Critical Beatdown: Round 12.5

The Strokes, "Under Cover Of Darkness"
NS: Forgive me if I once again choose to believe the hype. Contrary to public opinion, the Strokes never "fell off" per se (the first half of First Impressions Of Earth is amazing, if you bother to listen to it), but clearly Casablancas and Co. want to reverse-engineer their lo-fi roots. A dangerous proposition, to be sure, but this impressively busy track is capped by a delirious Albert Hammond, Jr. solo, a real scorcher. 4.5/5

AM: A song that masks its fear of failure in myriad hooks, none of which are given room to connect. The overstuffed but clean "Under Cover" zig-zags along, evoking just enough of what made the band worth listening to in the first place. 3/5

J Mascis, "Is It Done"
NS: Mascis has always been a great, quaky singer with an intuitive songwriting style, which is why his Dinosaur Jr. antics translate just as easily into an acoustic number like this. No telling what Lou and Murph could have done with this, but I'm glad when some fleet-fingered electric playing enters the mix at 2:34. 3.5/5

AM: Shot through with the sweet uncertainty that's colored Mascis' songwriting since "Repulsion." His fabled Jazzmaster makes a brief appearance, but the C&W twang in his voice carries this one. 4.5/5

Raekwon feat. Ghostface Killah and Jim Jones, "Rock N Roll"
NS: Nothing I've heard from the Wu crew lately has risen to the level of Raekwon's previous, but given Rae's perfectionist tendencies (which, unlike Dr. Dre, don't seem to demonstrate latent OCD), I have high hopes for Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, and lo: this song feels like a real return to form. Ghost is better than I've heard in forever, and even if the production isn't next-level, these guys never needed it. 4/5

AM: DJ Khalil's beat tries to marry crossover appeal with Rae's punch you in your face ethos, and ends up with neither. The central metaphor--of rock and roll being like crack rocks sort of in some way--is empty, and even Ghost and Rae wring nothing out of it. 1.5/5

XXXY, "Ordinary Things"
NS: It's not a song big on variation, nor is it likely to change the mind of House skeptics who feel these sorts of Mancunian dub-techno epics never really go much of anywhere. But if you like a good, ponderous type of music build, "Ordinary Things" will set ecstatic expectations nicely. 3/5

AM: This recombinant cut splices together the DNA of a Missy Elliot production with rubbery synths and chipmunk vox. "Ordinary Things"--which is borderline extraordinary--just keeps floating up and up. 4/5

Boris, "Party Boy"
NS: Another great female guitarist I forgot to mention in my piece on Marnie Stern: Boris' Wata, maybe the most stoic Les Paul slinger in Japan, possibly the world. "Party Boy" may sound surprising to Boris fans more accustomed to the band's drone metal roots, but there has always been a heavy pop psychedelic streak underneath all the fuzz, and "Party Boy" juggles both sides of the band's personality with ease. 5/5

AM: Acid-tinged bubblegum pop. "Party Boy" won't set your next social event on fire, but it's soft, burbling groove might freak out your neighbors. 4/5

Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues"
NS: I didn't like the last Fleet Foxes album, and this track sounds exactly the same as the first, but I don't want to be accused of contributing to the Internet hate, so I'll stop there. Except: is "If I had an orchard" the most boring rock lyric ever? 1.5/5

AM: After a very lovely intro, the predictably rustic "Helplessness Blues" runs its unremarkable course. Alas, Fleet Foxes are still in need of a Levon Helm. 2/5

Pusha T, "My God"
NS: As Pusha probably learned in his pre-rap days, sometimes the best recipe for a chorus is the simplest ("My God." Not much need for fancy wordplay there). This mixtape highlight is anchored by some appropriately reflective versage, but I still must ask (if you don't mind me pilfering a favorite TV show) Where the fuck is Malice? Huh? (Oh, he also has a solo joint coming out this year, never mind.) 3.5/5

AM: This mean march sounds like a Booker T & the MGs jam from the ninth circle. Pusha T raps better here than he did on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, even if a few of his weird empahses are West-ian. His expression on the cover art--a sneer masquerading as a smile--really says it all. My god. 4.5/5

We Deal In Too Many Externals, Brother: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Preliminary thesis: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is Kanye's Station To Station. By which I don't mean to suggest some sort of stripped-down, motorik-heavy funk and soul pastiche. No, I mean that Kanye was obviously coked out of his mind at every stage of this album's development. The proof is in the songs, each its own wellspring of tweaked-out neurosis refracted through the conflicting ambitions of pop music's most shameless drama queen.

Inhibited neural reuptake seeps through the edges of this dark, obsessive, even laborious fifth album, tinging the proceedings with stultifying melancholy (or should I say Mellon Collie?). Even the more traditional beats are ablated and extended to the point of dementia, each piled on with extra echo and guitar blurts and gospel choirs, with West's extended supporting cast of rappers and producers, an impressive collection of egos in their own right, subsumed fully into the service of the auteur's ruminative id. Even the skits sound simultaneously monstrous and oppressive. The songs are longer than those you'd find on an average rap album, and I've already lost count of the number of extended outros, interludes, and otherwise random musical vacillations.

Like West albums before it, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was conceived as a major, game-changing work, and as sometimes happens, the stars aligned and every music critic in America started celebrating the "comeback" of an embattled celebrity, almost in tandem. Pitchfork's 10.0 review, for instance, was just as much about "the Taylor Swift incident" (you know, that thing that neither you nor I nor any actual music fan cares about) and the artist's Twitter feed as it was about the album's "expansive, all-encompassing nature"; meanwhile, Rolling Stone typically extolled the album as sonically diverse enough to attract non-hip-hop heads ("Coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus"--Good lord!). Kanye's genius was affirmed once again and rock mags congratulated themselves on celebrating the virtues of a celebrity in a way that didn't make them sound like, well, pandering to celebrities.

I am not here to complain about the Pitchfork rating (their first perfect grade since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot), nor am I interested in inciting backlash. I'm glad that Ryan Dombal was allowed to give something a non-retrospective perfect rating (one unfortunate feature Pitchfork shares with Rolling Stone). I like this album, but if by "10.0" we mean that every single second of its 1:08:34 has to be both perfect and pleasurable, they could have at least docked a .2 for Nicki Minaj's English accent.

What a circus, though! You've got Pusha T (the album's MVP), Rick Ross and Jay-Z as the repeat offenders. Then you have one-verse killers like Minaj, Cy-Hi Da Prince and Raekwon. And, on the back-burner, the RZA, Swizz Beatz, Kid Cudi, John Legend, and, er, Justin Vernon. Elton John pops by for an uncredited piano solo, but unfortunately not on the track with Raekwon, if you were looking for a future "Kiss The Ring"/"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" collab.

I'll go through this track-by-track, but overall I'll say that while this is an improvement over that shitbucket 808's and Heartbreak, what was most problematic about that excrescence of an album is still present in more muted forms here, the presence of autotune being the most serious repeat offender. But Kanye is still a young man, and I don't doubt that these problems could be corrected in the future, and the quality of his albums would increase dramatically. In order for that to happen, I would suggest that Mr. West first a) try pulling his head, if ever so slightly, out of his ass, and b) lay off the coke for a while. Less Ye and Less Yay, in other words.

1. Dark Fantasy
The opening is ominous, and not in a good way--first we get a few seconds of amateur storytelling from British Nicki Minaj, whose "performance" is irritating in a highly visceral, claw-out-your-eyes way. I wasn't impressed with the "Can we get much higher?" opening choir bit either, as I became immediately worried that we were entering Dewey Cox-during-his-Brian Wilson-phase-territory ("I need 10,000 didgeridoos!"). And I hope that massive choirs and the like don't become a staple of every "statement" rap album from here onward. But the beat, when it comes in at 1:07, is an old-school pleasure. My guess is that all praises should be directed toward co-producer The RZA, who's still better than anyone at constructing grimy, motif-oriented beats. As Rae would say, this is that Black Mozart shit.

2. Gorgeous (Feat. Kid Cudi and Raekwon)
Plaintive, wailing slide guitar (is there any other kind?) is the biggest draw of this subdued track, along with Kid Cudi's even more lachrymose singing style. I had more of a problem with Dark Twisted Fantasy on first listen because there didn't seem to be enough bangers, and "Gorgeous" isn't exactly rippling with energy--nevertheless, upon repeated listens, it lives up to its name. Kanye is more of a controlling factor here than he is on most of the other songs, with three verses versus Raekwon's one to his credit (my favorite line is "It's like that y'all/it's like that y'all/I don't really give a fuck about it at all/cause the same people that try to blackball me/forgot about two thing: my black balls"). Raekwon, bless him, ignores what comes before, and just goes on talking about what he does best.

3. POWER
Rockaliser already wrote up this song here, unaware at the time that "POWER" is supposed to be in all-caps and poor Dwele no longer gets a co-credit (more on the craziness of MBDTF's attribution rules later). I'll add that the song sounds even better between "Gorgeous" and "All Of The Lights" than it does as a single--while it does have that "third track, first single" vibe, it's also a departure from any other radio hit he's ever done. Surely "Stronger" and "Gold Digger" never had such fuzzy bass, nor would they deign to sample something like "21st Century Schizoid Man" in such a surprising and (I mean it) delightful way. Don't know why the current SNL cast is the subject of so much of West's ire (particularly in light of his burying the hatchet with George W. Bush). It's hard not to be taken by the song's epic sweep, but as always, be mindful of wack lines such as "Colin Powell's/Austin Powers/Lost in translation with a whole fucking nation/they said I was the obamanation of Obama's nation" etc. etc. UGH.

4. All Of The Lights (Interlude)
Another "10,000 didgeridoos" moment, but at least it's short. It's a piano and string bit meant to introduce the "All Of The Lights" melody. The piano solo is apparently the work of Elton John, who despite, as I understand it, being a pretty famous musician and songwriter, doesn't get a proper credit. I don't understand how the "Feat." attribution works in hip-hop at all, and as we'll see in "All Of The Lights" proper there seem to be no rules to it, perhaps other than that guest rappers get credited, guest singers sometimes get credited, and anyone who plays an instrument doesn't get credited unless they happen to be Carlos Santana (Gorillaz seem to be the exception to this, by the way--if Ike Turner gets a shout-out for his "Every Planet Thinks We're Dead" solo, why not Elton?). Anyway, maybe "All Of The Lights (Interlude)" could direct hip-hop heads to the latest Elton John/Leon Russell Civil War collab The Union.

Just kidding.

5. All Of The Lights
So according to this, "All Of The Lights" has ELEVEN guest stars on it, none of whom I guess were worth the attribution. Rihanna's voice is most prominent amidst the opening horn fanfare, suggesting we are about to be treated to some fairly generic pop-isms until an absolutely frenetic drum track kicks in and absolutely buries the track's remaining ten guest stars. The song, for once, seems to be about someone other than Kanye--our unnamed protagonist becomes so enraged by the death of Michael Jackson that he beats his girl and ends up in federal prison, only to arrange some sort of reconciliation with his daughter at a Borders bookstore after doing his time. The chorus, though, brings it all back to Yeezy's pervasive ego: "All of the lights/street lights/search lights/flash lights," lots of lights. Remember that Kanye already explored this subject to some degree in "Flashing Lights." Are lights supposed to be some sort of extended, intra-album metaphor? No, Kanye would just like to point out to you, again, that he's famous.

6. Monster (Feat. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver)
Finally: a banger, and a next-level one at that. Pity Rick Ross, who really seems to be edging into a great verse for about ten seconds before Kanye interrupts with his momentum-killing "Gossip, gossip, nigga just stop it" hook. But for everyone else involved, "Monster" lives up to its name: the beat is hard, probably the hardest on the album, and also incredibly versatile. Kanye's spits aren't entirely unremarkable, but neither Jay-Z nor Nicki Minaj have a line as bad as that "put that pussy in a sarcophagus," so both of them are a lot easier to listen to. Most critics have extolled the wonders of Ms. Minaj's clownish verse, a grab bag of boastful speechifying, cartoonishly violent imagery, and one notable, transcendent scream. I agree with everyone else that she owns this song--it's too bad everything I've heard so far off her upcoming debut album has been deeply, deeply awful.

7. So Appalled (Feat. Jay-Z, Pusha T, Cy-Hi Da Prince, Swizz Beatz, and the RZA)
It might seem strange that Kanye groups both of the album's large posse cuts together in the middle of the album, but MBDTF has such an extended supporting cast that the entire album could have easily been lost in the mire of extended Pusha T and Jay-Z verses. So, in order: a) Swizz Beatz offers the novel observation that "life can sometimes be ridiculous" and only comes back to repeat that point on two additional occasions, remaining silent otherwise, b) Kanye engages in some amateur Muslim-baiting ("Praises due to the most high Allah/Praises due to the most fly, Prada") and makes an astounding, heretofore unheard of observation about how MTV no longer plays videos, c) Jay-Z, sounding uncharacteristically harried, wonders how to start his verse and declares himself a martyr on par with The Dark Knight's Batman, d) Pusha T talks about drug dealing (another shock) and makes intricate poker references, e) following a Swizz repeat, new kid Cy-Hi Da Prince declares himself "so outrageous" and claims God would be rocking his tunes on His iPod, and f) most disappointingly, RZA is relegated to repeating the non-Swizz Beatz chorus, which is awesome only because RZA is the loudest and angriest-sounding dude on this or any cut. Why not give the man his own verse, Kanye?

8. Devil In A Blue Dress (Feat. Rick Ross)
Could that be...a sped-up soul sample? People forget that this was once Kanye's MO, but "Devil In A Blue Dress" is probably the closest MBDTF comes to the classic Kanye of "Through The Wire" and "Gone." Appropriating a small vocal sample from Smokey Robinson's "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "Devil In A Blue Dress" is all about the slow build, starting at 2:51, that leads into a Rick Ross verse that is, as far as I know, a career best. The last 2.5 minutes of this song are astonishing in the way layers of tension are added in a grand, Hollywood sort of manner--it's perhaps my favorite part of the record as a whole. Props to Mr. Ross and the "double-headed monster with a mind of its own." I never really got Mr. Ross until now.

9. Runaway (Feat. Pusha T)
The length is epic--9:08 to be exact. So forgive me if I was expecting, based on the hype that this would be a next-level rap record, something like the hip-hop version of "Stairway To Heaven," or anything suitably epic in that regard. But this, the album's second single, is a complete dirge, with one notable exception. Yes, I know that the RZA could plink on the same piano note for a while and still make a beat that sounds great, but this isn't the RZA, and the piano "melody" of "Runaway," if you want to call it that, sounds like the work of a two-year old. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to see Kanye play this song on the VMAs, standing on a platform plinking a few elementary notes on the world's fanciest Fisher Price keyboard. And, on the lyrical side, the self-pity on display here, which would normally be restrictive, ends up being suffocated by Kanye's awful singing. As for the "Stairway" angle, the song ends with an appalling, and I do mean appalling, extended synth-blurt voice solo from Mr. West himself. It is, in terms of quality, the opposite of Jimmy Page's "Stairway" solo. It is so bad. On the other hand, Pusha's verse is great.

10. Hell Of A Life
I don't know why DJ Premier said Kanye was done with electro, since he obviously isn't, but "Hell Of A Life," despite invoking even more decadent rock star bullshit, features some of West's best moments as a rapper and as a producer (it's a great riff, for one). And this is all in spite of the fact that Kanye quotes Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" when he sings "No more drugs for me/pussy and religion is all I need" (as lifestyle sentiments go, I'll take George Clinton's "Don't need no girlfriend/I just need my dope" any day). The ending bit about falling in love with a porn star, getting married in the bathroom, etc. is actually kind of powerful, even for someone extremely, extremely wary of that sort of posturing. But again, all the choirs at the end--not needed.

11. Blame Game (Feat. John Legend)
Some people really seem to like this song, and I'll admit that the idea of using an Aphex Twin sample to engage in similar bouts of vocal and instrumental distortions sounds rife with experimental possibility. "Blame Game" sucks though--you'll just have to trust me on this. The piano sample, for instance, isn't as amateur as "Runaway," but never develops into something that matches the subject's fraught exterior. Between this song and the recent Venture Bros. finale, I think I've reached a point where this sort of adolescent male posturing, as it pertains to acting out towards supposedly unfair former girlfriends, is no longer something I want to hear or think about for a while. As the tension ratchets up and Kanye transforms his voice into a series of guttural, increasingly deepened and distorted accusations, I realized that I was starting to feel sorry for Kanye, in a way: epic self-regard, expressed on such a personal level, is a difficult thing to inflict on others. But then there is that Chris Rock skit, which is only slightly better than (if ten times as long as) the Tracy Morgan skit on Wu-Massacre which I declared to be the worst rap skit in the history of the genre. Again, I realized how vain and disgusting Kanye can be when he really wants to.

12. Lost In The World (Feat. Bon Iver)
Bon Iver is merely the latest representative "indie rocker" brought along to buoy Kanye's cred as a Serious Artist, but his talents, insofar as they actually exist (I am a Bon Iver agnostic, by which I've never been awake long enough to form an opinion), are completely absent when set against this fever-induced autotune nightmare. Christ, I hate autotune. The beat isn't bad amidst the bleatings and loopy vocal patterns that drive me nuts, and Kanye provides a sort-of nice capper to the proceedings, but this sounds like that "MMMM Whatcha saaaay" song whose name I can't actually remember, and repeated listenings confirm: it is awful.

13. Who Will Survive In America
However, I'm actually quite pleased with how Kanye chooses to end proceedings, with an extended sample (over the same "Lost In The World" beat) from a 1970 performance of Gil Scott-Heron reading his poem "Comment #1." Scott-Heron addicts will note here that West is returning a favor--I'm New Here's intro and outro track both sample "Flashing Lights." "Comment #1" is a wonderful poem, one of my favorites (check it here--really worth listening to) but whether or not it works within the context of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy depends on whether you see the album as an Important Statement by a Brilliant, Troubled Artist or as a series of bleatings from a vacuous celebrity setting his Twitter musings to music. Me, I declare myself once again to be agnostic.

The Favorite Music of Nathan Sacks, 2009

1. Future Of The Left, Travels With Myself and Another
With harder riffs, a fiercer and more macabre sense of humor, and a singer who possesses the rare gift of turning screams of disgust and anguish into catchy hooks, no album excited or amused me more (check out the conversation about great prison breaks in American film in "Lapsed Catholics"). Funny, provocative and unsettling, this album and its first song, "Arming Eritrea," became the Bible by which I now choose to deal with condescending individuals in D.C.

2. Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II
I've written in-depth about this album before. Suffice to say it more than makes up for its lack of any cohesive musical or narrative structure with sheer artfulness and craftsmanship on the part of Rae, Ghost, Meth, Deck and the rest. Hundreds of beautiful moments, anchored by Rae's streetwise sense of detail and buoyed by the still-fecund mind of the late J. Dilla.

3. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
Not a bad song in this collection of sly, virtuosic tone poems, proving that experimental music utilizing devotional church-type harmonies is the kind of gambit that virtually requires repeated listens. Primo art rock, and tuneful, too.

4. Them Crooked Vultures, Them Crooked Vultures
I've written about this album in-depth as well. I can't account for its middling reception from critics, except to note that most of them seem to think that Homme doesn't have the chops or the songwriting skills to merit playing with a rhythm section of Grohl/Jones' caliber. These critics are stupid and completely, 100% wrong about Homme. This album is an intense, enormously rewarding journey in the most classic rock sense.

5. Tyondai Braxton, Central Market
This experimental, orchestral solo work from Battles' leader basically jettisons whatever remote pop instincts that group had in favor of more virtuosic passages of avant-garde noise. I enjoyed it enormously in the same way I enjoy a lot of Frank Zappa's longer fusion works. Not necessarily tunes that are containable in one's head, but eminently listenable if you are in the mood. If you're a fan of 10+ minute songs, this has one very good one.

6. The Almighty Defenders, The Almighty Defenders
What looks to be a one-off collaboration between the Black Lips and the King Khan & BBQ Show has yielded this enormously impressive album. These soul-influenced lo-fi punkers and their songs of heartbreak and transcendence make this album the best of the year to drink alone to.

7. The xx, xx
This band gets my award for "debut album of the year that doesn't sound at all like a debut album." Smartly sequenced and immaculately produced, this album proves that all you need to carry a tune is a boy, a girl, and a bass, and everything else is merely timbre.

8. Passion Pit, Manners
I understand that this album is basically the aural equivalent of high-sugar junk food, and some of the songs are only a few D.O.C. samples away from becoming straight jock jams. Still, as I always say, one can't argue with effectiveness. The opening 25 seconds of "Little Secrets"? There's nothing that came out this year that gets me more pumped.

9. Morrissey, Years Of Refusal
Morrissey's solo work this decade has yielded a lot of quality returns, but a lot of it still has the sort of jangle-by-numbers quality that has marred (heh heh) most of his post-Smiths oeuvre. Though Jeff Beck's work on "Black Cloud" is lax and "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" is too damn short, this album may be the best and most creative he's ever made, and the final two tracks in particular may be his best solo songwriting, ever.

10. Wale, Attention Deficit
Not a perfect album, unfortunately, which may make it sound like I am trying to affect some annoying sort of critical hometown boosterism now that I have relocated. I assure you this is not the case. Wale's flow isn't 100% spot-on, but he is one of the most intelligent and likable new rappers out there, and I guarantee you no other rap album sounds like this: if you want to know what D.C. contributes to the rap game sonics-wise, and you need an introduction, best start here. There will be more to come.

Aaron's Favorites, 2009

1. Dinosaur Jr, Farm
At first the songs seemed too long, the lyrics lazy even by Mascis standards. But beneath his slacker veneer, J has always been a perfectionist, a weird visionary for a sugary thrash no other band even dares attempt. Turns out the extended jams and warm production just give Dinosaur--as good a trio as has ever lumbered--more room to soar.

2. The-Dream, Love Vs. Money
An update of Dirty Mind in the post-crunk era. Unlike the Purple One, Dream isn't a game-changer, but he and collaborator Tricky Stewart's lavish, gorgeous songwriting--interlocking beds of synths, loverman coos, gang chants, and elastic rhythms--is miles ahead of the competition.

3. Wye Oak, The Knot
Wye Oak's 2007 debut was an often beautiful, occasionally awkward shotgun marriage of folk and shoegaze. The Baltimore duo's second disc tends towards the latter, and goes places the band simply couldn't two years ago. Jenn Wasner's plaintive vocals still keep both feet on the ground. Her guitar's mournful too, but the fucking thing sounds massive.

4. Morrissey, Years Of Refusal
"All you need is me," our hero intones, brashly. I believe him. As a vocalist, he's untouchable--operatic, masculine, nimble--and his band powers through the album's fantastic rockers and only slightly less-great ballads with aplomb. Oscar Wilde's favorite album of 2009.

5. Amadou and Mariam, Welcome To Mali
Vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Amadou Bagayoko and his vocalist/songwriter wife Mariam write songs completely their own--ringing and clear, with melodies at once accessible and elusive. An all-world set of collaborators help bring their visions to vivid life.

6. Sonic Youth, The Eternal
No new tricks here, but SY sound fiercer than they have in ages. Thurston Moore and Lee Ronaldo's fuzz-squall alchemy continues, with some typically cool-sounding vocals on top.

7. Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Part II
Unlike many of his peers, Rae has never been a natural on the mic. But what he lacks in the agility department he makes up with pure grit. OB4CL2 is miles better than its predecessor, just harder, with better beats, ace guest rappers, and some brutal OG wisdom.

8. Flaming Lips, Embryonic
Mindfuck music, in the form of an unexpected and very welcome left turn. Shit, it's not anthemic even once! While one of your speakers spools out bad-trip synths, the other blasts nightmare bass and spider guitar.

9. The xx, The xx
The sound of slow burn. These absurdly young upstarts make lust music, somehow synthesizing the aims of Sparhawk and Timbaland while infusing their songs with a potent negative space.

10. Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career
Expert indie-pop. Tracyanne and Co. have spent as much time studying the C86 songbook as their purely heart-pained colleagues, but The Obscura have evolved into a symphonic, even muscular mope-rock outfit.

Toast the Kings

One of my favorite albums to come out recently is Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II. Like only the best sequels, OB4CLII honors and contextualizes the best moments of its predecessor, but also manages to integrate new and modern components that don't serve the purpose of cheapening or dating any of the material. I seem to be alone in thinking that the Wu-Tang Clan has of late been experiencing a Clint Eastwood-style second renaissance, and that collectively their increased output from Fishscale onward reflects the kind of focused genius of their '93-'97 heyday, where each of the key members of the group got one solo album to show off their best work, and everyone contributed to group releases, which used to feel major (even if, in the case of something like Wu-Tang Forever, some of the music was in fact quite minor). I remember 8 Diagrams getting really good reviews when it came out, and deservedly so, as it was their most remarkable, consistent collection since the first album. And yet everyone forgot about it not long after. I wonder if part of the reason is that Raekwon and Ghostface seemed to not like the production on that album, which admittedly is a far cry, conceptually, from Enter the Wu-Tang.

And yet it seems at least that OB4CLII is getting the accolades it deserves. Raekwon has always been one of the more reticent and perfectionist members of the group, so his contributions to the Wu-Tang discography were less plentiful than his buddy Ghostface Killah. So when he does come out with an album, particularly the official sequel to what everyone agrees is his classic, it feels like an event. The fact that any bad blood between RZA and Raekwon hasn't prevented the former from contributing three tracks of his own probably helps. As is the fact that Raekwon gets strong support from producers as disparate as Dr. Dre and J. Dilla, who remains one of the most remarkably fecund producers years after his death.

I want to provide a track-by-track analysis of this album, because there's really something special and profound going on here, and the more I listen to this album the more I find to admire.

1. "Return of the North Star"--Think of this opening number as a "Previously, on..." moment, or at least an opportunity for Raekwon to bridge the gap between the first OB4CL and this release. It also proves that the game has slightly changed. The beginning is the strings lifted from "North Star (Jewels)," the last track on OB4CL, which then evolves into an even more lush string sample, as if fourteen years of advancements in sampling and recording have yielded a change from black and white to Technicolor. Speaking over this sample is Popa Wu, a non-rapper member of the group responsible for many of the more interminable opening tracks on Wu-Tang albums, but he's only on for an album before we here some words from Raekwon himself. This is merely a prelude, though, and the action has yet to begin...

2. "House of Flying Daggers"--If this counts as an opening salvo, it is certainly as brilliant of an opening as any I have heard, and a perfect example of the kind of intense, fiercely melodic beats J. Dilla seemed to have no trouble coming up with. I would also direct you to this awesome video, which may be an ideal way to listen to this song (and I rarely say that about music videos). There are hints of the old Wu-Tang sound--the martial arts samples and all that--but the sound is clearly Dilla updating RZA. Raekwon is joined here by (in order) Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah and Method Man. For my money, it's Deck who wins on this particular track (as he and U-God tended to do on much of 8 Diagrams), but everyone is on their best behavior. Method Man's switch-around "Got a whole lot of classic joints/and while you're at it, pass the joint" should go in the annals of Method Man lines where he interrupts his own line of thought to talk about weed. This is what the Wu-Tang Clan always did best: classic, minimalist beat work with three or four classic verses on top of it.

3. "Sonny's Missing"--I've already mentioned several of the high-profile producers on this album without even getting to Pete Rock. Well, here he is. This track is certainly a let-up on the intensity after "House of Flying Daggers," but the track still makes good use of some sinister flute and horn-playing. This also could be considered the start of OB4CLII's story proper, or at least it's the kind of story-oriented track that Raekwon excels at, but I should reveal that as a concept album, this is as about as straight and cohesive a narrative as something like Tommy. Which is to say, apart from using the same Wu-Gambinos mafia aliases from the first album, one doesn't really come away with this album thinking that much has happened. Other than that, U-God is conveniently still dead and therefore won't be showing up to guest (too bad!).

4. "Pyrex Vision"--A very short (0:55), pleasant track, the kind of thing that Ghostface really excels at, going into the minutia of the crack-dealing business, talking about pyrexes under oven flames, putting milk in a finished batch to make it fizzier, etc. Also love the way Raekwon intones "What up, beloved?" The beat is similarly just a brief guitar number, but it's pleasing in its slightness.

5. "Cold Outside"--The album's first properly "epic" track, with Wu hanger-on/occasional singer Suga Suga Bang Bang wailing "it's cold outsiiiiiiiiide" effectively. Raekwon takes the first verse, painting a picture of a decadent, almost dystopian urban environment where drug trade casualties have an almost mythic sense of tragedy. Ghostface is then inclined to go into some of the details, tossing off infanticide, dirty cops, AIDS, the Iraq War, and other modern blights as examples of the kind of feeling that elicits Suga Suga Bang Bang's anxious wail. God, Ghostface sounds intensely in command over that wall of horns. to me, its closest antecedent would be something like "Stick Me For My Riches," another song that made use of extended soul-singing.

6. "Black Mozart"--Yet another reason why RZA will always be known as one of the best: you may not notice it at first, but he's sampling (among other things) the theme from The Godfather. And he does it well. There's some gnarly guitar work (sounds like maybe RZA is playing it?), and Inspectah Deck knows how to just take off with a beat like this. Unfortunately, this track contains RZA's only lyrical contribution, and as protracted as it is, it's still for me one of the maybe ten best moments of this album, when he yells "We soldiers, boy we soldiers!" in that angry sort of yelp he perfected with Gravediggaz. It's one of the beauties of this album that, as good as RZA's contributions are, there's enough good stuff otherwise so that we don't necessarily miss his guiding hand. Also funny: RZA is a terrible, terrible singer.

7. "Gihad"--Another expressly minimal beat: just drums, bass and what sounds like Gregorian chants. Yet another song where Raekwon and Ghostface trade off one verse each, and Ghostface's narrative wins in the memorable department for describing a situation in which he negotiates a Mexican standoff while in the process of receiving fellatio. That, you could say, takes some lyrical talent. Don't know what the significance of the song's title is (the group's five-percenter philosophy is not discussed much elsewhere), but it's still worth several replays for Ghost's verse alone.

8. "New Wu"--RZA's second beat on the album isn't as good as "Black Mozart," but it's capable of growing on you. It depends, really, how well you can handle a hook that is nothing more than a choir singing "Wuuuuu Wuuuuu." The extremely cheap-looking video for this is funny, because it shows the gang in a club when this is most expressly not a club banger. The best moment on this song is Ghostface, and the way he raps the lines "Y'all Planet of the Apes standing next to King Kong," implying that it's not about how many monkeys you have in a movie, but the size of the monkey. This song is all right, but it will never be a favorite, and I can think of several other songs in the album that are probably more deserving of a video (including "Black Mozart"). This is also not Method Man's best moment as a hook-man.

9. "Penitentiary"--Another one of those intense, edgy beats, which befits the subject matter suggested by the song's title. The production is neat and minimal, with some interestingly-integrated sitar samples, but it's mostly about the drum beat and Raekwon and Ghostface. By this point it should be clear that the storyline really is going nowhere, and it's best to look at OB4CLII as a series of Runyonesque theme-linked shorter pieces. "Penitentiary" is a perfect example of the sort of song that contributes nothing to the album but is still capable of lodging itself in one's head.

10. "Baggin' Crack"--Raekwon really loves the occasional shorter guitar-bass-drum number. "Baggin' Crack" is at about the same level as "Gihad" or "Pyrex Vision," which is to say perfectly serviceable. Not much to it other than that. Raekwon has talked about bagging crack elsewhere on this album, so if you're into the inner-workings of crack labs (and if you read this blog, you obviously are), this will be a highlight.

11. "Surgical Gloves"--The subject matter isn't much different here, but this is a different, stranger kind of beat. Wikipedia tells me that it is the Alchemist sampling from a Styx song (!), but there's no way to tell that from the proceedings here. Weird drums, with lots of cymbal crashes, and bells, to give you an idea. By the time you can tell that there is some sort of circular riff pattern underlying this whole thing, the song ends.

12. "Broken Safety"--Jadakiss is probably the first high-profile non-Wu member to guest-verse on the album, and for my money he basically blows away all the non-Wu competition on the remainder of the album (which, to give it away, will include Beanie Siegel and Busta Rhymes). I'm not even sure why, but it must have something to do with that beat, an almost perfectly-pitched mood piece with a loose, repeated sample that allows for a lot of creative rhyming. Raekwon isn't as good as Jadakiss here, but he's better than Styles P, who starts off well but ends up seeming kind of sluggish in comparison to Jadakiss' deft wordplay. This is one of my favorite beats on the album, but I understand it may not be for anyone.

13. "Canal Street"--This track is front-to-back brilliant, one of my personal favorites in terms of just letting Raekwon strut his stuff over some suitably epic hard-rap samples. As great as Raekwon is all over this track, you can only understand how great the accompaniment when he shuts up and the beat continues, during the last twenty seconds or so of the track (my advice: listen from 3:10 onward). Over the past few weeks, I have found myself fast-forwarding to those final twenty seconds and just jamming out. Still, I shouldn't deny how great Raekwon is here, when one can bother to pay attention. The turnaround on the bass drum, the way the hook sort of just continues Raekwon's train of thought--this is classic, personality-oriented rap of the eminently repeatable kind.

14. "Ason Jones"--As if the title didn't clue you in, this is the album's token ODB tribute, and while I don't think it works as well as "Life Changes" (a track no one else seems to like, I'll grant you), I think Raekwon makes up for a rather duff verse on that 8 Diagrams track. The song integrates a few audio clips of ODB talking, which of course can't help but tear at one's heart strings. The beat is more vintage soul, less obtrusive than many of the others because this is meant to be a more reverential and gentle number. And, in case you were still keeping track, the narrative is completely shot at this point.

15. "Have Mercy"--For some reason, this very uncommmercial track has a video. Unfortunately, Beanie Siegel doesn't really step up to the plate the way Jadakiss did, but what he does is serviceable, or at least varies the playing field a little bit. This is a dark little tune. Very hushed, very minimal...and the singer Blue Raspberry adds an even more melancholy voice to the proceedings.

16. "10 Bricks"--Whereas this brilliant, J. Dilla-produced number has no video, even as it fulfills the cinematic MO of OB4CLII as well as any track--in fact, this may the bravest and most characteristically penetrating moment of the whole album. J. Dilla is so good that one can be forgiven for not really listening to what Raekwon, Cappadonna or Ghostface (the unbeatable Ironman team) have to say. I predict that the beat from "10 Bricks" will go on to be a remix classic. It's such an organic and casual update of the RZA sound, and yet it really has its own personality.

17. "The Fat Lady Sings"--RZA's third and final track on the album is even weaker than the first two, which may have less to do with the beat than with the fact that Raekwon doesn't seem to be very engaged with it, and doesn't let it go past 2:17. Raekwon experiments with some surreal subject matter, but this is definitely meant to be a RZA mood piece (think "Sunlight") so it doesn't really fit on a Raekwon album.

18. "Catalina"--If you can't tell from the first 20 seconds who the producer is here, I suggest you give 2001 another listen. If you're wondering what sort of west-east synergy could be produced by the meeting of Dre and Raekwon, you may be disappointed to find that the combination doesn't really yield anything resembling tension. Not that we don't know that Dre is capable of better--I would be willing to be a lot of money that this is one of the many cast-off tracks from Detox that Dre has been agonizing over for so many years. Still, the problem with 2001 was always that the rapping was always threatened by the amazing production, but when you got a guy like Raekwon, you don't have to work so hard on the production end. If you listen carefully, you'll notice that Raekwon is borrowing a bit of Inspectah Deck's verse from "C.R.E.A.M."

19. "We Will Rob You"--To be honest, Slick Rick's whole part here, and his attempt at interpolating Queen, is pretty lame. The rest is excellent. Part of the reason is that it contains the only verse from GZA on the album, who is of course always welcome. It seems that GZA has always had a hard time integrating himself on Raekwon's street-level releases--he only had one verse on the first OB4CL as well. He's great, and really works the subject matter as well. But is GZA the first guy you go to when you're doing a song about carjacking? Masta Killa, who is also sorely unappreciated, does some of his best work here as well.

20. "About Me"--The other Dr. Dre track on this album also bears the stamp of its maker (particularly that keyboard line--that's textbook 2001). Busta Rhymes also shows up, and while I didn't think much of his verse at first (it's always kind of hard to figure what he's saying), I am more capable of appreciating his lyricism after a few close listens. Dr. Dre also adds a few samples of him repeating "yeah" a lot, which is kind of silly and suggests that Dre wasn't exactly tailoring this to Raekwon. I could be wrong.

21. "Mean Streets"-- Suga Suga Bang Bang returns, with a song that is structured similarly to "Cold Outside." Which means it's alright with me. Raekwon remains characteristically smooth despite the torrential backdrop, and name checks Miller's Crossing; Inspectah Deck quotes The Godfather, Part III and works a sustained, belligerent pitch; Ghostface sounds genuinely harried and disturbed, almost as if possessed, and ends up murdering the remaining minute of the track. You know that the album has to be winding down at this point, if only because this sort of ridiculous energy needs to have some sort of release.

22. "Kiss the Ring"--In which Scram Jones distills the best twelve seconds of music Elton John ever wrote (0:40-0:52), cranks the octave level up to a fever pitch, and turns the final track into a requiem for the kind of conceptually-grounded album that OB4CL was supposed to represent--the kind that should have been a lot more influential than it ended up being. With that in mind, Raekwon chooses two apt partners to set the tone for the end of an era--Inspectah Deck and Masta Killa. Both turn in performances that are career highs. In particular, I think that it was brave of Raekwon to allow Masta Killa, who has fought for so many years to not be a marginal member of the Wu-Tang Clan, to basically sum up the themes and goals of both OB4CL and its sequel. And I think he does a beautiful job. The way he starts his verse as the drums temporarily cut out, and then they come back in--it might be the best single moment on the album, an absolute spine-tingler. I can't contain my admiration for a song such as this. "So salute, and toast to the best who done it," indeed. It's hard to not have the last 30 seconds get to you.

Bonus Tracks

23. Walk Wit Me--The iTunes release has a couple bonus tracks on it, which kind of ruins the effect of "Kiss the Ring," but whatever. "Walk Wit Me," whose video can be seen here, would probably have worked well somewhere in the middle of the album. Really, it's a strange omission. I love the breakdown where you just hear the singing, and I have to say that the video works pretty well within the context of the song. It's the kind of song one imagines would be good for a boat ride.

24. Badlands--Not a Terrence Malick tribute, but rather another Raekwon/Ghostface trade-off, the simplest trick in the book. A bit noisier than the average track, with some eerie feedback guitar sounds in the middle. Perfectly serviceable.

I'd say that overall, I give the album five stars, an A+, however you want to rate it. I really, really like this album. In fact, it may even be better than its predecessor, which I thought would be impossible. It's kind of like The Godfather, Part II, in that it might be better than the original, but what kind of asshole likes splitting those sorts of hairs?