Word: hip-hop
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...Beck" is a magic word. Beck, beck bananna-nanna pho pheck; Beck. The Pied Piper of post-grunge white boys everywhere, Beck Hansen leads us away from the dying city of Rock playing a tune of satire and pastiche. On Midnite Vultures, he eviscerates hip-hop, R&B and even Kraftwerk of their souls, piling the resultant carrion into a tower of intoxicating formal juxtaposition, and finally infuses these styles with his own pink-pants voice. Who would need anything more...
...plays me" goes the chorus, and so goes the album, rambunctiously rhyming away the contradiction of every postmodern fiction. From this point on, the first half of Midnite Vultures maintains its energy with some of Beck's best ever lyrics supported by beats indebted, impressively, to both hip-hop and techno...
...coolest new additions to the Marley catalog is the just-released CD Chant Down Babylon (Tuff Gong/Island). The album features duets with Marley and some of today's best hip-hop performers, including Lauryn Hill and Busta Rhymes. The hip-hoppers supply new vocals, while Marley's are drawn from alternate takes in decades-old recording sessions. "We got the idea, well, from Daddy basically," says Marley's son Stephen, who served as executive producer. "It was one of his dreams to get to the urban youth of America...
...each CD he poses musical questions and sets out to answer them. Not definitively, but interestingly. His last CD, Mutations, was a meditation on blues and folk that grew in power with each listen. His new CD, Midnite Vultures (Geffen), is a series of witty experiments with rock, hip-hop and even soul. "Soul has a tradition of manliness to it, but it also has this emotional core that can be raw and open and vulnerable," says Beck. "In rock and alternative rock, if you're emotional, you're emotional in an angry sort...
...there is little in the lyrics department worthy of the rewind button, although dwell on the bounce beat in the background and everything will be all right. A notable exception is "Drop It Like It's Hot," which you've heard if you've made it to any decent hip-hop clubs. It's obvious that even Lil Wayne knew he was better off as part of the flaming ones. Of the album's 17 tracks, 12 feature pairings with the rest of the Hot Boyz--Juvenile, B.G. and Turk. The four should have just gotten together for another group...