The Last Drop » Erykah Badu http://www.lastdropshop.com Reviews and Clues on Music That Matters (to me) Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:18:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Top Drops: February http://www.lastdropshop.com/topdrops/top-drops-february-2 http://www.lastdropshop.com/topdrops/top-drops-february-2#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:05:00 +0000 TopDrop http://www.lastdropshop.com/?p=141 Too many to count. Mainly catchup from 2008 but also a strong top 10 contender for 2009.

Portishead, Third - Yeah, yeah I was hiding under a rock for a while. But at least I can recognize genius. Even if it’s close to a year late. If you are as bad as me (or worse, I won’t tell…) get this album now before you are publicaly shamed.


Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Pt. One – Experimental of a different kind. Less complete than the Collective and more… Erykah like. I saw her in concert and she couldn’t stop yapping about her chakras. I guess she’s moved on to fighting against materialist concerns. But she still doesn’t complete a thought often. Lucky for her it still all sounds good.

Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion – Animals are good for your. You can read about it in JAMA or something. Anyway, my health has been restored and I’m feeling more bouyant than ever. If you don’t get this same feeling from “My Girls” then something is wrong with you.

]]> http://www.lastdropshop.com/topdrops/top-drops-february-2/feed 0 New Issue: Erykah Badu http://www.lastdropshop.com/newalbum/new-issue-erykah-badu http://www.lastdropshop.com/newalbum/new-issue-erykah-badu#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:02:00 +0000 TopDrop http://www.lastdropshop.com/?p=135 Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part One – Contunuing the rundown from 2008 missed connections. If only all R&B could be influenced by Erykah. I sometimes wonder how she can persist in pushing avant-garde neo soul to the fore front of her work. But then I realized – she’s just crazy. Actually crazy. Nothing more, nothing less. A tad more focused than your normal crazy, but not much. Her last two albums (Worldwide Underground and New Amerykah respectively) are perfect sketches of songs. Not a true cohesive album, just artist renditions of what poetry, an idea, or even a fledgling thought should be if it were put to music. Where Worldwide Underground left you with the half empty stomach of an EP for breakfast, New Amerykah leaves you much more full by way of small plates that add up to a filling sum. There are very few breakout tracks – no radio single to speak of and an occasionally played video for “Honey” – and quite a few interludes. But they do all address Erykah’s concerns with the material nature of the world (a constant theme for many of her albums). And they somehow build towards a decisive conclusion to the album. This gradually build plays well for the last three songs on the album which make the most sense as fully formed songs. In a way, it’s a smart device to force listeners to hear the entire album in sequence. However, it can only be listened to as a sum of its parts. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. I liked the appropriate use of funk, the silliness of the blacksploitation soundtrack, and the courage to make an album so completely far away from where contemporary black music is headed. Maybe this will stand as a fork towards the road less taken. And maybe a few more artists will follow.

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