In the early 90’s I really tried to give Rap music a shot. In just about every case, I found that I really liked the music and the way all the elements were brought together. I just can’t get past the vocal tracks. They always seemed to fail. If it wasn’t the words themselves, it was the delivery and most of the time it was both. It seemed like such a parody. I would remark to people that these guys were in the studio being serious on this and thinking that it was so avant-garde. It is so silly, really.
Is it just me? I mean if feel that the guys from Styx can look back at The Grand Illusion and think wow, that was a good effort that we can continue to be proud of. Where Vanilla Ice probably looks at To The Extreme like a bad yearbook photo and hopes that it won’t impact his home improvement career.
I admit that my inital attraction to Ice Ice Baby was the Under Pressure sample from Queen. I’ve listened to and written about 3 Rap albums this morning and they all hit me the same way. I want to tell those rappers to shut up and get out of the way of the cool music that is behind them.
Ice Ice Baby
Hooked
Play That Funky Music
Havin’ A Roni