Label: LaFace
Where's the wow? Outkast brought it on all its previous albums — even, in moments, on 2003's wildly uneven Speakerboxx/The Love Below. Wow moments are all but nonexistent on Idlewild, ostensibly the soundtrack to an Outkast song-and-dance movie set in the '30s. The CD is ambitious, daring in spots, but in the final analysis, comes off as consistently average. There is only one song, out of 25 (including interludes), that emerges as striking: "Idlewild Blue (Don't Chu Worry About Me)" is this disc's "Hey Ya," a simple tune built on a threadbare framework, little more than an acoustic guitar and a shuffle beat — that's Andre 3000's postmodern take on the blues.
For those concerned that Outkast would try to fully deliver a vintage jump-blues album, fret not; there are references (the Cab Calloway onomatopoeia of "Mighty O") and a number of (mostly forgettable) tunes built around bouncy swing, but by and large, Idlewild is a sprawling pop/hip-hop disc with most of the Dirty South scrubbed away (interesting, in that the apparent idea was to establish a connection between rap and its stylistic forbears).
Where the disc fares best is when it plays it straighter and funkier and leaves plenty of room for the rappers to spit: "N2U" sways along, with Dre and Big Boi passing the mic, leavened by a hooky chorus; "Buggface" busts out a deep, P-Funk-esque groove and unleashes fusillades of rhyme. Dre seems still infatuated with the idea of singing, and he might be best served to rethink that strategy. When his vocal work is featured rather than smushed up into the mix, much of it comes off as braying and precariously out of tune.
This is best evidenced in "Hollywood Divorce," where he croons an awkward hook amid a barrage of raps by himself, Boi, Lil' Wayne and Snoop Dog. The song complains about how the mainstream co-opts black art. Dre sums it up in a brief soliloquy: "All the fresh styles always start off as a good lil' hood thing. Look at blues, rock, jazz, rap; not even talking music, everything else too. By the time it reach Hollywood, it's over."
This seems a curious argument from a man who's benefited from the Hollywood-ization of his music. We're not talking about Little Richard getting ripped off by Pat Boone here. Does Andre 3000 really want to be back selling mix tapes out of the trunk of an Impala? But, as they say, I digress.
I don't know how many of these songs play prominently in Idlewild the movie. Many of them may go well with dazzling visuals. But as standalone music, this is Outkast's least satisfying effort yet. 2.5 stars
Fallout from the War
SHADOWS FALL
Century Media
The press material for Grammy-nominated metal crew Shadows Fall actually uses the word "innovative," which not only is a blatant lie but misses the point entirely. Shadows Fall is so exciting precisely because it draws influence almost exclusively from groove-intensive late-'80s thrash bands like Sepultura and Overkill. Fallout from the War may be the group's least technically complex and most melodic effort to date, but it still delivers an intensity that deftly presents familiar styles with an original twist. There's a reason why Shadows Fall stood out, immediately and brightly, from the post-nu-metal pack, and the band continues to ply a refreshing alternative to the screamo/metalcore sound. Just don't listen to "Teasn', Pleasn'," the perplexing and completely unnecessary cover of the regrettable '80s hair band Dangerous Toys. 3.5 stars —Scott Harrell
Sublime: Deluxe Edition
sublime
Geffen
Ten years after its original release, Sublime's self-titled third LP (and lead singer Brad Nowell's posthumous swan song) gets the double-disc reissue treatment befitting its mainstream classic status. It's odd how the album both then and today sounds best when the band strays furthest from the West Coast punk sound it began with, reaching apexes on acoustic hip-hop summer jams like "What I Got" and "Doin' Time," the latter restored here with Nowell's original lyrics on the chorus. Besides reshuffling the running order to what was first intended, this reissue pads things out with a second disc of your standard fare: left-out tracks, alternate versions and remixes. Wildly overrated, Sublime is nevertheless a solid and varied slice of mid-'90s pop, which this set amply demonstrates. 3 stars —Cooper Levey-Baker
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2006.