RUPAUL: Supermodel of the World (Tommy Boy) I know it wouldn't be an authentic disco album without filler, but this self-creation is too blandly male a singer to put over pro forma romance. The exception is "Supernatural," as you'll figure out if you match title to persona and consider the possibilities. And when he cops an attitude--on five cuts by my count, culminating in the deep-dish "A Shade Shady"--he brings off a time-warped genderfuck all his own. B PLUS SUEDE (Columbia) Make-or-break is "Sleeping Pills," when Brett Anderson drawls/whines/croons "You're a water sign, and I'm an air sign" so tunefully, repetitively, naggingly, inescapably that you swear he said "I'm an asshole" even though he pronounces "air sign" a lot more clearly than the line about Valium that follows. It's fingernail-on-blackboard city for anyone who doesn't believe Marc Bolan is Chuck Berry, and at first I couldn't stand it. Now it's a fave moment on this appropriately overhyped, surprisingly well-crafted coming out. More popwise and also more literary than the Smiths at a comparable stage, Suede's collective genderfuck projects a joyful defiance so rock and roll it obliterates all niggles about literal truth. If you think their victories over depression have nothing to do with you, be grateful you can make do with a report from the front. A MINUS
Dud of the MonthX: Hey Zeus! (Big Life/Mercury) Stripped of the vicious tensions that made them great--between good and evil, John and Exene, Billy Zoom and Skunk Baxter--they return as the reason young bohos are afraid to grow up. This isn't folk-rock in disguise; Tony Gilkyson's hooks evoke a machine shop, not a barn raising. But they leave going 120 to a bad old black-and-white--there are kids in the back, and even with their seat belts on they'd get hurt real bad in the event of a crash. As for hostility, save it for the warmongers--ensconced in separate but functional marriages, John and Exene have nothing to fight about anymore. Which in the usual tragic contradiction leaves the emotion so abstract that the songs are tough to grab hold of. Only the spiteful putdowns--Exene's "Everybody," John's "Baby You Lied"--sound like old times. Not to mention new ones. B MINUS
Additional Consumer NewsHonorable Mention:
Village Voice, Aug. 3, 1993
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