Hmmm. Everyone in the UK knows the Stereo MCs due to Connected, a track which appears on the album which followed the album that followed this. It's one of those tunes that has been played so much that it has transitioned into background noise. Also adverts. But this is their debut album, maybe they had some magic and then lost it over time (cf The Black Eyed Peas).
But then again, maybe not. This is not a terrible album, and I say that going in with the feeling that it was a terrible album. If you imagine the song connected - take the lyrical content and rapping and put some vaguely old school beats under it then you've pretty much got the measure of the record. The rapping is everything but heavyweight (Though, I listened this in the context of the Braintax record which is fast becoming one of my favourite records of all time). The production is fairly solid but nothing amazing. It's good.
Unlike trad rap though, there's lots of uptempo stuff and it's pretty happy go lucky. Toe To Toe is faster than most US rap, and then chorus of "STAND ON MY TOES!" is pretty uplifting. The lyrics are okay: "Try to track me, Try to crack me, I last longer than a Duracell Battery". Wikipedia tells me that the Jungle Brothers appeared on their second album - and that's a fair comparison, lightweight but solid.
All the samples are UB&B type affairs - a bit of Nautilus, a bit of War, a bit of the Average White Band. But it's all well done. So not as bad as I feared but not the best record I've ever heard either. The US seems to have been saved from the Stereo MCs as I bought this on UK iTunes. I find it utterly depressing that there is a difference in availability between US and UK digital music stores but there we go - that's my white whine. Roots Manuva up next...
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