While plenty of fans pay lip service to honoring the old school,
mainstream hip-hop has an attention span shorter than Andy Warhol's
proverbial 15 minutes. With a 23-year history and 10 studio albums to its
credit, the pioneering Public Enemy gets its props, but its new releases are
greeted with the same enthusiasm that a cutting-edge rock fan might display
for the newest disc by Journey or Chicago. That's a shame, because P.E. is
still making powerful music, even if it falls short of earlier classics such
as "Fear of a Black Planet."
To be sure, the crew's driving forces have done themselves no favors with
the overexposure of their extra-musical gigs: main man Chuck D. as an
unimpressive talk show host on Air America, and cheerleader Flavor Flav as a
willing buffoon on VH1's "The Surreal Life" and "Strange Love." They've
never been as powerful as when they were when rapping over the Bomb Squad's
dense white-noise productions, which have been replaced by more generic,
rock-inflected grooves; Chuck D. has become prone to simplistic sloganeering
("Power to the people because the people want peace"), while Flav has
been relegated to the margins, and we really don't need the many samples
(including an opening homage from the Rev. Al Sharpton) reminding us how
important the group once was.
Despite these gripes, P.E.'s first all-new album in six years deserves a
larger audience than the latest from any geezer rocker this side of Neil
Young or Bob Dylan. Chuck D.'s bombastic, basketball announcer voice is
stronger than it was on "Muse Sick in Hour Mess Age" (1994) or "There's a
Poison Goin On" (1999) and it's such a great instrument that even his
slightest lyrics sound impressive.
And when the former Carlton Ridenhour challenges himself to take a stand
that's truly controversial (as on "Preachin' to the Quiet" and "Makes You
Blind," the former a condemnation of greed and violence in hip-hop, the
latter a mediation on empty entertainment) or tries to say something new
about a familiar dilemma ("Who in the hell told you that you were in
heaven?/Platinum, gold, the house and the car/But poverty all around you by
far ... Heaven for whites is hell for blacks in America," he raps in
"Superman's Black in the Building"), P.E. is still unbeatable.
KATE BUSH, "AERIAL" (COLUMBIA) ***
Long one of the most distinctive voices in the music world, Kate Bush has
been missing in action for more than a decade. After "The Red Shoes" (1993),
the singer-songwriter took some time off to heal after the death of her
mother and concentrate on raising her son, now 7. (He contributes album art
and receives a loving homage in the song "Bertie.")
Thankfully, Bush lost none of her ethereal vocal power or her eccentric
weirdness during her absence, and "Aerial" -- which was self-produced,
recorded largely at her home studio and written over an extended period even
longer than her semi-retirement -- is as strong as any of her previous
albums, which tend to prompt either indifference or intense devotion. As
usual, these 16 songs, which are spread over two discs, focus on her
keyboards and that magical voice, with occasional touches from top-tier
session help, including drummer Peter Erskine and former Procol Harum
organist Gary Brooker, though sadly, the singer's original mentor, Dave
Gilmour, is nowhere to be found.
Those unfamiliar with Bush's mix of styles (which range from New Age
Muzak to Celtic folk to Spanish guitar with many detours in between), her
at-times bizarre and impressionistic lyrics ("Slooshy sloshy slooshy
sloshy/Get that dirty shirt clean ... Washing machine, washing machine,
washing machine!" she chirps in "Mrs. Bartolozzi") or her occasional
overindulgences (she spends 42 minutes serenading a pigeon over the nine
tracks that comprise the second disc, "A Sky of Honey") may be put off. But
committed fans and listeners willing to bound those hurdles will be rewarded
with an album that creates an enchanting and hypnotizing world all its own.