After releasing three amazing heavy funk records, Rick James
took a serious detour in 1980 with his fourth album Garden of Love, an album that consisted entirely of ballads and songs whose funkiness was so subtle that it disappointed many fans and
critics. Compared to his previous
records, Garden of Love was a
commercial and critical flop, although its reputation has been rehabilitated in
the decades since. After four OutKast
albums, his debut solo album Speakerboxxx
(packaged as part of the group’s insanely popular Speakerboxxx/The Love Below double album in 2003), and 2010’s Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico
Dusty, all of which had neck snapping funk as integral parts of their DNA,
Big Boi released his own Garden
of Love this year. Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
eschews funk almost entirely, in favor of indie pop and billowy electronic
music. Some of the tracks, such as the
three songs Little Dragon appears on (maybe three and a half; I’m pretty sure
that they play on “Mama Told Me” even though Yukimi Nagano was replaced by
Kelly Rowland on the hook), work extremely well. On the other hand, “Shoes for Running,”
featuring Wavves, is obnoxious, and the three songs featuring Phantogram are
boring. There are real gems on the album
though. “The Thickets” and “Apple of My
Eye,” produced respectively by longtime Outkast collaborators Organized Noize
and Mr. DJ, come the closest to matching the high watermark set by the rest of
his career and serve as a great way to kick off the record. The thundering “In the A,” with guest raps
from T.I. and Ludacris, follows soon after, but the record begins stalling on
the next track, the Kid Cudi-assisted “She Hates Me,” and never fully regains
its footing. Some of the remaining
tracks are really interesting though and Big Boi deserves a lot of credit for
trying something new, such as singing on “Raspberries” and combining hip hop
with ethereal folk on “Descending.” Even
the not so good tracks are partially redeemed by the fact that Big Boi can
still rap circles around pretty much anyone.
Overall, this album seems like a mostly failed experiment right now and
I definitely think it’s the worst album out of these honorable mentions, but I’ve
only had a week to listen to it. I’m
really interested to see how this album will sound in year or in ten
years. And if nothing else, we can look
back to Rick James. After Garden of Love, James returned to his
roots and made Street Songs, one of
the funkiest album of the 1980s. I know
Big Boi has a Street Songs in him.
Big Boi - "In the A" (feat. T.I. & Ludacris)
Big Boi - "Raspberries" (feat. Mouche & Scar)
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