Pusha T - 'Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude'
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Crazy Town : The Gift Of Game
If crimes against music ever become an imprisonable offence, they'd better hope they look good in stripes.
A year ago, Crazy Town could get arrested - but no-one was buying their
records. When 'The Gift Of Game' was originally released way back
in 1999, it stalled somewhere in
the arse-end of the American charts, and the band collapsed in chemical meltdown. Unfortunately, however, their career was revived by the totally unindicative Chili Peppers-sampling smash 'Butterfly', and now they're the ubiquitous heirs to Limp Bizkit's vacuous rap-rock throne.
Like any cultural/musical phenomenon, the hip-hop/metal crossover has grown increasingly more diluted, and Crazy Town are as far down the food chain from the genre's godfathers Rage Against The Machine as My Vitriol are from Nirvana. 'The Gift...' is so formulaic you could draw diagrams - double pronged rapping from Shifty Shellshock and Epic Mazur (covering the requisite urban angst/street-fighting, bitch-bonking subject matter) is punctuated at appropriate junctures by bone-crushing generic guitar riffs.
Crazy Town also offer some of
the most Neanderthal lyrics ever written ("Shit is harder than hard/About as hard can get").
Talk about devolution.
It's a shame the quasi-tender 'Butterfly' is a red herring. Elsewhere, Crazy Town is populated entirely by "hardcore sex bitches" and "ho's" - and
with charming courtship like "Don't waste my time/Unless you're down to fuck" ('Revolving Door') it's small wonder that despite Shellshock's chest-beating praise of his own genital dimensions, he's still "suffering from a lonely heart condition". Good luck, fella.
Despite all this aggression and determined bravado, 'The Gift...' perseveres to become one of the dullest records ever made. Sure, you have to give Crazy Town some credit for their tenacity. After all, their biggest claim-to-cred is that they are totally 4 Real - a gang of thugs who have lived the LA drug'n'dementia lifestyle to the hilt, and who boast that if they weren't making noise, they'd be hammering license plates in the state penitentiary. Still, they shouldn't feel too safe. If crimes against music ever become an imprisonable offence, they'd better hope they look good in stripes.
April Long
records. When 'The Gift Of Game' was originally released way back
in 1999, it stalled somewhere in
the arse-end of the American charts, and the band collapsed in chemical meltdown. Unfortunately, however, their career was revived by the totally unindicative Chili Peppers-sampling smash 'Butterfly', and now they're the ubiquitous heirs to Limp Bizkit's vacuous rap-rock throne.
Like any cultural/musical phenomenon, the hip-hop/metal crossover has grown increasingly more diluted, and Crazy Town are as far down the food chain from the genre's godfathers Rage Against The Machine as My Vitriol are from Nirvana. 'The Gift...' is so formulaic you could draw diagrams - double pronged rapping from Shifty Shellshock and Epic Mazur (covering the requisite urban angst/street-fighting, bitch-bonking subject matter) is punctuated at appropriate junctures by bone-crushing generic guitar riffs.
Crazy Town also offer some of
the most Neanderthal lyrics ever written ("Shit is harder than hard/About as hard can get").
Talk about devolution.
It's a shame the quasi-tender 'Butterfly' is a red herring. Elsewhere, Crazy Town is populated entirely by "hardcore sex bitches" and "ho's" - and
with charming courtship like "Don't waste my time/Unless you're down to fuck" ('Revolving Door') it's small wonder that despite Shellshock's chest-beating praise of his own genital dimensions, he's still "suffering from a lonely heart condition". Good luck, fella.
Despite all this aggression and determined bravado, 'The Gift...' perseveres to become one of the dullest records ever made. Sure, you have to give Crazy Town some credit for their tenacity. After all, their biggest claim-to-cred is that they are totally 4 Real - a gang of thugs who have lived the LA drug'n'dementia lifestyle to the hilt, and who boast that if they weren't making noise, they'd be hammering license plates in the state penitentiary. Still, they shouldn't feel too safe. If crimes against music ever become an imprisonable offence, they'd better hope they look good in stripes.
April Long
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