319 - The Wailers - Burnin'

This is the last album of The Wailers before Peter and Bunny jumped ship and Bob took full control and changed the band name to Bob Marley & The Wailers. You get a hint about the band tension by looking closely at the track listing and songwriter credits. It is further exposed if you see the track listing of later releases that include additional songs from the recording session - which show the only songs not included were non-Bob penned ones.

The lyrics are on the more aggressive edge in this album. However, the slack reggae rhythms makes it easy for a casual listener to relax with this album playing (with the exception of "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff"). Part of this, I think, is because despite some of the frustration expressed in the songs, there is an undercurrent that both political/economic and spiritual redemption is about to arrive. Things are tough now, but a time is coming soon that things will be great for us.

Songs I knew I liked: "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff"

Songs I didn't know but now like: "Burnin' & Lootin'," "Small Axe," and "Rastaman Chant"

Songs I can go the rest of my life without hearing again: "Hallelujah Time"

318 - The O'Jays - Back Stabbers

Philly Soul at its finest folks! I was really thrilled with this album. I've liked the O'Jays, but never really felt compelled to get any of their albums. Back Stabbers is now on my "buy" list for both vinyl and CD/mp3.

The album opens with the funky soul of "When the World's at Peace" that sounds like a James Brown release with harmonies and a slightly larger band. Other tracks also follow the path of a smoother take on funk, but most of the songs are firmly in the sound of Philly Soul - rich vocal harmonies, lush strings, and an undercurrent of a funk groove. If you like 70's Hall & Oates, you are doing yourself a disservice if you haven't given Back Stabbers a listen.

Songs I knew I liked: "Back Stabbers" and "Love Train"

Songs I didn't know but now like: "Listen to the Clock on the Wall," "Mr. Lucky," "When the World's at Peace," "Shiftless, Shady, Jealous Kind of People," "Sunshine," and "Who Am I"

Songs I can go the rest of my life without hearing again: None

317 - Eminem - The Eminem Show

Two things taint this review - 1) I have never liked Eminem as an artist or a person and 2) I prefer my rap chilled not hot and angry (with few exceptions). Along with that, The Eminem Show also struggles with the "fill the CD" addiction that hip-hop albums in particular tend to have. Hey, artists, don't worry about filling a CD and just focus on putting out the best of your stuff. How many listeners would miss hearing "Drips" or the guest rapper intense "When the Music Stops" and the usual time-filling culprits of skits. Despite my best efforts to mentally fool myself into thinking the album was done by someone other than Eminem, my opinions of this music didn't really change from my first pained listen to my last strained attempt to find aspects to like.

Just focusing on vocals, there are two traits that kept rubbing me the wrong way. I don't care if we're talking about Eminem, Busta Rhymes, or someone else, rappers that yell grate my nerves. I like my raps slick, smooth, and "too cool to yell." Eminem is pissed and part of how he expresses that is yelling in the mic. To make that worse, IMO, is the fact that so many of the songs on The Eminem Show compounds the yelling by having Eminem overdubbing his own raps.

Ok, when I tried to see Eminem as just the other side of the coin of Ice Cube's ghetto raps, there are things that Eminem does that undermines that approach. The most outlandish one for me is his going off in "White America" about all of the stuff about the nation that he thinks is bad. There is some powerful content there...but then he ends the song with an apology that he was just kidding and he loves America. WTF!?

Musically, I liked much of it. Dre took a more rock sound with this release and provides a sound that has the quirkiness of Timbaland's samples without his herky-jerky dropping and switching samples in songs. But all is not great with the backing music. The chiming in "Cleaning Out the Closet" annoyed me with its legally-close-but-not-the-same melody as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Dre's use of Aerosmith's "Dream On" in "Sing for the Moment" uses so much of the song that it triggers my Puff Daddy sampling gag reflex.

Songs I knew I liked: "Without Me"

Songs I didn't know but now like: "Soldier" and, if I were to completely ignore the lyrics and just enjoy the song for the sounds made by the words, "Business"

Songs I can go the rest of my life without hearing again: "Sing for the Moment," "Drips," "When the Music Stops," and all of the skits are singled out as particularly disliked.

Mullets of Love - Pass it along!

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