Missy Elliot disperesed an aural assimilation agent called “Work It”. A supplementary visual agent broadcast through the entertainment network MTV was also employed.
Assimilation was effortless. Aural antidotes — what is usually called “rock ‘n’ roll” — were irrelevant.
Missy Elliott further dispersed the aural agent on the data module named Under Construction. Module saw penetration into millions of data playback components. Margin of success: significant, but flawed.
Accompanying agents on data module did not match “Work It” in effectiveness and memorability.
On Stardate -320898, Missy Elliott introduces This Is Not a Test! as an upgrade to data module Under Construction.
Missy Elliott scales back intra-track homilies, deploys adjunct perfomance units — what is called “collaborators” — clarifies themes of previous release.
Module This Is Not a Test! does not contain agent with an effectiveness factor comparable to “Work It”. Agent “Pass the Dutch”, released prior to introduction of This Is Not a Test!, achieves comparritive torsal response but inflitration into memory engrams shows degradation over time.
Lack of comparable effective agent is irrelevant.
Overall focus and cohesion of module This Is Not a Test! compensates for any single agent. Module compensates for flaws of last release.
One of Nine Binary Adjunct to Unimatrix Zero — obsolete designation: Timbaland — provides stronger sonic backdrop over which Missy Elliott deems playas, fake weaves and skinny bi-yaaches insignificant.
Margin of success: closer to perfection.
The following agents contain distinctive characteristics contributing to the whole:
“Ragtime Interlude” serves as respite to overall synthetic timbres.
“Toyz Interlude” appeals to prurient interest by charting errogenous effectives of mechanical aide compared to actual mating rituals.
“Don’t Be Cruel” quotes Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s “Push It” without resorting to parody.
This Is Not a Test! achieves further assimilation. Other data modules are irrelevant. Antidotes to Missy Elliott agents — ineffective.
It’s tough trying to quantify why one album is more likeable than another, especially in a genre in which I’m not familiar.
How is it I can still listen to TLC’s 3D but not give 3LW’s A Girl Can Mack a second chance? And how is it Mary J. Blige, who’s never been mentioned on this site before, got review space over Alicia Keys, who has?
Perhaps it’s because Blige is everywhere nowadays.
Right at the start of Missy Elliott’s This Is Not a Test! — wh00t! There she is. About three tracks into Sting’s Sacred Love — wh00t! There she is again.
And with a voice as powerful and expressive as Blige’s, it’s tough not to take notice.
Love & Life is the only album from Blige to which I’ve listened. As such, it’s the best album from Blige to which I’ve listened.
Thematically, the songs on Love & Life don’t exactly break new literary ground.
Girl meets boy. Girl pledges devotion to boy. Boy does girl wrong. Girl gets hers back.
But here’s a case where the storyteller is better than the story.
When Blige delivers her plea “Don’t Go”, it’s enough for me to say, “I’m staying right here, babygirl.” (Never mind the fact we both bat for the same team.)
When she ruminates on the idea of “Friends”, you almost wanna kick the shit out of the duplicitous sonofabitch who broke Mary’s heart.
And when she vows to cook and clean for you on “Ooh!”, you almost expect to find her waiting at home for you.
Blige’s plain-spoken — and surprisingly grammatically correct — lyrics won’t reveal their sincerity on paper. For that, you’d need to listen to the woman herself.
And don’t let the celebrity (or notoriety?) of Sean “Puffy AmiYumi” Combs interfere with your enjoyment of Love & Life. Dude may be a heel for convincing Sting to let him mangle his biggest hit, but his production work on Love & Life does right by Miss Mary.
The samples of harps and guitars at the start of “Don’t Go”, the ominous bass on “Press On”, that bizarre loop underpinning “When We” — all nice touches that wonderfully underscore Blige’s voice.
So maybe that’s it — why an album makes a connection in a unfamiliar genre. Sing it with conviction, and it doesn’t matter what the story is.
I really wouldn’t have understood this album at the time of its release.
In fact, I actively avoided rap back in 1988, when N.W.A. unleashed Straight Outta Compton on an unprepared world. The cool kids in high school listened to rap, and with my Kronos Quartet tapes playing in my Walkman, I was not a cool kid.
But what would have happened had I been subjected to the unabashed rage of Straight Outta Compton?
Would it have spoken to my teen-aged need for rebellion? Would I have been drawn to it unwittingly, not fully comprehending the bigger socio-political underpinnings inherent in its content?
Most likely not.
So it’s at the age of 3x when Straight Outta Compton not only makes sense but downright reels me in.
This shit is fucking rock ‘n’ roll.
It taps into the soul of discontent. It speaks plainly and brutally. It’s loud, obnoxious and everything your mother told you stay away from.
No wonder it sold big.
But this kind of high praise would never have come from me back in 1988. Hell, it wouldn’t have come from me in 1998. It took a little bit of my own life experience to understand the anger directed at the racial divide described in detail on the album.
No, I didn’t grow up in a gang neighborhood (although I have to say my old stead has really turned into a slum), and no, I have no immediate family getting harrassed by police, dealing drugs or causing shit.
If anything, it’s something of a big stretch to link Ice Cube’s indignation toward civil authority and my own anger at the racism internalized by gay Asian men, devaluing their own masculinity.
(I don’t need no fucking white boyfriend, bitch.)
But the rage speaks to me. The vitriol speaks to me.
Never mind the fact that as a studio work, Straight Outta Comptom stands up, it still sounds imaginative more than 15 years later.
In hindsight, it’s easy to see how the aforementioned unprepared world couldn’t see the forest for the proverbial trees.
The lyrics of “Gangsta Gangsta” are indeed violent and perhaps gratuitous. Thing is, I didn’t notice until I actually tried to visualize Ice Cube’s words in my head.
To someone who has never had cause to express the kind of discontent (perhaps malcontent?) depicted in “Gangsta Gangsta”, N.W.A. would certainly come across as a menace to society.
And that may be Straight Outta Compton’s mixed legacy.
In their own way, the members of N.W.A. were journalists. They spoke to the reality of their surroundings.
But like all messages, the audience took from it what they wanted.
I have never had to live in the kind of urban environment that fueled the creation of Straight Outta Compton, but for some reason, I still feel it said something to me.
And that’s an important achievement to accomplish regardless of when it happens.
For all its assests as a classic album, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On still posseses one major flaw.
It stands alone.
No album (that I’ve encountered, at least) manages to weave all the contradictory elements Gaye brought together on What’s Going On.
Influenced by the social upheaval of the late 1960s and the sonic creativity of the Beatles, Gaye, who was unsatisfied with the trappings of pop success, wanted to produce something different.
After he threatened to leave Motown if boss Berry Gordy didn’t release What’s Going On, Gaye found himself with a hit album, which has since remained on numerous all-time greatest lists.
What’s Going On endures because Gaye injected a social conscience to the pop machinations of R&B without getting didactic.
He also expanded R&B’s breadth by demonstrating it too had the ability to be symphonic in scope. R&B need no longer be relegated to the three-minute pop song.
The title track serves as a kind of opening theme to the album. It’s also a convenient single, since the fade out at the end separated it from the rest of the album.
But starting with “What’s Happening Brother”, What’s Going On transforms into a 15-minute suite. Taken by themselves, the five contiguous tracks starting with “What’s Happening Brother” are lush, beautiful songs by their own right.
But woven together as a single entity, they become an emotional roller coaster of gravity and optimism, of unrest and hope.
In its wake, R&B artists have attempted to create a similar theatrical feel as What’s Going On — getting rid of pauses between tracks, tying together themes between songs.
But no other album has managed to replicate its social conscience. Gangsta rap may style itself as the voice of an urban conscience, but the genre possesses none of What’s Going On gentility or subtlety.
What’s Going On is an architechtural feat. Like Antonio Salieri’s lament in the film Amadeus, misplace one note, and the structure would fall.
Gaye slows down the momentum of the album with the last three tracks. At 7 1/2 minutes, “Right On” is big in and of itself, while “Wholly Holy” does a fine job of setting up the album’s final definitive statement, “Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler)”.
What’s Going On is a towering masterpiece, influencial as it is enduring.
And that’s the problem — the album makes you hungry for more, for a musical experience with both heart and mind, painstaking in its detail as it is free in execution.
“Background music” isn’t usually meant as a compliment.
Here at Musicwhore.org, any album that can be considered “background music” goes through the Music for Airports litmus test — if it sounds good when you’re actively ignoring it, it passes the test.
A number of albums have been subjected to this test, ranging from Radiohead’s Kid A(!) to Tift Merritt’s Bramble Rose(?).
So, too, must Kazafumi Kodama’s U.S. debut, Stars, be subjected to this test. (The album was originally released in Japan in 2000.)
It’s pretty obvious from the first few listens that Kazafumi’s non-descript but still intricate instrumentals may not fare well upon close scrutiny.
In fact, there are all sorts of devils in the details that may leave choosier listeners choosing to switch the CD. I don’t know if Kazafumi realizes, but some synthesizers out there actually do a good job of sampling strings.
When played in the background with few other distractions, Stars reveals its beauty.
Although categorized as dub, the album feels closer to electronica. The only human instrument on the entire recording is Kazafumi’s distant trumpet (and UA’s resonant voice on one track.)
In fact, Kazafumi weaves himself into the texture of his music — don’t mistake Stars for jazz; Kazafumi isn’t the showcase.
And here’s where it’s best to relegate this album to the background — listen too closely, and the humanity of Kazafumi’s trumpet feels at odds with the heavy hand of his synthetic orchestra.
The homogenous nature of the album doesn’t particularly lend itself to citing any stand out tracks. “Gekkoo Waltz” is distinctive primarily because UA sings on it.
Stars is a fine album, but in terms of passing the Music for Airports test, it does too good a job.
Did you know? The origins of dub can be traced to the 7-inch single.
Reggae artists would record a song for side A, then record an instrumental version for side B. The side B “dub” versions often employed psychedelic recording techniques. Eventually, this tricked-out form of reggae branched out on its own.
And here I was about to rag on Dry & Heavy for filling its 2000 album Full Contact with a lot of repeated tracks.
In fact, the dub versions of three tracks — “Dawn is Breaking”, “Love Explosion” and “Less Is More” — follow directly after the songs themselves. None of this stashing-remixes-at-the-end-of-track-listing business.
It also demonstrates just how closely Dry & Heavy relates to its roots — this band is serious about its reggae tradition.
Dry & Heavy would eventually record a more ambitious album with 2002’s From Creation, but on Full Contact, the Audio Active side project already had a full sense of what it could accomplish.
And its foremost strength is songwriting. The first few tracks of the album could have been rock, R&B, polka — it doesn’t matter.
“Dawn Is Breaking” has a melody well suited for Likkle Mai’s singular voice. The opening hook on “Knife” is unforgettable, while “Rumble” is just plain infectous.
But oddly enough, Dry & Heavy’s emulation of its influences made it distinct. This band doesn’t dilute reggae by mixing it up with other genres — it sticks to the low, low bass, the cracking drums, the cavernous reverb.
Although singers Mai and Inoue Ao leave a significant stamp on the album, the real star is producer Uchida Naoyuki.
Uchida plays the studio console as expertly as any member of the band plays an instrument. Instruments weave in and out on each track, echoing and thundering at precise moments.
In live shows, Dry & Heavy counts on the virtuosity of its instrumentalists. In the studio, it’s Uchida who creates the palette and paints with it.
Take “The Smoker’s Cough” — as an instrumental, it’s all right, but the real treat is how Uchida controls the elements of the track.
Full Contact is a good album on the strength of its writing alone, but the passioned performances and beautiful production bolsters it to a superlative status.
Although heralded at the time as a sign of a band coming into its own, Dry & Heavy’s 2000 album Full Contact was still considered the work of a spin-off group.
Likkle Mai and Inoue Ao occupied the album with their sizable, magnetic voices, but they weren’t even credited as full-time members of the band.
In 2002, Dry & Heavy released From Creation and with it, announced to the world the side project was an entity of its own.
First and foremost was the emphasis on songs. Previous Dry & Heavy albums consisted of a few songs with dub versions following straight after. From Creation, however, contains 11 tracks of original material (plus one cover).
The group has grown from a two-member unit to a seven-piece ensemble, with Mai and Inoue taking their rightful places front and center.
If a band can become more of itself as time progresses, From Creation finds Dry & Heavy edging closer to its ultimate.
After the rousing, instrumental opening of “Reverse Again”, Mai dominates the first half of the album. Her voice soars toward the end of “New Creation”, and it’s tough to resist her imperative to “Show a Fine Smile”.
When Dry & Heavy venture into its trademark dub, studio wizard Uchida Naoyuki flexes his muscle. “Strictly Baby” and “Kombu” shows the resident producer crafting some engaging psychedelic timbres.
Uchida and Inoue reach the crux of their abilities on a cover of the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm”. Inoue does nothing to evoke the ghost of Jim Morrison, making the song entirely his own.
And while reggae arrangements of hit songs are often risky propositions, Uchida highlights dub’s roots in psychedelia with his reverb-drenched production. It’s respectful while singular.
When Mai and Inoue get out of the way, the rest of the band can solo like nobody’s business. Guitarist The K gets a workout on “The Dog and Chicken”, while “Reverse Again” features a nice interplay between The K and keyboardist Toike Mitsuhiro.
Reggae music can get mired in its own limitations musically and thematically, but Dry & Heavy’s writing is catchy enough to rise above them. “Bright Shining Star” possesses reggae’s usual optimism, but regardless of its theme, the song has a damn fine melody.
Dry & Heavy deserve its reputation as an internationally reknowned reggae group, but From Creation is an album strong enough to transcend the genre. It’s a good album because it has good songs, and the band’s confidence shows.
When I listen to Garnet Crow, I’m always left with the sense of wanting more.
Not more because the band’s music leaves me hungry, but more because there’s seems to be something missing.
Certainly Nakamura Yuri’s resonant voice is pleasing to hear for 45 minutes straight. And certainly that voice is usually delivering something tuneful and subtly crafted.
But musically, Garnet Crow misses a lot of opportunities.
The band’s third album, Crystallize ~Kimi to Iu Hikari~, doesn’t feel as rushed as its previous release, even though both share the unfortunate habit of stashing all the singles at the beginning of the track listing.
Still, the remaining tracks stand on their own. “Crystal Goods” has a whimisical feel. The waltz meter of “Marionette Fantasia” evokes all the right poignant cues. Nothing really feels like filler.
And yet …
Garnet Crow doesn’t seem comfortable exaggerating. The band’s music tends to reach climaxes that aren’t terribly climactic, or follow contours that don’t have much shape.
And the band’s melodies all possess an inherent drama its arrangements don’t employ.
That beautiful high note Nakamura hits at the end of the opening track “Kyoo no Kimi to Ashita wo Matsu” could have benefited from a steeper curve.
The deep, chugging guitars on “Nogare no Machi” could afford to be much harder. The song’s dark nature would definitely accomodate it.
If “Spiral” were a Do As Infinity song, it would be a lot louder. And if “Only Stay” were an Utada Hikaru song, it would end up sounding a lot like “Uso no Mitai Naroo”.
Maybe Garnet Crow needs a different set of studio equipment. Maybe the band needs a producer other than itself.
Because left to its own devices, Garnet Crow don’t squeeze out nearly as much as it could out of its songs.
Which is something of pity because Garnet Crow’s pop writing isn’t all that bad. In fact, it isn’t all that pandering.
But there is an unshakeable homogeniety that indicates the band doesn’t want to paint outside the lines too much.
Creative growth is something not to be feared. Where have we heard that before?
I finally figured out how Do As Infinity pulled the wool over my eyes for all these years.
Just when I’m about to write the band off, they’ll record one song — just one song — to delude myself into thinking they’re just the greatest thing happening in pop music.
The last time out, it was “Koosooryodan”, a track so unabashedly hard, it was barely pop. Before that, it was “Fukai Mori”. And “Raven”? Still a great song.
But with the band’s fifth album, Gates of Heaven, the cover is blown. All the nagging suspicions that were quashed in previous Musicwhore.org reviews come front and center.
Do As Infinity hasn’t really done anything different since day one, has it?
A lot of the songs on Gates of Heaven can find direct descendents from previous Do As Infinity albums, most of them alot better than what’s offered now.
“Hiiragi”? Try “Desire”. “Honjitsu wa Saiten Nari”? Try “Summer Days”. “Blank”? Try “Shinjitsu no Shi” and “Painful”. “Mahoo no Kotoba”? We got your “Holiday” and “We are.” right here. “Weeds”? The only thing separating it from “Week!” is a “k” and an exclamation point.
The level to which Gates of Heaven offers no surprises is criminal, especially given the band’s penchant for juggling pop and rock. Offering songs as divergent as “Summer Days” and “Week!” is great. Writing more songs in the exact style of “Summer Days” and “Week!” is not.
About the most daring thing Do As Infinity does on Gates of Heaven is employ some reggae on “Azayaka na Hana”.
And to think Owatari Ryo and Van Tomiko have been getting away with this over the course of five albums now …
The lustre of Van’s voice is still very much in tact, and Owatari can solo like anybody’s business. It’s just tiring to hear it on the same set of songs over and over again.
Creative growth is something not to be feared. But if Album Number Five is any indication, Do As Infinity is pretty much stuck.
A content analysis of reviews written in U.S. publications regarding Puffy AmiYumi indicate the Japanese pop duo is just the right antidote needed to ail rock music cynicism.
What. Ever.
Truth is, Puffy aren’t so much anti-idols as much as they are idols for people who hate idols. The former term would indicate some degree of overt antagonism against the concept of idolism. The latter term suits a situation accomodating subversion of idol ideals.
In other words, Puffy ain’t no rock band — they’re a pair of idols.
The good news is Nice., the band’s third album in the US (its 10th in Japan), finally lives up to the press lavshed onto Ami and Yumi when they first splashed down stateside.
Producer Okuda Tamio may be reknowned for his work back home, but with Puffy, all he did was dress the pair in pastiche. On Nice., Puffy ropes Jellyfish’s Andy Sturmer into the producer’s chair, and he delivers a genuine, harder sound.
The change is evident right from the start. “Planet Tokyo” unleashes a bank of guitars that would make Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo proud. It’s easy to imagine some post-teen male singer whining his way through “Invisible Tomorrow”, but it sounds far better fronted by Puffy.
“Your Love Is a Drug” dabbles a bit in the vintage influences of Puffy’s past but keeps its feet squarely in the now with that aforementioned big guitar sound.
When the band does indulge in evoking past decades, it doesn’t sound as thin or forced as on Spike or An Illustrated History.
“Sayonara” steals the best bits from the Byrds, not the whole damn thing. “Thank You” has a nice psychedelic feel but doesn’t lose its sense of wonder.
In fact, Puffy sounds best on such slower songs as the Beatles-like “Angel of Love”, or the country-influenced “Shiawase”.
There are some missteps — “Long Beach Nightmare” is a bit too perky, while “Tokyo Nights” is both insanely catchy and infinitely cheesy.
Still, it’s nice to see Puffy finally deserve the adore it initially generated. Nice. is a confident and appropriate title for this album.