The thing is, this is not as crap as people who own DJ Shadow albums will tell you. It’s a lot better than crap, even good. When Morcheeba dropped ‘Who Can You Trust?’ (1996) on us, we were not only young and easy to influence, but it actually was a good record too. On the two albums after that though, they dropped the eeriness that once almost got them mentioned in the same breath as Portishead and instead, focused on what made for good pop music. It’s been pretty much the same shoe since then, polished many times over with Nugget Shoe Shine. But it’s more of a Grasshopper than a Bata Tuffee – more smug, relaxed comfort than the naughty kicking of rocks and stomping in the mud.
First track ‘Opener’ and radio plug ‘Otherwise’ (“I’m under your curse now/ but I call it compromise”) set the tone for what soon seems to be a cheesy lounge/ chillout album about, you know, the agony of the human condition, fame, cities
and love captured in the forced rhyming of ‘cliché’, ‘day’, ‘way’, ‘grey’ and ‘DJ’, all in one verse (‘Sao Paulo’).
The title track is quite a funky item (with Pace Won on silly lyrics), at least blatant in its purpose of pushing your bum from side to side, slowly, so as not to spill your cocktail. Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner lends some much-needed cred to ‘What New York Couples Fight About’, and his simple, almost mumbled delivery works better than one would’ve expected.
By the time Slick Rick provides rhymes and vocals for the rather disgusting ‘Women Lose Weight’ (in which Slick kills his woman ‘cause she doesn’t want to lose weight – Eminem would be proud of such shameless sexist wank), it seems that even Morcheeba has decided that they need to wobble their style every now and then, even if it just means shoving Skye towards the tea room in favour of more varied voices.
Slick’s rhymes aside, the rest of the lyrics are about as offensive as a sunflower in full bloom,
so don’t be alarmed – this is music for children, even church-going people who like a bit of sleazy sex music on the side. The production is as tight as you can expect, the singing sweet ‘n lovely and the beats and strings and things are all in the right places. Good, but could be so much more.
The thing is, this is not as crap as people who own DJ Shadow albums will tell you. It’s a lot better than crap, even good. When Morcheeba dropped ‘Who Can You Trust?’ (1996) on us, we were not only young and easy to influence, but it actually was a good record too. On the two albums after that though, they dropped the eeriness that once almost got them mentioned in the same breath as Portishead and instead, focused on what made for good pop music. It’s been pretty much the same shoe since then, polished many times over with Nugget Shoe Shine. But it’s more of a Grasshopper than a Bata Tuffee – more smug, relaxed comfort than the naughty kicking of rocks and stomping in the mud.
First track ‘Opener’ and radio plug ‘Otherwise’ (“I’m under your curse now/ but I call it compromise”) set the tone for what soon seems to be a cheesy lounge/ chillout album about, you know, the agony of the human condition, fame, cities
and love captured in the forced rhyming of ‘cliché’, ‘day’, ‘way’, ‘grey’ and ‘DJ’, all in one verse (‘Sao Paulo’).
The title track is quite a funky item (with Pace Won on silly lyrics), at least blatant in its purpose of pushing your bum from side to side, slowly, so as not to spill your cocktail. Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner lends some much-needed cred to ‘What New York Couples Fight About’, and his simple, almost mumbled delivery works better than one would’ve expected.
By the time Slick Rick provides rhymes and vocals for the rather disgusting ‘Women Lose Weight’ (in which Slick kills his woman ‘cause she doesn’t want to lose weight – Eminem would be proud of such shameless sexist wank), it seems that even Morcheeba has decided that they need to wobble their style every now and then, even if it just means shoving Skye towards the tea room in favour of more varied voices.
Slick’s rhymes aside, the rest of the lyrics are about as offensive as a sunflower in full bloom,
so don’t be alarmed – this is music for children, even church-going people who like a bit of sleazy sex music on the side. The production is as tight as you can expect, the singing sweet ‘n lovely and the beats and strings and things are all in the right places. Good, but could be so much more.