You might have not been paying attention, but The Roots have been up there with The White Stripes, Radiohead, and Kanye as the most consistent artists of the past decade. With thought-provoking lyrics and rock-solid funk grooves, this is the kind of hip-hop that lots of people have either forgotten existed or never knew existed in the first place. While most of the attention behind the band gets focused on drummer ?uestlove (either because of his striking look or because of his ease with a quote), rapper Black Thought is just as important to the group, and has quietly revealed himself to be one of the most unsung emcees in hip-hop history. Plus, the man, like fellow emcee greats Andre 3000 and Slick Rick (sorta), can sing too! Their new album, “How I Got Over” was originally scheduled for a summer release, but has gotten bumped into October. Check out their performance of the title track on Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show, where they also serve as the house band. Hopefully this exposure results in a well-deserved, successful album.
Tag: ?uestlove
-
Maroon 5 Gets the Cut & Paste Treatment on “Call & Response”
Remember, like, 20 years ago, when remix albums were cool? Starting with Madonna’s You Can Dance in 1987, just about every major pop artist put out an album of dance remixes of their biggest hits. There was Phil Collins’ 12″ers, Bobby Brown’s Dance…Ya Know It!, Paula Abdul’s Shut Up and…OK, I think you get the picture.While most of the aforementioned albums are listenable, there’s not much in the way of lasting value. However, Maroon 5 is setting out to change that long-standing perception of remix albums with Call & Response. The pop/rock/soul hybrid (fronted by nasally-voiced seductor Adam Levine) collected a team of producers as eclectic as the band itself, spanning the genres from hip-hop to indie rock to dance music, and asked them to tackle selections from the band’s two studio albums. The results are varied, but there definitely more interesting experiments here than there are failures.
The sleazy If I Never See Your Face Again (which is great in it’s original Prince/Talking Heads-esque original version) gets a double makeover. Paul Oakenfold turns the song into a twirling house anthem that retains the sexual tension between Levine and guest vocalist Rihanna (also proving to me that I can deal with modern dance music as long as there’s vocals and melody involved) while Swizz Beatz turns it into a hip-hop party anthem, sampling (and keeping fresh) the well-worn Take Me to the Mardi Gras beat (which you may recognize as Run-DMC’s Peter Piper). Both versions work, as does Mark Ronson’s sinister remix of Wake Up Call. The Amy Winehouse producer gives the original version some extra tension by adding a guest vocal from Mary J. Blige. ?uestlove smooths out Sunday Morning so that it sounds like Sunday Morning. You can picture yourself taking a lazy drive to nowhere with this song in the background.
Strangely for a remix album, the slower songs work best in their new versions. Deerhoof turns the arena ballad Goodnight Goodnight into a weird indie rock/electro hybrid-kinda like The Postal Service meets Death Cab for Cutie (obviously with Levine standing in for Ben Gibbard). DJ Premier handles the slinky Secret, and even with turntable scratches and a typically thumping hip-hop beat, the song loses none of its’ seductive quality. Even songs I didn’t like originally (or grew to dislike after extensive plays) regain their flavor. DJ Quik turns Shiver into a greasy funk workout, while The Neptunes’ (who have restored some goodwill to their name over the past two days) turn the pedestrian pop ballad She Will Be Loved into another one of their hazy synthesizer jams they’ve become famous for.
Certain matchups, however, just don’t work. The funky Makes Me Wonder gets slowed down dramatically by Just Blaze (whose work is usually flawless) and the lowered tempo and piano intro (which sounds like the theme from “The Young and the Restless”) just doesn’t work against the song’s cocky lyrics. Another one you might wanna skip is the Cool Kids’ remix of Harder to Breathe, which sports a plodding, murky musical background. I’m still on the fence about David Banner’s 808-heavy remix of Wake Up Call, but the more I listen, the more I like-well, except for Banner’s unnecessary guest verse.
I dig this album quite a bit, but then again I’m a Maroon 5 fan. If you’re just discovering the band, this is obviously not the place you wanna start. However, if you’re one of those folks with eclectic musical tastes and don’t mind a little hip-hop mixed in with your pop/rock, with a little hi-NRG dance thrown in (and a little sprinkling of indie goodness), then you might want to give Call & Response a shot.
-
The New Music Revue: Al Green’s "Lay it Down"
There is a short list of singers for whom I will spout the cliche “I’d gladly listen to him/her sing the phone book!”. There’s Marvin Gaye. Stevie Wonder. Michael McDonald (I see you laughing, but the proof lies in the fact that I’ve bought his last two hellaciously awful albums). And then there’s Al Green.
In several conversations I’ve had about who the greatest soul singer of all time is, Al’s name has been bandied about, and I can’t say I can put up a solid argument against. His heyday predated my existence, so I only got to experience songs like “Let’s Stay Together” and “I’m Still in Love with You” as revered classics, but even the gospel-flavored material he scored occasional hits with in the Eighties and Nineties was well-performed, even if musically the songs weren’t the equal of his classic Hi Records period. Hey, how many folks do you know that can sing the shit out of an Al B Sure! production?
Over the past few years, Al’s reconnected with his pre-grits bath past, first by collaborating with peak-era producer Willie Mitchell on the well-received “I Can’t Stop”, then by releasing the solid follow-up “Everything’s OK”. His latest album, “Lay it Down”, attempts to merge his past with his present, and does so quite wonderfully. It’s not one of those albums that will make you jump up and slap your momma across the forehead, but you will marvel at the fact that the man still can induce tingles in the skin forty years after his recording debut.
Roots drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson and right-hand man James Poyser man the boards for this release, and they thankfully don’t turn The Reverend into a “boom bap” or even a “neo-soul” guy. They got a crackin’ band together and made a classic-sounding Al Green album. It may be a slight step down from Al’s classic material, but given the current soul music climate, I’ll take it.
There are guests sprinkled throughout the set, but Thompson and Poyser wisely don’t turn “Lay it Down” into a Santana-esque star-studded collabothon. Anthony Hamilton (the modern-day singer best equipped to carry on Al’s legacy) provides the chorus vocals on the pillow-soft title track and pops up again to duet on the punchy “You Got the Love I Need”, Corinne Bailey Rae provides a nice female counterpoint to Al’s sultry growl on “Take Your Time”, and “Stay With Me (By The Sea)” finds Al and John Legend singing over one of those grooves that will instantly transport you to a lawn chair in some backyard on a Sunday afternoon.
Those four tracks stand out the most because of the guest vocalists, but that’s not to say that the Reverend couldn’t hold this album down on his own. “What More Do You Want From Me” suffers from a case of oversimplified lyrics (actually, the whole album does, but who cares about lyrics when Al Green is singing?), but it’s another one of those back-porch grooves. And have I yet mentioned the man’s voice?? He can stutter and speak gibberish like he does on “Too Much” and still command the listener’s attention, while melting female listeners’ panties along the way.
“Lay it Down”‘s surprise top ten debut has served notice that there is a market of people that love real soul music that is woefully under-catered to. With a Lifetime Achievement award from BET coming at the end of this month and a smattering of new fans who were very likely conceived (hell, at this point, their *parents* may have been conceived) to his music, it’s a very good time to be Al Green and he deserves every single accolade he and this album are receiving.
