Res - How I Do

MCA Records: 2001

Another 'out of my element' donation. I've a few of these in the pipeline but that's alright. Some of these artists, I sense they deserve whatever extra shine my little backwater blog can offer. Res wasn't an utter unknown, mind you, something of a staple in the Philly scene since the late '90s, even if she never quite got the same attention as oh-so many others from the region. She actually got her first break providing the chorus on the titular track on GZA's Beneath The Surface, which was enough to at least get the attention of another up-and-comer, producer Martin McKinney.

You've definitely heard his stuff, working with the likes of Drake, John Legend, and The Weeknd, including Starboy, in case you care. Yes, that track, with Daft Punk. Oh, the 'electronic music' connection goes even deeper. Well, maybe not that deep, but I do find it interesting that the lead single for Res' album featured a bunch of clubby remixes from Robbie Rivera, Guiseppe D, Bastone & Burnz, and DJ Encore. Ah, hm, Hed Kandi house and proggy anthems, for a Philly soul singer? Methinks something got twisted in the marketing of this album, which may explain why it did only marginal business for itself.

Honestly though, it could just be the dumb luck of timing, How I Do released when the urban scene was stacked for options. Hell, she was basically going against Destiny's Child's Survivor, Missy Elliot's Miss E... and Alicia Keys' Songs In A Minor. Good luck with that, yo'. No, this album was practically per-ordained to be a slow burner, one rediscovered after the fact, unearthed by connoisseurs of neo-soul a decade or two down the line. Maybe even get enough ground support for a vinyl reissue within our current year. Again, dumb luck of timing.

To my ears, Ms. Ballard has a similar street-soul swagger to her sound reminiscent of Lauren Hill, though as usual, I'm more interested in the musical side of these releases than the actual singing. Opener Golden Boys features grand string sections with a brisk breaks rhythm, while They Say Vision (the original!) goes more loopy with its backing instrumentation, which I guess makes sense why it got all those house remixes. 700 Mile Situation, The Hustler, and I've Known The Garden get real deep in the funky vibes. Ice King gets forlorn. Sittin' Back wouldn't sound out of place cranked from the subs of a lowrider. Let Love almost treads near trip-hop's domain with out-of-tune backing synths – must be that Cure influence. And secret song Say It Anyway (yes, it has one of those) 'rawks' out.

A decent amount of variety, then, though never really pushing any boundaries either. If anything, How I Do sounds like an offshoot of that really famous conglomerate out of Philly, The Roots. Mostly traditionalist, but has enough spunk to stick out for the time it plays. Jeez, Roots and Hill as my obligatory namedrops? What more do you need?

Parental Advisory - Ghetto Street Funk

MCA Records: 1993

The notion that Atlanta hip-hop didn't break out until OutKast and Goodie Mob dropped their debut albums is so ingrained in public discourse, folks don't realize that's not quite accurate. True, Southernplayisticadillacmuzik and Soul Food put the Georgian city on the map, even rescuing The South from general assumptions it was nothing but dirty bass music. There was an act that beat them to it though, dropping an album before those two LPs, also produced by Organized Noize, all part of the same Dungeon Family conglomerate. Yet I never see any namedrops for Parental Advisory (P.A.).

It's not like they were completely unknown, having some minor chart success at the turn of the century when southern hip-hop started its national ascent. For all intents, Mello, Big Reece, and K.P. should be on the tongues of far more people than 'those in the know'. Was the shadow cast by OutKast and Goodie Mob just too large to emerge from? Perhaps, but there may be another reason for P.A.'s Ghetto Street Funk going so overlooked when talking up seminal Atlanta rap albums: it doesn't really sound like a southern record.

Which is understandable, the 808-heavy, dirty south style the dominate sound around, and still frowned upon by the Very Important markets on the East and West coasts. If you wanted to come in with something more respectable in the early '90s, you had to sound like those regions, and that's what Ghetto Street Funk does, Organized Noize coming in hard with the jazz sample-heavy, combative Eastcoast boom, almost any trace of their Georgian origin absent. As for the rappers, Big Reece sounds like a heavier, baritone Chuck D, while Mello comes off like an aggressive Slick Rick, and both bring plenty of energy to the beats, keeping you at least engaged with their flows, if not their lyrical content. (I don't think K.P. does much, if any rapping on this album, mostly sticking to DJ scratching and such – it was still an important component to early '90s hip-hop!)

Topic-wise, P.A. mostly stick to the usual gangsta rap tropes, going on about how hard they are, how hard the street life is, how hard they'll hit back at any other crews that try to step up (or something). It's hard denying a lot of this can come of cliche, and may have back when no one knew much of anything about Atlanta hip-hop. Like, I had no idea of their origin, just knowing them from their one single on the CB4 soundtrack. That it would take OutKast's more laid-back vibe (and Organized Noize stripping the aggro back for that duo) to truly establish a distinct southern style cannot be overstated.

Thus Ghetto Street Funk remains an underground gem, stuck at a crossroad of changing trends. I can't say it deserved more recognition for what it does, but it does it as well as any early gangsta rap album out of the east. Worth a listen, if you fancy the stuff.

GZA/Genius - Beneath The Surface

MCA Records: 1999

It was an impossible task. Like, has anyone in the history of hip-hop managed it? I won't deny I haven't heard every rap album ever, with some acts and artists glaring (deliberate?) holes in my accumulated knowledge of that scene. If the self-proclaimed 'Genius' couldn't make the transition from underground critical darling to the mainstream however, what hope have any other, I ask thee? Even the full might of the Wu-Tang Clan had a shaky crossover with Wu-Tang Forever, while only Method Man managed anything considered a successful solo career by that point (maybe ODB too, though more for features). And now the Wu member most known for having the deepest, thought-provoking lyrics was having a stab at commercial success too? Oh dear, this won't go well, will it?

Not that it was a deliberate attempt at crossover success on Mr. Grice's part. Indeed, the very title of GZA's third second album is a not-so subtle analogy at looking for the depth of lyrical content beneath a shiny surface. Unfortunately, the presentation of this album comes off rather muddled, such that the shiny surface is too reflective and distracting. You feel like you should be getting some deeper content out of it, but who can tell when the production is this crisp and clean compared to Liquid Swords. And if we wanted music like that, the 'Puff' Daddy Era was still burning hot (though just about exhausting the last of its fuel). Throw in oddly placed 'skits' of benign-sounding but insidiously predatory corporate ads, and the resultant album is one with good tracks but no flow, ruining much replay value. Despite the title's implication, what you hear is really all you get.

Beneath The Surface provides a perfect example in its opening salvo. Amplified Sample is a solid club banger to kick things off, followed by the moodier, street-tales titular cut featuring string loops right out of a 'Shaolin' slums scene. Then, two skits, followed by another club banger in Crash Your Crew. Rinse, repeat, and it doesn't feel like I'm getting the same deep insights and clever wordplay as Liquid Swords anymore. Much less the classic RZA production either, mostly stepping back while his assortment of proteges take over the console (Mathematics, Arabian Knight, Inspectah Deck, others). Nor are there many members and affiliates of the Wu making guest spots either (Masta Killa, Method Man, and Killah Priest the most prominent of the bunch). All par for the course when it comes to this era of Wu-Tang solo projects, true, but all reasons folks consider these years the start of the Clan's decline.

If anything, Beneath The Surface cemented those hushed whispers into general discourse, what with it failing to fulfill the hype expected of it. And despite multiple tries at hearing more beneath its surface, my impression of the album hasn't changed in two decades. Maybe I'm just too dumb, but my thoughts aren't uncommon. Still, d'at building bass in High Price, Small Reward tho'!

The Oak Ridge Boys - Greatest Hits

MCA Records: 1980

Hey-ho, Past-Peoples, 2073 Sykonee in your brain again, with a less pretentious greetings - Sykonee Prime tells me it's off-putting for some, making me sound like a smug Future Man. Not sure how that works, as I'm still the same guy from the here and now, just with extra decades worth of outlook and experience. And the things I've seen, you wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the Shoulder Of Orion. C-Beams glittering in the dark at Tannhauser Gate. No, wait, those aren't my memories, they belong to someone else. Can't recall who at the moment, but I'm sure it'll come back to me.

No, many of my recent memories consist of golf. Yeah, yeah, make your 'old man' jokes, but there's a very logical reason for it: golf is one of the few 'sports' still allowed by the Atomic Brotherhood. The courses doubly serve as nature sanctuaries, see, so a lot of effort has been put into creating them. The wilds between civilization just aren't worth hiking through, what with rabid animals, feral forests, and crazed Muricans lurking about. Things didn't help when most of this continent's National Parks were sold off to foreign investors to pay off crippling debts (not that it saved the nations from splintering anyway). Within our sanctuary cities, however, we can maintain and control these 'parks', and get a good bit of exercise in the process whacking little balls over fields of beige and green. And those little flags will always give us hope striving towards a better future.

Okay, enough sports talk. I'm here to review Oak Ridge Boys albums, though in this case, it's another compilation, this time an honest-to-God Greatest Hits option. In this particular release's case, however, it's a rather amusing offering. For one, despite being a gospel group for decades at this point, it was a right rarity their music was rounded up for compilation duty (that'd significantly change in the ensuing years). Once The Oak Ridge Boys started making country music for a wider audience outside their core gospel demographic, their singles started charting too, often hitting the Top 5 mark in the process. They were four albums deep in this new direction when the Nauty-Eighties hit, so a Greatest Hits package seemed ideal to catch folks up. No one could have predicted their actual biggest hits would quickly follow though, this Greatest Hits collection now hilariously incomplete if you're in need of a quick introduction to the group.

For those who grew with The Oak Ridge Boys through their pure gospel era, the switch to songs about Trying To Love Two Women and Leaving Louisiana In Broad Daylight had to be a jarring transition. There's still nods to loving relationships (You're The One, Dream On), but also the tumultuous times too (Cryin' Again, Y'all Come Back Saloon). And nary a word of Jesus anywhere, though plenty of string sections, in that vintage Nauty-Seventies country stylo. Reminds me of Kenny Rodgers concerts off the shoulder of Orion.

The Oak Ridge Boys - American Dreams

MCA Records: 1989

Greetings, Past-Peoples, I am 2073 Sykonee. Yes, the same writer/reviewer/critic/knob that usually takes up space on this antiquated blooger, but from “The F-U-U-UTUR-R-RE”, as some so quaintly put it. Sykonee Prime made use of his time-dimension machine to take a jaunt forward for once, and despite some really wacky paradoxes even Doc Rick Brown, The Schwifty-Bitch would have trouble explaining, approached I to learn of what developments had gone down in electronic music. I was willing to tell himself this, but he was quickly fascinated by the ponderous amount of social-net music from The Oak Ridge Boys instead. Why them, I asked myself, to which I told me, “They're one of the few officially sanctioned acts by the Atomic Brotherhood.” Young-Blood Me was of course confused – what did I expect from skipping over so much history?

Without getting too over-written, The Oak Ridge Boys are allowed due to their association with the nuclear research base near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, starting out in the Nauty-Forties as a country and gospel group that performed there. For seeing is believing that only music with relevance to our atomic overlords and saviours is deemed worthy of our advanced cochleas.

Sykonee Prime found that fascinating and asked me to return from my time to review some music from The Oak Ridge Boys. “Whatever I can find,” I did say, “for a specifically cheaply amount of course.” Oh, such a naive idea – I had no clue just how extensive a discography The Oak Ridge Boys – in all their iterations – does have. But sure, I can play with myself.

And so it is with my logical but impractical alphabetical approach to reviewing music, up first is American Dreams. This was the last LP The Oak Ridge Boys released in the Nauty-Eighties, a decade that was as commercially successful as they'd ever be (back when such things mattered). Not all was right with the group though, as their iconic 'mountain man' tenor singer William Golden was off on a solo career, replaced by bass player Steve Sanders instead. He has a definite tenor singing voice, but just look at him in that group photo. Doesn't he stand out at odds with that mullet? What was wrong with people of the Nauty-Eighties?

By this point, the boys from near Oak Ridge were settled into a comfortable country sound, the odd gospel harmony thrown in. There's peppy tunes like Cajun Girl and Don't Give Up, humorous sap like If I Was To Start Crying (spoiler: they do at the end), covers of Rod Stewart songs (In My Own Crazy Way), ditties penned by Joey Scarbury (famous for the theme song of the documentary The Greatest American Hero), creeper fantasies in Bed Of Roses, and the mandated Americana odes like An American Family, Turning For Home, and The American Dream. I forget, did every American home have a painting of Jesus In The Garden hanging on the wall? Me memory ain't what it used to be, you know.

The Tragically Hip - Up To Here

MCA Records: 1989

The world of Canadian rock was primed for a band like The Tragically Hip taking over its airwaves and hockey arenas. When they released their debut album in 1989, there wasn’t much in the way of competition. True, Bryan Adams was an international superstar, but aside from him, who were the Hip’s opposition? The age of Loverboy and Platinum Blonde was well on its way out by the end of the decade, and while Glass Tiger carried that ‘80s vibe a little longer, it definitely wasn’t a sound the alternative and college stations were anxiously pushing. Tom Cochrane & Red Rider had a few huge hits, but in typical Canadian Content fashion, was brutally overplayed (and still is). Rush was still around, though were by that point regarded as Legacy Musicians, not a group generating that New Hotness buzz. And of those up and comers that might compete with the Hip? Blue Rodeo quickly established themselves as band that might stick around, but what of the others? The Northern Pikes? Frozen Ghost? Haywire? The Jitters?? Pfft, like a band with a silly name like 54-40 would amount to anything.

Funny enough, all those groups were nominated for the Most Promising Group award at the Juno Awards (essentially the ‘rookie of the year’ trophy at Canada’s music gala), between 1987-1989. Bear in mind that The Tragically Hip was active since 1983, and released a seven-track self-titled EP in 1987 – the Junos should have been aware of them for all those shows. They did win that award, but in the year 1990, an astoundingly long time after-the-fact. For a band that would go on to be one of the most revered rock groups in Canadian history, one can’t help but chuckle at how overlooked they went in their early years. Maybe Canadians would have paid them more attention if Americans had?

Up To Here is about as strong an opening statement from an up-and-coming Canadian alternative rock band as you’ll likely ever hear. Right, the sample size is super-small, but considering some of the songs on here were live staples throughout the group’s history, they were clearly onto something long-lasting. How can one not be instantly sucked into small-town folksy charm with the opener Blow At High Dough, with the lyrics “They shot a movie once, in my home town; Everybody was in it, from miles around.”? The most famous tune off here, bluesy New Orleans Is Sinking, was often used as a testing point for new material, an extended mid-song jam session premiering future songs or letting lead-singer Gord Downie get his poetic muse on. Everything else ranges from acoustic ditties about escaped convicts (38 Years Old), to hard rockers about vengeful spouses (She Didn’t Know). You know, everyday people issues.

Like the band’s gestating popularity, Up To Here was a slow burner, garnering little chart action until the Hip properly blew up a few years later. It’s only their second album to gain Diamond status, and well deserved the wait.

The Tragically Hip - Trouble At The Henhouse

MCA Records: 1996

We always assumed they’d be around, consistently making affable alternative rock for the bars and the hockey stadiums and the mega-Canadian events. They’re like that reliable Mom-N-Pop deli shop in your neighborhood that could make a perfect pea and bacon soup, or sports store that still sold that one brand of curling broom. You never needed them in your life, but somehow felt enriched by having The Tragically Hip there, something to return to whenever the Want presented itself. And upon hearing of lead singer Gordon Downie’s terminal brain cancer, and how The Hip’s current tour would be their last with him, every Canadian suddenly found themselves in want of returning to the band’s music. Even those who’d only had passing interest (*cough*) tuned in for their final performance together in Kingston, Ontario. While it’s entirely possible The Hip could carry on as a band without Downie, it’s difficult imagining so, the man such an integral part of what made The Hip who they were. Without those poetic tales of common clay under unusual circumstances, they’d never have wooed such a large swath of Canadians finding some connection within their songs.

See, this is what I’m writing about. Who really cares about this singular, twenty year old album of The Tragically Hip when this band that so many of my countrymen adore may have just played their last ever concert! It overshadows everything else in the here-and-now, unlike way back in Spring 2014 (!) when I wrote my first couple reviews of them. I’ll give it the ol’ college try though.

Trouble At The Henhouse was the follow-up to their most critically acclaimed record, Day For Night. The band was probably at the peak of their popularity by the mid-‘90s, and this album quickly capitalized on that, scoring them one of their only Number One hits in this country with lead single Ahead By A Century. Yeah, funny thing about The Hip is, while their LPs typically did gang-busters on the Canadian charts, the singles seldom ever cracked Top 10. Anyway, it’s easy to hear why Ahead By A Century would finally do the damage, a pleasant folksy ditty with a heavier bridge near the end, and instantly catchy lyrics like “And that’s when the hornet stung me; And I had a feverish dream.” The song that always catches my ears though, is Butts Wigglin, though probably entirely due to its use in the Kids In The Hall movie, Brain Candy. (and, um, that title)

Quite a few songs off this album made the rounds on Canadian radio (Gift Shop, Springtime In Vienna, Flamenco), while others get heavier (Coconut Cream, Let’s Stay Engaged) or bluesy (Sherpa, Put It Off). Trouble At The Henhouse doesn’t really offer much new from The Hip though, and the band would start a very long slide into MOR rock territory after this. Enough memorable tunes lurk here that it’s still in discussion as Essential Hip, but probably the least as such from their ‘90s heyday.

Various - Pulp Fiction

MCA Records: 1994

Shame I didn't get to this CD a little sooner – say, last yearish. I could’ve generated cheap traffic by piggy-backing off clickbait articles like “Hey, It’s The 20th Anniversary Of That Movie You Can’t Stop Quoting!” But alas, we're already two weeks deep into 2015, long past the expiry date of people nostalgically revisiting Pulp Fiction's 1994 release. Who cares that it came out mid-November of that year, thus making us but two months late for twentieth-anniversary prestige. Hell, as I recall, Tarantino's opus to the mush of storytelling didn't catch popular buzz until well into '95, finding more fanfare on the home video market where all us impressionable underage Gen-X types could finally watch it. And hoo, what a movie to behold, making not a lick of sense but strangely captivating as Hollywood stars waxed bullshit over obscene circumstances.

Plus the music! Wow, where did ol' Quentin find all that awesome music? His personal record collection apparently, turning many of his flicks into as much a mixtape as they are ‘70s genre-sploitations. Of course, with over two decades to study his methods, having rare, odd, and perfect tunes’ become the expectant norm, and unfortunately nothing’s made quite the impact that the surf rock of Misirlou did. Still, Tarantino made a style of music that had been absolutely dead for three decades hip again. That’s quite an achievement, and though it didn’t resurrect into a reinvigorated scene, it did create a new generation of crate divers digging a little further into obscure musical cul-de-sacs. Erm, not me though – I still had ‘techno’.

So the surf rock is primarily what Pulp Fiction’s music is remembered for, and for good reason. Beyond the killer opener, at least a third of the music on this soundtrack is in that style. Another significant chunk is taken up by dark, bluesy country, though not always specifically from that scene. Heavy rockers Urge Overkill do a cover of Neil Diamond’s Girl, You’ll Soon Be A Woman, and then-newcomer Maria McKee goes full-on whisky folk, but every track has that ‘outlaw’ feeling that Tarantino loves writing into protagonists. Not so much always the ‘bad guys’, as he’s featured his fair share of vigilantes too. More like desperados, and can you think of any sub-sub American culture that was filled with those sorts than the outlaws of the country? Sure, the surfer nation! Nothing caught that vintage American West desperado spirit like freeloaders taking on the mighty waves of the Pacific Ocean, risking life and limb to prove Man was undefeatable in the face of his Mother Nature’s fury. Well, the music suggested as such.

Look, I’m just waxing bullshit here for the sake of my own ego (like a Tarantino movie!). Even if you haven’t seen Pulp Fiction (!), you’ve probably seen a parody or two, and know its music and culled bits of dialog from those. You don’t need me telling you to check this out, because you already have, even if only by cultural osmosis.

The Tragically Hip - Day For Night

MCA: 1994

For the past twenty-five years, it was every Canadian rock lover's patriotic duty to enjoy The Tragically Hip. You really had little choice in the matter, Canadian Content legislature forcing a high percentage of national acts onto our airwaves - the more popular a band got, the larger chunk of that percentage they'd take up. As The Hip typically offered a brand of alternative bar rock that was quite easy on the ears, they were a safe bet for radio playlists. With each subsequent album released, their classy reputation and Canadian fame grew, hitting the perfect middle-road of rock 'n roll that wasn't too heavy, wasn't too wimpy, and rewarded fans with excellent live shows. So the story goes, I am told.

Yeah, I can't say I was bitten by the Tragically Hip bug, though was exposed to them when their third album, Fully Completely, started making the rounds among my peers and adult-folk alike. I specifically recall a classmate getting in trouble for wearing a t-shirt sporting the cover art, on account it had a boob on it, albeit mangled Picasso-like. He thus had to either wear no shirt the rest of the day, or go home.

Well, if The Tragically Hip are hip enough to force a day’s suspension, I had to check out that Fully Completely CD in my old man's collection. It was okay, quite similar to the music I heard from my Dad's practice sessions, but totally not my thing at the time (ooh, Dance Mix '93 is out!). To this day, that assessment stuck, and now that I'm forced to sit down and listen to another of their albums, surely my matured tastes have finally found enjoyment out of these Canadian icons.

I guess. Day For Night's considered The Hip's best overall album, combining their dependable alternative blues-rock style with craftier song writing, broader topics, and even new sonic tricks for flavor. The opener and big hit off here, Grace, Too, plays to their anthemic capabilities, a casual pace of rhythmic harmony building upon itself as singer Gordon Downie relates a simple tale of an urban rendezvous between a rich man and an unsuspecting young woman. What does this interaction lead to? Downie leaves it a mystery, as he does with many other narratives throughout the album (though seldom as ear-wormy as Grace, Too).

Most consider Downie's lyrics the highlight of Hip tunes, but I struggle getting into them – he strikes me too much of a Michael Stipe sort. As with most rock, I’m more interested in the music itself, and Day For Night features a few neat tweaks to the alt-rock formula. Johnny Fay adds a cool filter to his drum kit in Thugs, droning guitar feedback envelops the acoustic Titanic Terrarium, and any chance the band gets to rock out (Fire In The Hole, Nautical Disaster, An Inch An Hour) is A-okay in my book. Shame they don’t go the lengths Crazy Horse does though; maybe live they do?

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell

MCA Records: 1993

Didn't I just say Bat Out Of Hell could only have been made in the '70s? Why on Earth is a sequel showing up in the '90s, then? This was the era of grunge and punk (again), leaving bombastic rock opera to the dust bins of baby boomer record shops. Jim Steinman, who wrote most of the music on Meat Loaf's most famous album, had been writing a second Bat since at least the turn of the '70s, but complications in development and a soured relationship with Meat Loaf stuck the project on hold for years. Some suspected Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell would end up another in the growing list of unrealized rock albums. Yet here it was, fifteen years after the first, and, amusingly, coincidentally, arriving around the time Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy was announced. Guess something in the rock world must carry that ‘indefinitely delayed’ banner.

So Meat Loaf’s BOOH II: More Heller came out, and unsurprisingly, it was a hit with aging rockers. It probably helped that Steinman and Loaf expand on the youthful nostalgia that made the original such a sleeper hit, showing mature reflection of aging times, themes anyone in their mid-life years could relate to. If there’s a big, anthem chorus along the way, all the better.

And like any sort of sequel, the music and arrangements up the theatrical productions to near breaking point on BOOH II: Helluva Boogaloo. The opening track and lead single, I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) almost seems like a parody of Meat Loaf (which is funny, considering some critics called Bat Out Of Hell a parody of Springsteen), with bigger string sections, larger choruses with choirs, lengthier guitar and piano solos, a run time easily breaking anything Steinman and Loaf penned together, and the ‘humongous rock star of the universe’ sounding more humongous than ever; or, to sum it up, one bloat of a song. Quite a few folks loved it, but I’d Do Anything For Love is flying into ludicrous speeds of pompous rock overload. How did this get popular in ’93 again?

Yeah, bloat’s a good word to describe this album. Bat The First had some of it too, but vinyl limitations prevented it from getting too excessive. The extra time afforded on CD, however, gives Steinman all the opportunity to go overboard. There’s still some fun cock-rock about though - Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back gets the fist pumpin’ good; the Wasted Youth skit’s a lot of fun, totally deserves a Jack Black re-enactment, and is a great lead in to the arena antics of Everything Louder Than Everything Else; plus I swear M83’s Midnight City nicked part of It Just Won’t Quit.

Michael Bay directed some of the videos spawned from Bat Out Of Hell II: Back To Hell, and this album comes off like one of his sequels: doubling-down on more of the same. Not for me, thanks.

GZA/Genius - Legend Of The Liquid Sword

MCA Records: 2002

We're long past the age where most post-millennial Wu-Tang solo albums are met with disappointment. Now, articles crop up of looking back at potential overlooked gems, of which there were a few, let’s be honest. Everyone kept expecting the Clan members to continue their mid-‘90s brilliance, all the while bypassing several solid hip-hop albums in their own right. And poor Gary Grice, did he ever get passed by. Beneath The Surface generated some initial excitement, true, and his work with DJ Muggs on Grandmasters got briefly hyped as well, but his other two albums not so much.

Yet while Pro Tools has recently gained some level of respect, Legend Of The Liquid Swords remains one of GZA’s least talked about albums. For the love of me, I cannot understand why. Did it come out at the wrong time? I’ll grant 2002 was not a good year to be making a lyrically conscious album when the burgeoning hot raps consisted mostly of “WHO! WHAT! WHEN! WHERE!”, but surely anything The Genius had to say should have turned heads.

Oh, I’m sure it did, but as all things Wu related during those times, if it wasn’t on par with the ‘90s material, it just didn’t matter. Legend Of The Liquid Swords is damn good, offering about what you’d expect of an eastcoast lyrical showcase, but the beats are mostly bare with funk and soul loops, allowing GZA the room to tell his tales. Tired in the early 2000s? Perhaps, what with Neptunes and Timbaland taking hip-hop down strange new roads (to say nothing of that Kanye kid Roc-A-Fella had behind the decks). DJ Premier and The RZA may have set a standard the decade prior, but the kids wanted new shit. Unfortunately, shit is what they mostly got in the following years (hiya, Soulja Boy).

Gladly, what may have sounded dated in 2002 comes off vintage all these years later – oh hindsight bias, never will you do me wrong! I honestly don’t think regular Wu-fans cared anyway, as when it comes to a GZA album, it’s always about the lyrics. And I can’t find Mr. Grice at fault on anything. Whether waxing nostalgic about the old days (Auto Bio, Fam that also features RZA and Masta Killa, and Sparring Minds with Inspectah Deck), detailing shady record business activities (Did You Say That, Knock Knock), or displaying wizardry with his words (everything!), GZA offers plenty for that intellectual side of your brain. Even the ‘fun’ track Fame is genius, using celebrity names to tell his story. Sample: “Larry’s Bird flew outta Nicholas’ Cage; Joe Tex messages from Satchel’s Paige; Betty Wrights letters with ink from Sean’s Penn; Infinite bars, you couldn’t tell where the song end; Glenn Close enough to quickly duck the tapes; Richard Gere ripped while he was climbin’ Bill Gates.”

Legend Of The Liquid Swords wouldn’t do much for the Wu-Tang Legacy, but it does sit nicely as a companion piece to GZA’s body of work.