Whatchoo talkin' bout? Willis.

It's been seven long years since Hayley Willis released her excellent debut album, Come Get Some, on 679, but the largely positive reviews it received weren't enough to prevent it sinking without trace. Nevertheless, I liked it a lot, and the two mesmerising live shows I saw in 2004, at the ICA and the late, lamented Spitz (both in London), had me desperately hoping she wouldn't become yet another casualty of widespread public indifference. But other than her inspired cover of Cameo's Word Up memorably featuring in an episode of CSI, and a one-shot self-released 7", Get In The Ring, about five years ago, there's been nothing since. Until now.



If you click here, you can preview her new album, Uncle Treacle, which is out later this month. It's already one of the best I've heard this year - raw-boned, spooked-out country/blues/folk, with a version of Dolly Parton's 9 To 5 that strips away all the Cosmo perkiness of the original, making it far easier for anyone actually familiar with the drudgery of working life to relate to. It's quite magnificent.

Nowadays, it's possible to throw a stone over your shoulder and hit half a dozen self-consciously "rootsy" female singer-songwriters straight from central casting. I doubt too many of them would have been as good as Willis back in 2003 and, on the evidence of this, I don't imagine much will have changed seven years on.

Is the ''one rapper/one producer'' hip-hop album on its way back?

Late last year, amongst the numerous attempts to summarise the decade before it ran out of road, one piece by Simon Reynolds on the Guardian’s music blog seemed to generate quite a bit of ire, as was perhaps to be expected of something decorated with the headline “When will hip-hop hurry up and die?” Echoing an earlier article in The New Yorker by Sasha Frere-Jones, Reynolds snottily attempted to wave away almost the entire decade, largely on the grounds that hip-hop had, in his eyes, floundered in its duty to pursue The New as an end in itself. Why he then flagged J-Kwon’s Tipsy – a Sainsbury’s Basics hip-pop knock-off of Grindin’ by The Clipse – as one of the decade’s high-water marks is all a matter of taste, I suppose, but it’s still a funny way to try and make an argument in favour of “more surprises…in terms of sound and style”.

In a later column, Reynolds went on to suggest that the widespread critical praise for Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt II (Time magazine called it the rap album of 2009) was somehow further evidence of the backward-facing creative stasis afflicting the music. Since the slender possibility of Reynolds paying much attention to anything rap-related this year is only likely to be matched by the increasing irrelevance of his disconnected musings, I'll say no more about him. The obsession some people have with The New above all else can be a bit tiresome, rather like the insistence that music should be “challenging”, “difficult” or “confrontational”. Personally, I’m happy enough for it just to be good, and to sound as though a bit of love and consideration has gone into it. If it also happens to sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before in my life, then so much the better, but that’s hardly a deal-breaker. After all, there’s a lot to be said for making sure you’ve got the fundamentals right, and three forthcoming rap releases suggest that, in some quarters, the creative focus could be returning to those very things.



A year or so ago, writing about Jake One’s album White Van Music, I hinted that a full-length collaboration with Freeway could be in the offing. Well, it’s finally here. The Stimulus Package is released in the US by Rhymesayers Entertainment two weeks from today (in an incredibly lavish package by Brent Rollins of Ego Trip fame/notoriety) and the pair’s buckshee mixtape from late last year, The Beat Made Me Do It, is still floating around as well. The latter is a good, solid listen – proper meat-and-potatoes rhyming over a grip of sample-heavy 80s r&b-flavoured beats, not too far removed from the boogie/modern soul flavour of Jake’s excellent A-R Music mixtape from a few years back. Whether or not The Stimulus Package follows a similar direction remains to be seen, but early reports are all positive. In any event, it appears Free has managed to put all that messy Roc/State Property business behind him and has adopted a Stakhanovite work ethic that’s resulted in some great music, especially over the last year or so. However, the anticipation this time around lies in hearing one great rapper vibing off one great producer, a combo that’s become increasingly rare in hip-hop. The age of guest-list rap albums with a multitude of names behind both the board and the mic may have helped disguise the comparative absence of strong, compelling personalities in hip-hop nowadays, but it’s also resulted in artist albums sounding like mixtapes, often lacking a clear or cohesive musical direction. How much this has to do with a shift in emphasis back towards rap’s roots as a singles-driven medium is anyone’s guess, but the way I see it is this; if you’re going to make an album, then make it sound like an album – something that can be listened to from end-to-end. Amidst the perpetual debate over whether old-school musical values are something to be cherished and maintained within hip-hop, or whether it’s all about looking forward and on-to-the-next-one, it’s easy to forget that the former approach resulted in some genuine classics, and there’s no real reason to believe it couldn’t do so again.



You get the feeling David Banner would agree. His forthcoming album, Death Of A Pop Star, also adopts the “one rapper/one producer” method, although it might surprise some people to learn that the Mississippi maverick (no mug as a producer himself) has stepped back from the board and brought in 9th Wonder to take care of the beats. Needless to say, this has resulted in some outrage amongst the hair-shirted “four elements” Taliban for whom 9th is something of a hero, one commenter on Nah Right even suggesting that the collaboration “might be the worst idea in music history”. Amusing as it is to observe the reaction when it dawns on a certain strain of rap fan that their heroes don’t necessarily share the same tastes as them, collaborations between performers with seemingly little in common are still fairly unusual. That said, from Crooked Lettaz onwards, Banner’s never been afraid to make room for thoughtful lyricism and musical diversity alongside “throw dem bows” raucousness, so perhaps this isn’t as awkward a fit as some are suggesting. Death Of A Pop Star’s broader concept is somewhat vague at this point, but for anybody seeking clues, Banner can be found most days enthusiastically talking up the project on his Twitter feed. There are also a couple of teaser/trailer-type things on YouTube, one of which (see above) shows the two of them, dressed buppie-style, playing chess in the library of some country pile. It looks a bit Ron Burgundy – “I have many leather-bound books, and my apartment smells of rich mahogany” – and a teeny bit pretentious, but at least they’re making an effort. Certainly, on the evidence of the freshly leaked Slow Down and last year’s Something’s Wrong, there’s a distinct whiff of “grown-ass man rap” about the proceedings, which should bring a bit of much-needed balance to the hip-hop landscape. 9th’s beats are typically chocka with reconfigured soul samples, while Banner delivers the “I don’t know what this world is coming to” subject matter in characteristically declamatory fashion. Not sure quite when it’s out - there was talk of the pair making it available for free, but Banner has since poured water on this. However, he's offering fans and bedroom producers the chances to remix tracks from the album, the best of which will feature on a freebie remix album later in the year. All in all, this is looking like one to catch.



If these two albums do indeed represent a trend of sorts, then by rights Just Blaze and Saigon ought to have been at least 18 months ahead of it. When Just signed Saigon to his Fort Knocks imprint in 2005, it was on the back of probably the most impressive street buzz for a New York rapper since 50 Cent. Coming from more or less the same part of Jamaica, Queens as Fiddy, Saigon had also spent more than a little time on the corner and in the nick, but rather than choose the self-mythologising route favoured by Fiddy, Sai saw an opportunity to position himself as a somewhat more conscious, but no less uncompromising Yin to Fiddy’s Yang. A few enthusiastically received mixtapes (the high-points from which were later compiled on the Warning Shots album) and a short stint playing a West Coast version of himself in Season 2 of HBO’s Entourage saw both the momentum and the profile building nicely. Fort Knocks had signed a label deal with Atlantic, and Sai’s first single - the rowdy, J. Geils-sampling Come On Baby - came out in the spring of 2007. Jay-Z’s guest verse on the remix was seen in some quarters almost as an endorsement of an emcee many saw as being capable of putting New York City back at the centre of the rap universe, and Sai’s Just Blaze-produced debut album, The Greatest Story Never Told, was scheduled for release later that year. Only it never happened. What happened instead was a salutary lesson in Industry Rule #4080 – postponement followed postponement, Sai began to use his MySpace blog to rail against the record biz politics that had stalled his career (he even announced, then quickly withdrew, plans to quit music altogether at one point), and sundry internet wiseacres began to snarkily refer to the album as “the Chinese Democracy of hip-hop”. Eventually, and just before the release of a second single (the glorious (Gotta) Believe It, above), Just managed to extricate Fort Knocks from its Atlantic deal, taking the masters of Sai’s now somewhat ironically titled album with him. A new deal was said to be in the offing. This was mid-2008, and although one or two cuts from The Greatest Story Never Told have since turned up on mixtapes, the album itself has yet to see daylight.

Miraculously, though, neither has it leaked, and if the latest release date – a somewhat vague “first quarter 2010” – is to be trusted, Just and Sai may actually find themselves bang on trend. Music is one of those fields of endeavour where leading the pack may not always be beneficial. History is littered with tales of innovators who were too far ahead of their time, or of trendsetting performers who had to wait years for the rest of the world to catch up, but perhaps the sight of three rapper’s rappers and three producer’s producers (rather than one of each) all purposefully moving in a similar direction will encourage a few more people to follow.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

It never fails to amaze me how the music industry continues to come up with new ways of shooting itself in the arse.

There's a scene near the end of "Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story", where the misfiring career of John C. Reilly's washed-up c&w singer is revitalised after one of his songs is sampled as the basis for a multi-million selling rap hit. The difference between this scenario, and the wretched failure of good taste that is 'Johnny Cash Remixed', is that Dewey Cox's serendipitous good fortune is the punchline to the film's central joke. Not only that, but they had sufficient smarts to get Ghostface on the track in the movie.

Whilst you'd hope that, in the name of all that is good and decent, "Johnny Cash Remixed" would die like the dog it surely is, it's nevertheless difficult to look at it and not think; how on Earth could anybody think this was an idea worth spending money on in the first place? By its very nature, there's going to be a degree of gilding the lily involved with any remix project involving a Heritage Artist, particularly when the work of said artist doesn't immediately lend itself to such treatment. In this case, though, it seems particularly pointless. After all, it's no exaggeration to describe Johnny Cash as a giant of American popular music. Even if you were to disregard the recent, somewhat sanitised, biopic "Walk The Line" and the widely-acclaimed American Recordings series, made in his twilight years under the aegis of Rick Rubin - things which actually did bring the man and his music to a new, younger audience - Cash is hardly somebody you'd describe as a forgotten man in any event. Furthermore, it's unlikely anybody discovering Cash since his death in 2003 would need, or want, to have been met halfway by something as godawful as this

Compare such a shambles to the altogether more respectful treatment Cash's Columbia back catalogue continues to receive at the hands of Sony BMG's appropriately-named Legacy division, and you begin to see it for what it undoubtedly is. After somehow finagling access to a bunch of Sun-era Cash masters, the guilty parties - amongst others, Snoop Dogg, Matthew Knowles (father/manager of Beyonce) and John Carter Cash (who really ought to know better) - have decided that these recordings would benefit enormously from the musical equivalent of a "Pimp My Ride" makeover. Thus, the spare, introspective menace of I Walk The Line is obliterated beneath an unremarkable off-the-peg backing track that does its creators (Snoop, DJ Quik and Teddy Riley) no favours at all. In fact, the list of participants on each remix tells its own story; two-thirds of them are what you'd politely describe as "marginal" figures, many of whom seem to have little form beyond having contributed to several other projects of a similar nature (Kennedy? Count De Money? Mocean Worker? Me neither). You're left with the impression that any genuine A-list names who'd been asked to contribute had suddenly found themselves with prior commitments. No wonder, since virtually everything on here is barely listenable hackery of the shabbiest kind.



Worst of a very bad bunch indeed is Pete Rock's awful "will this do?" take on Folsom Prison Blues. Now, Pete Rock is without question one of the greatest and most innovative producers in the history of hip-hop, and I have to admit that I was at least curious to hear what he'd done with the source material. A filtered SP1200 bassline from some obscure Fania record? A few signature growls and ad-libs from The Chocolate Boy Wonder as a high lonesome horn sample pans back and forth across the stereo picture? The snare from Mountain's Long Red? Nope. What we get is the kind of rhythm track that probably took a minute to punch up, and which was then thrown into ProTools along with the master recording and, a few tweaks later, being FedEx-ed back to the label, doubtless within the hour. In fact, Compadre Records (let's name names here) could just as likely have found someone in their own mailroom every bit as capable of delivering something just as cheap and shoddy-sounding for a tenth of what they paid Pete Rock.

Whilst the debate continues to rage on both sides of the Atlantic over whether the copyright period for sound recordings should be extended, you'd think that the so-called custodians of some of the touchstones of modern popular music would be a little more eager to show they were up to the job. In their haste to squeeze more mileage out of these recordings in such an ill-advised manner, they've succeeded only in producing something destined to end up as road surfacing in a far-flung province of China.

'Chinese Democracy' - the rock equivalent of 'The Phantom Menace'?

Tomorrow, on November 23rd 2008, Guns 'n' Roses finally release "Chinese Democracy". If you've ever wondered what an album which took almost fifteen years and cost $11m to make would actually sound like, fill yer boots.

I can't stand Guns 'n' Roses, for reasons I can't be bothered to go into here - the "blogosphere" is already overrun with peanutheads who'll tell you at great length why Band X/Movie Y/Celebrity Z sucks, is an oxygen thief, or holds a metaphorical pillow over the face of "real" talent, so I'll pass on this opportunity, thanks. Nonetheless, it's undeniable that G'n'R are A Big Deal to many, including several people whose opinions I respect, and whatever else one may think of the band, their music and the Hammer-Of-The-Gods-turned-up-to-11 universe they inhabit, it's equally undeniable that "Chinese Democracy" is that rare thing nowadays - an Event Record.

I like Event Records, or more precisely, I like the idea of them. I mean, I can't remember the last time I was startled by an Oasis record, for example, but each time a new one comes around, I'm curious to hear whether Noel Gallagher's managed to pull anything out of his arse that's near the measure of "Slide Away" or "Rock'n'Roll Star". Likewise, with every new Madonna album comes a degree of certainty that it won't sound too much like the previous one. Which is to say that Event Records often hold a fascination for both fans and non-fans, even if only, in the latter case, to shore up an existing belief that the performers in question are no more than charlatans, fanfarons and snake-oil salesmen. Being somewhat long of tooth and grey of beard, I can remember when Event Records seemed a good deal more plentiful and frequent than they are now. The two-year gestation of Stevie Wonder's masterpiece "Songs In The Key Of Life" is a good example; how on God's Green Earth, people asked at the time, can an album take two years to make? When the end product finally arrived, though, and everyone got to hear it at the same time (more or less), the wait was, in the case of "Songs...", definitely worth it. Now, if you'll please briefly excuse me while I draw a discreet veil over "The Second Coming"...

Anyway, content notwithstanding, it could be that "Chinese Democracy" marks the passing of the Event Record, on some level at least. Reviewing it for The Onion's AV Club, Chuck Klosterman makes a very astute point to this effect;

"For one thing, Chinese Democracy is (pretty much) the last Old Media album we'll ever contemplate in this context—it's the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file. This is the end of that."

I think this is dead-on. Peer-to-peer trading of watermarked copy-protected advance promos, the drip-drip of officially-sanctioned leaks, being able to treat albums like the buffet at a wedding (courtesy of iTunes et al), where we pick and choose what we want with no obligation to take anything we don't - all have rendered the notion of the album as a self-contained 'Grand Artistic Statement Which Has Something Important To Say About The World And That' rather redundant. It appears that nobody's told Axl Rose any of this - or if they have, he wasn't listening - because "Chinese Democracy" has 'Grand Artistic Statement, etc.' embedded in its very DNA. But the inherent risk in giving the world advance notice, as Rose has done, that the next one will be The Magnum Opus is this; what if it turns out to be a load of shite? What if, after all this time, Axl Rose has completely lost sight of whatever it is he wanted to say, to the extent that the making of the statement has now become as, or more, important than the statement itself? After all, Rose's megalomaniac tendencies have been well-documented, and megalomania can do funny things to one's sense of perspective. Now, I should add at this point that I'm not much of a "Star Wars" fan, so I could never quite fathom the eagerness with which the arrival of "The Phantom Menace" was anticipated by those for whom "Star Wars" was a formative part of their childhood. But one comment made upon its release by a bitterly disappointed fanboy has stayed with me; "It's official - I have wasted my life". So, to return to the doubtless not-terribly-original observation at the top, has a decade-and-a-half of sitting on your hands been worth it? Or is "Chinese Democracy" rock music's equivalent of "The Phantom Menace"?

Well...yes. And no. If it was ever Axl Rose's intention to cause a paradigm shift in rock music with this record, then I'm afraid he's fallen flat on his arse. I've often been told by fans of G'n'R that it was the stripped-back directness of "Appetite For Destruction", and its preference for the fundamentals of rock'n'roll (or G'n'R's idea thereof) over stadium-rock hair-metal bombast, which caused it to have such a seismic impact (I'm still not buying that line, but that's another story). Well, guess what? In the bombast stakes, this makes the complete works of Richard Wagner, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Jim Steinman sound like a Nick Drake demo. Minimalist it most assuredly is not. And, like most modern rock records, it's been ProTooled to fuck and back - Rose's vocals are clinically on-the-money throughout, and every riff, bass line and drum fill has been arranged with draughtsman's precision; a sure-fire indicator that several hundred man-hours have been spent in post-production. There is nothing raw about "Chinese Democracy"; the dirty fingernails, cracked lips and calloused fingers of G'n'R's previous manifestations have been comprehensively excised. You could eat your dinner off this album. It's been polished, buffed and polished again, almost to the point of blandness. But here's a funny thing - when it works, it sounds fantastic. Case in point being "Street of Dreams", a spectacularly over-written mid-tempo rock ballad that's a dead cert to be bashed out at "American Idol" auditions from now until the franchise utters its death-rattle. "Madagascar", one of several songs with somewhat gnomic titles, is the sort of swaggering, roided-up, industrial trip-hop you could've heard on umpteen movie and videogame soundtracks over the last decade or so, but the twist here is that, instead of yet another guitar solo that sounds like a massacre in a poultry farm, there's a spoken-word collage featuring snippets from "Cool Hand Luke" and Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. Yet when you hear it, rather than thinking, "Oh, for fuck's sake!", you instead begin to think that, despite the played-out nature of this and other devices, such as the dated nu-metal grind which drives a number of songs, "Chinese Democracy" is actually a very coherent-sounding record. The cliches make sense. There's plenty of light and shade, a first-rate grasp of modern hard-rock dynamics that might conceivably have Josh Homme rushing back to the drawing board, and any number of surprising and even affecting melodic and compositional flourishes. When you think about what a maddening clusterfuck its creation must have been, this is pretty remarkable. Imagine if the best thing that could have been said about it was, "Well, at least it's not completely fucking awful..."

And, you know, it isn't. In fact, it's pretty good. Whether or not Jimmy Iovine and the board of directors at Interscope feel they've got their money's worth now that Rose has finally delivered the bloody thing is moot. One thing's for certain; somebody did a bang-up job of keeping advance copies out of the reach of mp3 blogs, so there's a genuine likelihood it'll actually sell. If there's enough about it to have a committed naysayer like me conceding that, yes, this record is a qualified success which will perform well on its own merits rather than on the reputation of its creators, and no, it is nothing like the bloated, sprawling, unfocused, Ishtar-like monstrosity that many people might have expected, then it probably deserves to. I might even buy it myself. If it recoups, mind you, then I'll show my arse in the Vatican.