Let me rock you, Chaka Khan
Whilst the rest of this week's offerings all represent the vanguard of the supposed New Alternative (yawn...), this single sprouts like a particularly fresh daisy in the middle of mediocrity meadow. Veterans of the second summer of love rap scene over 10 years ago, De La Soul are still three feet high and rising, and have now enlisted the help of mighty-lunged Ms Khan to assist them in producing a slice of effortlessly slinky and cool rap. Fantastically pimped-off and annoyed without being offensive, "All Good?" stalks the streets in a big feather boa and stack-heeled sneakers, loping along to its none-more-funky bassline with good-natured eyes peaking out from beneath the brim of its fedora.
Track 2 is the "MJ Cole Instrumental" version of the a-side, plugged in to an effects bank of bleepy flashy clangy things and strapped onto the back of a runaway robot. The other extra offering here is the superb video to "Oooh", a streetwise take on the Wizard of Oz, filled with techno tin men and sassy witches. And you can't beat sassy witches.
Make your own alternative. Listen to what you like, don't be led. Things are certainly not all good, but with the likes of De La Soul out there, they're certainly not all bad.
Rating: 9/10
The Rest
If Muse had grown up listening to The Cocteau Twins instead of with their fingers dipped in Pablo Honey, they might have sounded something My Vitriol. "Pieces" is the kind of thing that you used to find on 4AD (home to The Pixies, Throwing Muses and the like) and that journos would delve into thesauruses looking for alternatives to the word "chrystalline" for. However, words to describe something as shimmeringly lovely as "Pieces" are hard to find, so you can kind of see where the problem lies. I often find it helps to make up your own words like zimmerfrug. But then we're back to the Cocteau Twins, which is where I came in.
I love "Safety Zones & Crumple Zones" on the b-side because it lets me namecheck Kitchens of Distinction again, one of my all-time favourite meisters of the zimmerfrug and it is also a marvellous confection of meteors and planet heartbeats with angels serenading it. I sidle up provocatively to "Static" too, because it is so different from the previous two, a three-minute hero of a track that is almost Noo Yoik punk in its demeanour.
One of the more interesting of the new breed.
Rating: 8/10
Probably the least offensively dull of the sportz metal brigade, Fred Durst's muthafuckin mafia know what their audience like (big noise and swearing) and give it to them in spades. "My Generation" steals riffs and effects from the political pedestal of Rage Against The Machine and blends them together with a don't-give-a-fuck attitood that is altogether quite effective. Nowhere near as dangerous as they like to think (but then who is?), Bizkit bounce along like a big tin of Family Circle rolling down a hill - clanging metallic mayhem, but with a centre as offensive as a custard cream.
More rap legends pop up on the b-side "It's Like That Y'All", in the gold chain draped shape of Run DMC, who contribute to Bizkit's song inspired by their seminal classic of yore. Rather disappointingly, Durst turns it into a bit of Eminem style crying about critics who dare to diss the Bizkit. Last up is "Snake In Your Face", a bit of annoying noise that sounds like neanderthals banging bricks together. Not big, not clever, not good.
Rating: 6/10
If I had a time machine, I would hit reverse and persuade Travis to keep playing stuff like "U16 Girls" and not write ballads for dinner parties. Not only would that have succeeded in avoiding us having to suffer "The Man Who", it would also have meant bands like Coldplay and Doves would have stayed playing spoons in the Dog & Chipmunk, and not being pushed as masters of melancholy-dripping balladry. Which they are not. They are dull and your parents like them. "The Man Who Told Everything" wears its heart on one sleeve and its influences on the other, unaware of how lopsidedly uninteresting that makes it look.
"The Shadow Lay Across My Life" is a bit better, as it avoids the lighters aloft cynicism of the a-side. It does however reveal a band with little else to make themselves stand out from a host of other groups - they even sound like Coldplay on this one. The appetite-whettingly entitled "Firesuite (Noise version)" is next, but instead of being an amps plugged into volcanos arsequake of Loop or Spacemen 3 proportions, it is the sound of seventeen chimpanzees playing with string instruments and those toys that moo like a cow when you turn them over.
Flock off.
Rating: 3/10
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