AL GREEN, Love Ritual
Melody Maker June 3rd 1989
By Simon Reynolds
Dry details first: Love Ritual consists
of rare and previously unreleased Al Green material from between 1968
to 1976 (his creative prime) including a “Love Ritual” remixed even
swampier and glutinously funky than before, and tracks like “Up Above My
Head,” “So Good To Be Here” and “Strong As Death (Sweet As Love)” which
are right up there with more reknowned peaks like “How Do You Mend A
Broken Heart” and “I’m Still In Love With You.”
Okay,
now let’s get moist. Why is it still possible to melt for this man after
a decade in which so much odious charlatanry has been promoted and
prattled in the name of Soul? Al Green is the man who took all the
things that usually make for MOR tedium in music--constancy, fidelity,
permanence, trust, security--and made them seem like heaven-on-earth, a
consummation devoutly to be wished. His voice--an androgynous purr, a
svelte, silvered, sinuous swoon--is the sound of someone expiring for
love. “Mimi” has the beautiful line “Hope that I die before you”, but if
you twist the sense of that plea around you reach an important truth:
die is just what Al Green does, slowly, right in front of our dazzled
ears.
Hollering, exhibitionist feats of “prowess”
weren’t his way. Instead his voice dances at close quarters, entwines
and enfolds you in a blurry, slurred intimacy, a carnal cave of
tenderness and devotion. He’s catfooted where other soul giants growl
like a bear with heartburn. He woos where others breastbeat. The closest
he gets to the hoarse histrionics of your Reddings or Browns are little
voluptuous geysers of emotion that escape every so often. His ensemble
of players---Howard Grimms and Al Jackson on drums, the Hodges brothers
on guitar and bass--frame him in a chrysalis of sound as luscious and
lambent as honeycomb.
They don’t make records like this anymore, the state-of-the-art won’t allow it.
Black American pop now dubs itself euphemistically as “Urban
Contemporary” (soul as the soundtrack to slick courtship) or “Quiet
Storm” (soul as a soothing Radox bath). And this decade has seen the
beige deluge of acts like Wet Wet Wet (who went to Memphis to try and
learn Green’’s secrets from his producer Willie Mitchell), their clumsy
veneration making soul an almost completely unviable proposition for the
future. But that’s no reason to miss out on the unrepeatable treasure
of Green’s music, the long-lost languor and sheer diabetic OD that he
shared with contemporaties like The Temptations, Sly Stone and Marvin
Gaye. Go get wrapped up in love.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
LL COOL J, Mama Said Knock You Out
Melody Maker, August 1990
by Simon Reynolds
I still think rap was most exciting when it was sociopathic and solipsistic, brutalist and beyond the pale. But the fact is that LL Cool J’s brand of rap megalomania has now been thoroughly outflanked and outmoded: by the laidback positivity and communal ethos of De La Soul and the Native Tongue posse of Afro-conscious rap groups; by Public Enemy’s righteous ire and thrust for collective power. Even on LL’s own egomaniacal terrain, he’s been surpassed in nastiness by the LA gangster rappers.
The stance and sound of LL and his Def Jam contemporaries (Run DMC, Beasties) is dated, a relic in a genre where freshness is at a premium, and LL knows this. The album’s title track starts with a shrill outburst: “Don’t call this a comeback/I bin here for years”. Throughout the track LL comports himself like one of those punch-drunk boxers who make global imbeciles of themselves by putting in hopeless bids to win back the Heavyweight Championship of the world. LL has long identified with boxers: previously he’s compared himself with Mike Tyson, here he namechecks Muhammed Ali. His deluded bluster is mesmerizing in its sad sincerity: “I’m the man of the hour/Tower of power… Oooh, listen to the way/I slay… Lyrics that’ll make you call the cops… Damage, destruction, terror and mayhem… I think I’m gonna bomb a town.”
There’s a terrible pathos here, the pathos of a doomed dictator like Ceaucescu or Hussein. And it’s a pathos that takes us to the core of rap psychology. Rap’s always been an assertion in the face of the void; rap intimidates because its motor is a terror of anonymity and death (the fate of all gangsters--where’s Schoolly D now?). Because of this, “Mama Said Knock You Out” is the most gripping moment on the album. Next to this pathos, “Farmers Boulevard” is just pathetic: LL waxing nostalgic for his home turf, and--gracious potentate that he is--allowing his old homeboys some cameo appearances. It’s almost like he’s thinking of the old showbiz adage about being careful about who you step on when you’re on the way up, cos you’ll surely meet them on the way down.
There are two references to Bobby Brown on Mama and it’s tempting to read this as a sign that LL knows that Brown has usurped much of his teen heart throb/bad boy appeal. Bobby Brown galvanized pop soul with a little bit of B-boy attitude: LL tried (and momentarily succeeded with “I Need Love”) to give rap a little pop gloss. In the process, he lost all credibility with the hardcore crowd. Ironically, just about the only enjoyable track here is “Around the Way Girl”, a calculated bid for the Bobby Brown market, candy-coated with deliciously syrupy harmony backing vocals. It’s a tribute to “neighbourhood girls”, with their hair extensions, bamboo earings and sassy bad attitude. Scrumptious, but the impression you’re left with his that the song is like a bag of sweets proferred by some inadequate hanging around the school gates, who should really be seducing someone his own age.
The rest of Mama is mighty dreary. “The Boomin’ System”, a dirge based around an En Vogue bassline, is about cruising around with an in-car stereo that has the sidewalks quaking. “Milky Cereal” is a whimsical exercise, LL composing a narrative based around breakfast brandnames. And so on. The grainy R&B samples, the slick rhymes and fluent delivery (LL is the still the most technically proficient rapper)--all create the impression of an artist trapped in his own style, in his own barren head space. LL Cool J is all used up with nowhere to go.
[post script: "Mama Said Knock You Out", after exposure to the video on MTV, became one of my favorite rap songs -- I still think LL's lyrics and deliveries is right up there as one of the outstanding MC performances of all time. The rest of the album I never went back to, although many critics considered it one of the best LPs of that year)
Melody Maker, August 1990
by Simon Reynolds
I still think rap was most exciting when it was sociopathic and solipsistic, brutalist and beyond the pale. But the fact is that LL Cool J’s brand of rap megalomania has now been thoroughly outflanked and outmoded: by the laidback positivity and communal ethos of De La Soul and the Native Tongue posse of Afro-conscious rap groups; by Public Enemy’s righteous ire and thrust for collective power. Even on LL’s own egomaniacal terrain, he’s been surpassed in nastiness by the LA gangster rappers.
The stance and sound of LL and his Def Jam contemporaries (Run DMC, Beasties) is dated, a relic in a genre where freshness is at a premium, and LL knows this. The album’s title track starts with a shrill outburst: “Don’t call this a comeback/I bin here for years”. Throughout the track LL comports himself like one of those punch-drunk boxers who make global imbeciles of themselves by putting in hopeless bids to win back the Heavyweight Championship of the world. LL has long identified with boxers: previously he’s compared himself with Mike Tyson, here he namechecks Muhammed Ali. His deluded bluster is mesmerizing in its sad sincerity: “I’m the man of the hour/Tower of power… Oooh, listen to the way/I slay… Lyrics that’ll make you call the cops… Damage, destruction, terror and mayhem… I think I’m gonna bomb a town.”
There’s a terrible pathos here, the pathos of a doomed dictator like Ceaucescu or Hussein. And it’s a pathos that takes us to the core of rap psychology. Rap’s always been an assertion in the face of the void; rap intimidates because its motor is a terror of anonymity and death (the fate of all gangsters--where’s Schoolly D now?). Because of this, “Mama Said Knock You Out” is the most gripping moment on the album. Next to this pathos, “Farmers Boulevard” is just pathetic: LL waxing nostalgic for his home turf, and--gracious potentate that he is--allowing his old homeboys some cameo appearances. It’s almost like he’s thinking of the old showbiz adage about being careful about who you step on when you’re on the way up, cos you’ll surely meet them on the way down.
There are two references to Bobby Brown on Mama and it’s tempting to read this as a sign that LL knows that Brown has usurped much of his teen heart throb/bad boy appeal. Bobby Brown galvanized pop soul with a little bit of B-boy attitude: LL tried (and momentarily succeeded with “I Need Love”) to give rap a little pop gloss. In the process, he lost all credibility with the hardcore crowd. Ironically, just about the only enjoyable track here is “Around the Way Girl”, a calculated bid for the Bobby Brown market, candy-coated with deliciously syrupy harmony backing vocals. It’s a tribute to “neighbourhood girls”, with their hair extensions, bamboo earings and sassy bad attitude. Scrumptious, but the impression you’re left with his that the song is like a bag of sweets proferred by some inadequate hanging around the school gates, who should really be seducing someone his own age.
The rest of Mama is mighty dreary. “The Boomin’ System”, a dirge based around an En Vogue bassline, is about cruising around with an in-car stereo that has the sidewalks quaking. “Milky Cereal” is a whimsical exercise, LL composing a narrative based around breakfast brandnames. And so on. The grainy R&B samples, the slick rhymes and fluent delivery (LL is the still the most technically proficient rapper)--all create the impression of an artist trapped in his own style, in his own barren head space. LL Cool J is all used up with nowhere to go.
[post script: "Mama Said Knock You Out", after exposure to the video on MTV, became one of my favorite rap songs -- I still think LL's lyrics and deliveries is right up there as one of the outstanding MC performances of all time. The rest of the album I never went back to, although many critics considered it one of the best LPs of that year)
BRAND NUBIAN, One For All
Melody Maker, December 1990.
by Simon Reynolds
Brand Nubian are disciples of the Five Percent Nation. This increasingly influential Afro-American Muslim sect believes that the black man is God and the white man is the Devil. Like other Five Percent rappers (Poor Righteous Teachers, King Sun, Lakim Shabazz), Brand Nubian are into “knowledge” and “holy intellect” and have all been “reborn as a god”.
Nubian refers to the idea of Egypt and Mesopotamia as the motherland, the cradle of civilization, where “Asiatic” blacks invented mathematics and cosmology. On the sleeve, they pay tribute to the “Original black mentality which manifestated [sic] all things in existence.”
All this is interesting, controversial and guaranteed to get nervous whitey in a lather. Musically it would seem to promise an insurgent onslaught of righteous wrath. But paradoxically, on a sonic level, Brand Nubian aren’t militant but dormant. The Nubian sound is an ambling, almost ambient blur of smooth rhymes and feel-good samples: warm, purring electric organs, as relaxing as mainling Ovaltine; mid-pace Meters-type beats; mellow-yellow funk guitar licks. “Wake Up” might be intended to incite ire and raise consciousness, but its effect is soporific. “Feels So Good” feels too good; it’s muted and Muzaky, like a locked groove of Beggar & Co or some similar Brit-funk bantamweight.
Brand Nubian’s downfall (for me, at least) is their “positive attitude”. Confident in their status as the elect, the chosen Five Percent of “poor righteous teachers”, Brand Nubian don’t partake of the contagious paranoia of a Public Enemy. The LP isn’t all laidback, soothing, sleepy-time stuff, however. The go-go inflected “Drop the Bomb” simmers nicely and its military counter-rhythms are the closest One For All gets to militancy. And “Grand Puba, Positive and L.G.” samples the bassline of Steve Arrington’s brilliant techno-funk classic “Nobody Can Be You But You”.
But in the main, what we have here aren’t Niggers With Attitude, but Afro-Americans With Lassitude. NWA and the ghetto/gangster rappers have taken white society’s negative stereotypes of black youth and turned them to their own end, as if to say, “Hey, whitey, your worst fears have come true.” Whereas Brand Nubian, instead of defining themselves in terms of the damage down to them by the system, have chosen a positive identity. Unfortunately, because of this, their music just communicates good vibes and self-assurance. They should rename themselves Bland Nubian.
Melody Maker, December 1990.
by Simon Reynolds
Brand Nubian are disciples of the Five Percent Nation. This increasingly influential Afro-American Muslim sect believes that the black man is God and the white man is the Devil. Like other Five Percent rappers (Poor Righteous Teachers, King Sun, Lakim Shabazz), Brand Nubian are into “knowledge” and “holy intellect” and have all been “reborn as a god”.
Nubian refers to the idea of Egypt and Mesopotamia as the motherland, the cradle of civilization, where “Asiatic” blacks invented mathematics and cosmology. On the sleeve, they pay tribute to the “Original black mentality which manifestated [sic] all things in existence.”
All this is interesting, controversial and guaranteed to get nervous whitey in a lather. Musically it would seem to promise an insurgent onslaught of righteous wrath. But paradoxically, on a sonic level, Brand Nubian aren’t militant but dormant. The Nubian sound is an ambling, almost ambient blur of smooth rhymes and feel-good samples: warm, purring electric organs, as relaxing as mainling Ovaltine; mid-pace Meters-type beats; mellow-yellow funk guitar licks. “Wake Up” might be intended to incite ire and raise consciousness, but its effect is soporific. “Feels So Good” feels too good; it’s muted and Muzaky, like a locked groove of Beggar & Co or some similar Brit-funk bantamweight.
Brand Nubian’s downfall (for me, at least) is their “positive attitude”. Confident in their status as the elect, the chosen Five Percent of “poor righteous teachers”, Brand Nubian don’t partake of the contagious paranoia of a Public Enemy. The LP isn’t all laidback, soothing, sleepy-time stuff, however. The go-go inflected “Drop the Bomb” simmers nicely and its military counter-rhythms are the closest One For All gets to militancy. And “Grand Puba, Positive and L.G.” samples the bassline of Steve Arrington’s brilliant techno-funk classic “Nobody Can Be You But You”.
But in the main, what we have here aren’t Niggers With Attitude, but Afro-Americans With Lassitude. NWA and the ghetto/gangster rappers have taken white society’s negative stereotypes of black youth and turned them to their own end, as if to say, “Hey, whitey, your worst fears have come true.” Whereas Brand Nubian, instead of defining themselves in terms of the damage down to them by the system, have chosen a positive identity. Unfortunately, because of this, their music just communicates good vibes and self-assurance. They should rename themselves Bland Nubian.
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