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Various Artists, "Teeth"
Scandanavian hip hop sounds pretty, feels empty.
Statler & Waldorf
The Statler & Waldorf label wanted to kick things off with a sampler based around the concept of European electronic musicians working with the theme of hip hop. Were this not an already a redundant assignment given the world-wide cribbing of hip hop mannerisms in all forms of electronica, it might seem like an interesting cross-cultural experiment. The trouble is that no one on this compilation is a stranger to hip hop, as hip hop's place as the world's dominant youth culture paradigm makes a concept like this a laughable afterthought unless its executed with brilliance. Unfortunately, it isn't. Most everything here is a rehash of the last couple of years of Bip-Hop, ~scape, and Force Inc. releases and the already myriad spin-offs and imitators. One track has a little bit of dub, another goes for the minimalist click and drone, another cuts up standard hip hop loops with quirky but highly predictable laptop tomfoolery—it's fairly workmanlike. And while not everything on the disc is a waste (in fact, a lot of the tunes are quite well-put-together,) the whole thing feels like an excursion into the very well traveled. It's like going on an exotic vacation to the mall: you can pretend to be curious and interested in the cultural zoo, but it's really just a bunch of people buying crap and it's about as lame as imaginable. If nothing else, Teeth makes a good case for these (mostly Scandinavian) artists to break out and do their own thing. This same group of artists working with an assignment like "make electronic music from the theme of Bluegrass" would probably be at least worth checking out just to see the culture clash. There's a lot to like about Teeth in a superficial "these are nice beats" kind of way, but it has about as deep an understanding of hip hop culture as a DJ scratching in a soda commercial.
The Statler & Waldorf label wanted to kick things off with a sampler based around the concept of European electronic musicians working with the theme of hip hop. Were this not an already a redundant assignment given the world-wide cribbing of hip hop mannerisms in all forms of electronica, it might seem like an interesting cross-cultural experiment. The trouble is that no one on this compilation is a stranger to hip hop, as hip hop's place as the world's dominant youth culture paradigm makes a concept like this a laughable afterthought unless its executed with brilliance. Unfortunately, it isn't. Most everything here is a rehash of the last couple of years of Bip-Hop, ~scape, and Force Inc. releases and the already myriad spin-offs and imitators. One track has a little bit of dub, another goes for the minimalist click and drone, another cuts up standard hip hop loops with quirky but highly predictable laptop tomfoolery—it's fairly workmanlike. And while not everything on the disc is a waste (in fact, a lot of the tunes are quite well-put-together,) the whole thing feels like an excursion into the very well traveled. It's like going on an exotic vacation to the mall: you can pretend to be curious and interested in the cultural zoo, but it's really just a bunch of people buying crap and it's about as lame as imaginable. If nothing else, Teeth makes a good case for these (mostly Scandinavian) artists to break out and do their own thing. This same group of artists working with an assignment like "make electronic music from the theme of Bluegrass" would probably be at least worth checking out just to see the culture clash. There's a lot to like about Teeth in a superficial "these are nice beats" kind of way, but it has about as deep an understanding of hip hop culture as a DJ scratching in a soda commercial. samples:
