24th March - Arrested Development's 3 Years, 5 Months, 2 Days in the Life of...

Artist – Album: Arrested Development – 3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life of...

Released:  24^th March 1992

Sounds Like: the joyous affirmation of brotherhood

So, eighty-three days in to the year and correspondingly eighty-three blogs done (go figure), we’ve only had three albums that could legitimately be classified as hip hop. As well as today’s vintage slice of alternative hip hop, we’ve had 2002’s alternative hip hop album Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine and De La Soul’s classic alternative hip hop masterpiece 3 Feet High and Rising. Hmmm... It seems that I’m pretty consistent with the subgenres that I listen to...

In a similar vein to the aforementioned De La Soul’s brilliant ode to the dawn of the daisy age, 3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life of... is a sparklingly positive album of equality and compassion that seemed to be the norm back around the turn of the 90’s, before gangsta rap really took off under the stewardship of Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. Its high points – the three singles ‘Tennessee’,’Mr Wendal’ (strangely one of my Dad’s favourite songs) and ‘People Everyday’, as well as album track ‘Dawn of the Dreads’ – deal with issues such as personal history, homelessness, and racial unity, whilst at the same time being bouncy R&B anthems replete with cracking choruses.

At times the message is laid on a bit too thick, never more so then on the overly-obvious ‘Give a Man a Fish’, and, as seems to be common with hip hop and R&B albums, it may be slightly too long at over an hour. Still good though.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Man’s Final Frontier – 2:39

2.       Mama’s Always on Stage – 3:25

3.       People Everyday – 3:26

4.       Blues Happy – 0:45

5.       Mr Wendal – 4:06

6.       Children Play with Earth – 2:39

7.       Raining Revolution – 3:25

8.       Fishin’ 4 Religion – 4:06

9.       Give a Man a Fish – 4:22

10.   U – 4:59

11.   Eve of Reality – 1:42

12.   Natural – 4:18

13.   Dawn of the Dreads – 5:17

14.   Tennessee – 4:32

15.   Washed Away – 6:24

16.   People Everyday (Metamorphosis Mix) – 4:55

Listen to ‘Tennessee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VCdJyOAQYM

Also released on the 24^th March:

1992: They Might Be Giants – Apollo 18

Also released on the 24^th March:

1998: Semisonic – Feeling Strangely Fine