I can't be the only one who got took. Concurrently with this album, there was another soundtrack CD released with an almost identical cover, this one consisting of nothing but orchestral pieces by Aaron Copland. Yeah, I bought the wrong one at first. Nothing wrong with Aaron Copland, but it's disappointing when you pop in a CD expecting to hear a Public Enemy album & you get classical music instead. Anyway, when I got the right disc in my player, the first thing I heard was a violin beat that sounded like it really wanted to be RZA. Chuck brought some street-level aggression to his mic presence & they even got Masta Killa to accentuate that Wu sound--it didn't work, because MK basically sleepwalks through his verse & it sounds intentionally mixed to be difficult to hear.
Starting the album on a sub-Wu Tang note is telling of the fact that PE seem to be foundering at the end of the '90s. The group that spent the whole prior decade relentlessly innovating found themselves playing catchup, & both Chuck & the Bomb Squad attempt with hit & miss success to keep up with the times. Flav is the only one who seemingly makes no concession to modernity--Flav will always sound like Flav. That's a mixed blessing, because on this record it gives us the cringey dancefloor misfire "Shake Your Booty." (If I'm reading the liner notes correctly, that song was entirely written by Rampage with no input from Flav.) I always liked the Buffalo Springfield-sampling title track, which has a mellow exhaustedness to it. Chuck isn't offering solutions at the moment, he has a keen understanding of what's wrong with the world but sounds too tired & resigned to do anything about it. It's a feeling I can relate to in 2022. But title track aside, the early part of the album is rough going.
Things start to pick up with "Is Your God A Dog," where producer Abnormal uses an awkward drum beat (snare on the "and" of 2) with MIDI horns that somehow combine into a distinctive & sinister sound. Then "House of the Rising Son" offers a variation on the classic PE sound, with a layered sample collage complete with sound effect drops over a funky midtempo drum loop--all buried under a prominent sub bass track to bring it into the modern era. The James Bond theme-sampling "Game Face" is an interesting track, mostly a heavily coded ego trip song. Again, unless I'm reading the liner notes wrong, the song was entirely written by Smoothe da Hustler? The flow and wordplay on Chuck's verse sounds much more like Smoothe than Chuck, but I didn't know Chuck was in the habit of spitting other people's words.
On the last 5 tracks this album really picks up, focusing on the themes (which I assume are themes in the film too, though I haven't seen it) of the sports industry & how it exploits Black players. Starting with "Politics of the Sneaker Pimps," where Chuck uses a different voice to signify that he's performing a character over an austere G-Wiz beat, & continuing through the sinister yet triumphant ascending string progression of "What You Need is Jesus," the sneering "Super Agent" & culminating in the hard rock-inflected "Go Cat Go," this section is like a mini-concept album. I should add that "Go Cat Go" is produced by electronic musicians Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto & Danny Saber of Black Grape, the only time on the album PE reaches outside the Bomb Squad stable for production, & it's massive. The title might be a sly Elvis Presley reference, perfect for a song that critiques a capitalist entertainment field whose white businessmen suck the blood from Black creativity & labor.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of an album quite as backloaded as this one. Usually the problem is the other way around--artists put the best songs toward the beginning so as not to lose short-attention-span listeners. It's an interesting approach, waiting until the end to really zero in on the album's themes. Perhaps on subsequent listens it all comes together, but guess what? I'm one of those short-attention-span listeners, & the lackluster 1st half prevented me from really putting the time in. Next time just make it an EP, guys.
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