Look out! He's got a knife!

Music Recently Heard pt. 1

Recently I have heard lots of music. Here is some of it. More to follow tomorrow.

Albums briefly reviewed are:

In My Mind by Pharrell
Think Differently Music: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture

In My Mind by Pharrell

In case you've been living in a cave for the last decade, Pharrell Williams is the more visible half of hip-hop/RnB production duo The Neptunes. His main previous performance vehicle was the band N.E.R.D., who combined hip-hop, hard rock, RnB, funk, and several other genres into a unique style all their own over the course of two albums.

In My Mind is one half hip-hop, one half RnB. Pharrell's usual production cohort, Chad Hugo, is absent. He does rope in several of the people he's lent production to in the past including Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z.

In a word: forgettable. Pharrell seems to be trying to be Prince on a lot of this album; he's got Prince's arrogance but unfortunately he lacks the purple one's voice, musicianship, attitude, religious/sexual conflict, and talent. Then again so did Rick James and Street Songs is still a great album, but this is no Street Songs.

Think Differently Music: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture

I'm a big fan of early Wu-Tang. A whole huge crew of talented MCs backed by the RZA, one of the most innovative producers in hip-hop, they released seven top-notch albums between 1993 and 1997 which all hold up just fine today. Then the rot set in: RZA started farming out production, and the resulting glut of below-par product lowered their star considerably. By 2005 almost no one cared.

This anthology is put together by the supremely untalented rapper Dreddy Krueger, and was mostly ignored including by me. The idea was pairing Wu MCs with "underground" MCs over "classic" Wu beats, mostly by RZA imitators. Be still, my beating fart.

SURPRISE! It's great. Bronze Nazareth provides great old-school Wu beats on most tracks, and there's lots of top rapping. Only a few of the original Wu are present: RZA, GZA and U-God (I really missed Masta Killa, who's usually up for anything). Other top MCs include Ras Kass, the underrated Timbo King, Del tha Funky Homosapien, and Aesop Rock. Everyone is on form, even Bronze Nazareth himself on his debut rapping track. Dreddy Krueger does not rap at all.

My pick track is Give It Up by R.A. the Rugged Man and J-Live - an odd couple pairing for sure. Both these top underrated MCs kick career-best verses over an extremely unlikely (for them) beat.

In a word: memorable.

Next time: Neko Case, Princess Superstar, more.

Posted by pearce at July 27, 2006 2:43 PM