Word: albums
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...When listening to Midnite Vultures for the first time, it's easy to be overwhelmed by its crackling originality. The album's main fault is that such a hectic blend of music eventually sounds a little thin and is more exciting as an artistic maneuver on Beck's part than as a long-term fixture in a CD-changer. It's the most straightforward (and final) track, in fact, that will probably become Midnite Vulture's best-remembered track. "Debra" is a funk-love send-up; its proto-cheesy sound is so robust that all irony melts away...
...unabridged title to Fiona Apple's new album--the follow-up to her concisely titled debut Tidal--actually runs 90 words long. A more appropriate name might have been "How About 'Dem Apples!" The angst-ridden star apparently thinks she made a criminal first impression, and spends most of When the Pawn... emphasizing the sincere emotions that hide behind her previous dreamy, doctored image. The result is less shock and more maturity...
Throughout the album, Apple's sultry black-widow vocals make quick transitions between seething anger, casual indifference and sensitive longing. "I let the beast in too soon, I don't know how to live/Without my hands on his throat; I fight him always and still/O darling, it's so sweet" explains Apple on "Fast as You Can," and yet you still don't know whether her sexual prey should flee her in fear or approach her with curiosity. Apple draws heavily on old-school R&B and the instrumental support, led by Jon Brion, effectively complements her wandering voice...
Forget your Y2K worries. Don't think about the water you've been hoarding or the guns and cash Mom has hidden under your mattress. Millennium what? You must mean Willennium, the latest effort of pop Renaissance man Will Smith. This energetic and artistically diverse album will make the destruction of your new laptop a dim memory as you dance to "Will 2K" at your New Year's party of choice...
...Breeze, Lil' Kim and Kel Spencer. The sound varies from the clever satire of pop culture in "Freakin' It" to the powerful "Afro Angel," which uses the simplicity of its lyrics as a highly evocative tool. Willennium thumbs its nose at apocalyptic prophecy, evidenced by the irony of the album's first song, "I'm Comin'," where Smith tells his audience to relax about the millennium because "It's not the second coming of Christ, it's the first coming of me." Smith's collaboration with MC Lyte and Ali, "Who Am I?," has a chorus that even the most...