2nd December - The Roots' Undun

Artist – Album: The Roots - Undun

Released: 2^nd December 2011

Sounds Like: pizza box advent calendar

Bad boyfriend time – despite the lovely Amy giving me a brilliant personalised Thorntons advent calendar on Thursday, I still hadn’t returned the favour to her by midday today. Worse, none of the shops I tried had any left. However, I wasn’t about to let that beat me: at the umpteenth supermarket I came up with the excellent (ha!) idea of making one myself. All I’d need was an empty pizza box, a good selection of chocolates and some colouring pencils (reminds me of the end of those ridiculous lists that they used to have on the Kenan and Kel Show). A smart idea perhaps, but the result does look just a little bit rubbish and half-assed. Which could also be said about Undun.

The smart idea here is to have a character based story arc of a concept album, run backwards from his grisly death. It is admittedly well realised too, it’s just a few too many of the songs seem to plod along without any real passion. Having thoroughly enjoyed Phrenology just the other day, I’m just a touch disappointed that they couldn’t hit those same heights again.

On the plus side, the best tracks are really good. ‘Kool On’ is enough to make the whole project worth it. Amy should be here any minute, so hopefully she can find the positives from my little burst of creativity too…

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Dun – 1:16

2.       Sleep – 2:15

3.       Make My – 4:27

4.       One Time – 3:55

5.       Kool On – 3:48

6.       The OtherSide – 4:03

7.       Stomp – 2:23

8.       Lighthouse – 3:43

9.       I Remember – 3:15

10.   Tip the Scale – 4:17

11.   Redford – 1:52

12.   Possibility – 0:55

13.   Will to Power – 1:03

14.   Finality – 1:31 

Listen to ‘Kool On’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjWGQgw1t9c

26th November - The Roots' Phrenology

Artist – Album: The Roots - Phrenology

Released: 26^th November 2002

Sounds Like: Head music

Last month we went to the Museum of Science & Industry to visit the new brains exhibition (that is, a new exhibition about brains and not an exhibition about new brains…). Now, I’m not really sure what fun things we were expecting from the grey subject matter, but I don’t think either of us imagined that it could be so harrowing and depressing. Amongst the horrors of trepanning and Nazism, the confining of people suffering from microcephaly to freak shows and the gore of the operating table, we learnt about phrenology, a popular pseudo-science in the 19^th and early 20^th century which purported that the shape of the skull and head could be used to determine intelligence and character. Colonial Europeans used phrenology to persecute races they had “proven” their superiority over. The whole exhibition was, quite literally, mental.

The Roots are clever guys (despite having the sloping brow and cranial bumpage of career criminals) and I’ve taken the fact that they have named their fifth album Phrenology as a warning to avoid stereotyping them as regular hip hop or R&B artists, rather than some sort of ill-advised attempt to reignite scientific racism. Black Thought, ?uestlove and co flit between genres with the energy of crackling synapses: ‘Rock You’ is, unsurprisingly, hard rock, ‘!!!!!!!!’ is a punky soundbite, ‘Break You Off’ is smooth neo-soul and ‘The Seed (2.0)’, well, “we’ll name it rock and roll”. All is achieved with an expertise and exciting experimentalism that few in the early millennium Neptunes-dominated hip hop scene could match, and the album is a clear influence on contemporary stars such as the New Orleans brainbox Frank Ocean.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Phrentrow – 0:18

2.       Rock You – 3:12

3.       !!!!!!! – 0:24

4.       Sacrifice – 4:44

5.       Rolling with Heat – 3:42

6.       WAOK (Ay) Rollcall – 1:00

7.       Thought @ Work – 4:58

8.       The Seed (2.0) – 4:27

9.       Break You Off – 7:27

10.   Water – 10:24

11.   Quills – 4:22

12.   Pussy Galore – 4:29

13.   Complexity – 4:47

14.   Something in the Way of Things (In Town) – 7:16

Listen to ‘The Seed (2.0)’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojC0mg2hJCc

Also released on the 26^th November:

1965: The Kinks – The Kink Kontroversy