Look out! He's got a knife!

B-O-P, bop, P-I-L-L-S spells bop pills!

Hello. As I am now unable to access the internet from work (*sob*) my posting here will be sporadic at best. So I am limiting my topics to only the most thought-provoking and important subjects.

Today: my review of R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece, which is the new album by Snoop Dogg.

This is the first of Snoop's album that I have listened to all the way through since Doggystyle, his sort-of debut (his real debut was The Chronic by Dr Dre). Back in 1992, when that album first came out, he seemed fresh and new. Noone else rapped like that, and Dre's G-Funk production was considered by many to be the cutting edge of popular hip-hop. He had a Doggy in his name back then, which lead to some pretty amusing right-wing pronouncements that "Public Enemy Number One is a man called Snoop Doggy Dogg!" He was even better known for his violent lyrics, his rampant misogyny and his accomplice-to-murder charge than for his music.

Twelve years later, Snoops' lyrics are still violent and misogynistic, though he's long since beaten the murder rap and Dr Dre is too busy producing Eminem and getting beaten up at awards ceremonies to tag along. The new album is exec-produced by superstar R&B and hip-hop producers The Neptunes.

There's twenty tracks on this cd. That's way too many. There should have been about twelve, and they should all have produced by the same people. The album is an overstuffed melange of different sounds that don't flow and don't fit well together. Which is a shame 'cause there are a few really good songs in here, and a couple of major surprises, one right at the end.

Perhaps the best track is number three, Drop It Like It's Hot, the first of five tracks produced by The Neptunes. It's typically quirky stuff from the N.E.R.D. boys and makes great use of someone making "click, clock" noises with their tongue to form the beat. Pharrell raps on this track, and I swear to god noone would let him get away with it if he wasn't 1/2 of the production team.

Now let me complain for a minute. There are some live instruments on this album, which is great. There is also Bootsy Collins on this album, which is also great. But at no point does Bootsy play bass! This is far, far too common an occurence; even his own last album, Play With Bootsy, only features two songs where he slaps it and one of those is only 60 seconds long. He contributes weird shouts and kooky comments to the otherwise disappointing Can I Get A Flicc Witchu.

Ups & Downs claims to feature the Bee Gees, but as it turns out they're only sampled and I couldn't hear them anyway. Which is just as well because I loathe the Bee Gees.

The Bidness, produced by Soopafly, is surprisingly good. Snoop D.O. Double G is the standard "spell my name" track. Let's Get Blown, the second Neptunes track, is their standard R&B sort of stuff, perhaps to contrast with the crudeness of the title and lyrics. It doesn't work. Boring.

Set Yo Game Up, produced by & featuring a psychotically-unhinged sounding rap from Lil' Jon (no not Jon Ball! I actually don't know who this guy is) is both the most misogynistic track on the album, and provides a nice rebuttal from someone called Trina (whoever she is) which might help out those who take this sort of thing at face value.

Immediately following this is Perfect, the third Neptunes track, with an even more chilled-out R&B sound. This song is the first big surprise - it's a love song, delivered with a straight face. It's not very good, but it comes as a weird surprise which is probably the intended effect.

The next notable track is Signs, the fourth Neptunes track, which features Justin Timberlake singing something about not fucking with him. It's a stright-out pop song with Snoop rapping over it, and the result is truly as odd as anything else on her. Their final track on the album as producers, Pass It Pass It, is - obviously - a dope-smoking track, which references Rick James and in particular his song Below the Funk (Pass the J).

A track featuring Nelly (no thank you) gives way to the album's absolute shocker: a straight note-for-note (though not quite word-for-word, especially the intro) cover of Curtis Mayfield's brilliant anti-drug song No Thing On Me (here retitled No Thang On Me of course). Snoop croons the whole thing in a passable Curtis falsetto, while Bootsy whispers his approval in the background. Seems that Snoop has decided to stop smoking weed, at least for a while.

So that's me for a while. Fuck Christmas. I hope somebody actually read this far.

Posted by pearce at November 30, 2004 6:45 PM