What goes up must come down, they say. Chicago emcee Common peaked in 2005 with the hit album Be. It was a critical and commercial high water mark for the rapper, who’d toiled in the underground for over a decade. I’d imagine watching less talented rappers sell more records than you gets kind of frustrating. He followed Be up last year with Finding Forever, which seemed like a faded carbon copy of Be. Common just […]
So I’m sure that you’ve all heard that guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani is suing Coldplay, contesting that their #1 hit “Viva La Vida” sounds like his “If I Could Fly”. Plagiarism suits have been commonplace in the music industry since at least the early Seventies. Remember the “My Sweet Lord”/”He’s So Fine” dustup? (actually, I wasn’t born yet, so I don’t). In the Nineties, the plagiarism suit hit a couple of my favorites. Michael Jackson […]
Common Universal Mind Control
The rapper formerly known as Common Sense is used to being one of the most critically acclaimed emcees by the music press. That apparently has stopped with Universal Mind Control. The Chicago wordsmith’s eighth album has been panned by just about every publication I’ve laid my eyes on. Common has forgone his usual soulful, thoughtful raps for a more danceable, electronic style-apparently inspired by an experience at a club in Europe where […]