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Pop Rock Nation

Category: Reviews

music-and-concert-reviews-you-wont-see-anywhere-else

  • New Music Revue: Nas’s “Untitled”

    Sometimes it’s hard to separate artistry from publicity. I was recently involved in a healthy debate regarding whether Amy Winehouse’s success is due to her artistry or the fact that she’s a walking, talking trainwreck (I vote for the former). The fact of the matter, though, is that in an environment when record sales are falling and record companies are scrambling to make their bottom line and justify their extravagant expenditures, artists are relying more and more on publicity stunts to keep their names in the headlines, which ends up putting true music fans in a bind, unable to separate the artist and the artistry from the celebrity.

    This is one of two reasons I was initially skeptical about the untitled (or self-titled, depending on how you look at it) ninth studio album by the rapper Nas (or NaS, as iTunes annoyingly lists his name). As anyone who has even a remote interest in popular music must know, a mild furor arose when Nas announced what he intended to originally call the album: “Nigger”. In a hyper-sensitive world where the media seems to pounce on every available opportunity to create division and drama, a simple word/album title turned into a political football (interesting that no one batted an eyelash when Ol’ Dirty Bastard titled an album “Nigga Please” less than a decade ago). Various stories began circulating around the press: was Nas going to get dropped from Def Jam, his label? Would certain stores not carry the album if released? Why was the album’s release date continually getting pushed back? Why did Nas rip off the whip-welt scarred back cover of dead prez’s “Let’s Get Free” for the front cover of his album? Ultimately, Nas chose (or was asked, depending on who you believe) to change the title of the album-well, actually the decision ended up being not to title the album at all. I’ve viewed this whole situation with a cocked eyebrow, amazed at the ability of the average rap fan to buy in to what was obviously (at least partially) a publicity stunt milked to raise maximum awareness of the album’s release (as it turns out, the gambit didn’t exactly work. While the album debuted at #1 on this week’s album charts, it did so with the lowest first-week sales of any Nas studio album since his debut).

    (more…)

  • New Music Revue: Robyn’s Back and It’s Almost Worth the 10 Year Wait

    A few months ago, I gave Robyn some serious props on this very site. The Swedish singer had just released The Rakamonie EP, a teaser of sorts for her first American album in over a decade. The full-length finally arrived on American shores a little over a month ago, and it’s certainly well worth the wait.

    Robyn's new self-titled release is in stores and online now.

    For those that need catching up, Robyn was the bridge between the “urban” teenage girl singer wave of 1994-1995 (Monica, Aaliyah, and Brandy) and the “pop” teenage girl singer wave of 1998-1999 (Britney, Christina, Jessica). Hits like “Show Me Love” and “Do You Know (What it Takes)” were frothy and poppy (are Scandinavians born with a gene that allows them to make hooky pop songs?), but Robyn’s singing voice was powerful enough to give her some R&B respect. Her debut album, “Robyn is Here”, was successful enough, eventually selling a million copies. However, about a year and a half after Robyn’s debut album was released, Jive Records put out Britney Spears’ debut, and Robyn was promptly forgotten about. If you get similar songs and give them to a pretty but talented cipher who’s willing to sing them while prancing around half-naked, why take a chance with someone who might exert a little artistic tension?

    Anyway, Robyn retreated from the American music scene as quickly as she’d gotten there, returning to her homeland and releasing music that was well-received throughout Europe but never released in the States. A song called “Konichiwa Bitches” got some indie/hipster love about three years ago, and it set the stage for Robyn’s return as a slightly edgier, but still pop-friendly American recording artist. “Robyn” is actually a compilation of sorts, mixing new cuts with songs that have been out abroad for a couple of years, but it still holds together as a cohesive album. Think of it as “FutureSex/LoveSounds”, only with balls.

    “Balls” is the operative word here, as Robyn spends a great deal of this album talking shit to the opposite sex. The aforementioned “Konichiwa Bitches” is the greatest Missy Elliott song Missy Elliott never made, with Robyn rapping playfully about how hot she is: “Right now you’re probably thinking ‘how she get in them jeans’/Well I’m gifted, all natural and bursting at the seams”. It’s full of attitude, but you get the impression that Robyn’s just having fun with it. “Handle Me” sounds a bit like the Ne-Yo/Stargate/”Irreplaceable” sound that’s infiltrated the radio over the past two years, but Robyn’s emasculating lyrics have a bit more bite than Beyonce’s (wait, she didn’t write that one).

    “Be Mine” proves that a great melody is a great melody, whether performed as a more upbeat dance/pop tune (like on this album) or a somber piano ballad (like on the aforementioned EP). “Crash & Burn Girl” is a heater guaranteed to light up dance floors worldwide and also finds Robyn rocking a very Prince-like falsetto, and “Anytime You Like” is an ethereal beat ballad that sounds strangely sensual, considering she’s singing about a breakup. Guess that’s something else she learned from the Purple One.

    Not quite sure why the hipster crowd has latched on to this album-it pretty much defines what pop is right now. It’s danceable, youthful and fun, and manages to take everything artists like Fergie and Gwen Stefani try to do and do it correctly. If you remember Robyn’s first American album fondly, it’s probably time to head down to ye olde record store and welcome back an old friend. If you’re only hearing of Robyn for the first time and want to hear some quality pop music, pick this one up and thank me later.

  • Memory Bliss: P.M. Dawn

    (I guess I should also thank them for providing the name of this column.)

    To most folks, the duo of P.M. Dawn were but a blip on the radar screen of music. If you remember them, you do for one of several reasons:

    *A couple of their major hits used fairly obvious samples of major pop hits – Set Adrift on Memory Bliss sampled Spandau Ballet’s True and Looking Through Patient Eyes relied heavily on George Michael’s Father Figure (Michael returned the favor by allowing them to remix his 1993 mashup of Seal’s Killer with The Temptations’ Papa Was a Rolling Stone). This was a few years before Puff Daddy made wholesale jacking cool and at least PM Dawn had the talent to structure new melodies and choruses out of the pre-existing songs.

    *Prince Be (Attrell Cordes, the duo’s rapping half) was a big dude.

    *KRS-ONE notoriously tossed Be off a stage at a 1992 party for MTV’s T-Money in retaliation for a comment made in Details magazine (“KRS-ONE says he is a teacher, but a teacher of what?”)

    However, a simple listen to P.M. Dawn’s music reveals an adventurous spirit and an ear for melody that goes far beyond the reach of the average hip-hop act and even reaches beyond most pop acts. Be wasn’t a bad emcee, but he was just as good-if not better-as a singer. Even if his reposeful vocal stylings (he was like a hip-hop Bob Ross, utilizing a sleepy near-monotone when rapping that got slightly more animated when singing) didn’t sit well with you, songs like 1995’s Downtown Venus , 1992’s I’d Die Without You (one of the decade’s best songs, unjustly buried on the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy flick Boomerang) and 1993’s More Than Likely (a ballsy duet with Boy George) proved him to be a very good pop craftsman, even if his stuff was just a little too left-of-center to keep the duo in the mainstream limelight.

    The duo (Attrell’s little brother Jarrett served as the duo’s DJ) recorded four increasingly interesting albums over an eight year period, culminating in the truly bizarre semi-concept father-to-son album Dearest Christian, I’m So Very Sorry for Bringing You Here, Love Dad. As weird as the concept is, it’s an excellent pop album, with a chilled out tone that presaged (and would fit perfectly next to) acts like Zero 7.

    While I think only a Greatest Hits album is available on record store shelves these days, their entire four album discography is available digitally, and the New Jersey-based Prince Be still performs across the country, most recently opening for fellow 90s sensations Boyz II Men. Not sure whether any new music is on the horizon, but PM Dawn’s pop smarts and experimental leanings made them one of the best artists you weren’t paying attention to (at least beyond their hits) during the decade.

     

    (The video for “I’d Die Without You”, one of the best singles of the Nineties)

    1995’s Fantasia’s Confidential Ghetto is an extremely weird mashup of Prince’s 1999, Once in a Lifetime by The Talking Heads, and Harry Nilsson’s Coconut. Whoever thought of jamming these songs together deserves a medal of some sort.

    “I’ll Be Waiting for You” is from the same album (1995’s “Jesus Wept”)…good stuff.