COMMON – Finding Forever – 2007 – Vinyl album review
HIGHLIGHTS: Start The Show - The People – Driving Me Wild – The Game – Forever Begins
SOUNDBITE: I never kissed the ass of the masses, I’m the black molasses/ Thick and I lasted past these rat bastards”
RATING: 3.5/5
Hitherto Common’s smooth soul-inflected hip-hop has mostly left me colder than a lap-dance from a horse in a thong and considerably less amused. I do have a friend who once bought Like Water For Chocolate against my advice but – as he pointed out - he bought it when he had a hangover. Still Common’s relatively recent matey-ness with Kanye West has changed things up a bit and progressively reduced the snore factor. Last time around the scratchy boom-bap of single The Corner was quite listenable though the rest of the LP was still forgettable. This time around things are slightly better again. There are twelve tracks on this version (so that’s one track less as well as a month later in release than the CD then…), eight of which are produced by Kanye West and (much as I hate to give credit to an ego that big) these include all of the best ones, though they also include some of the worst. The first three tracks (proper) on the LP are all Kanye tracks and among the better ones. Start The Show, The People, and Driving Me Wild pretty much encapsulate Common’s three-pronged approach on Finding Forever, respectively a) biggin himself up “I been a master since P was no limitin”, b) speaking out against social inequality for black people, c) (often - though not in this first case) dubious ‘love’ songs. While musically Start The Show has a dreamy ‘Native Tongues’ sound of something by Asheru And Blue Black, recent single The People has more obvious Kanye production flourishes. The excellent Driving Me Wild features the same Rotary Connection Love Has Fallen On Me sample that Perceptionists put to good use a couple of years ago in Love Letters and manages to do equally well with it, especially as (in a shameless market-canny move) the whole thing is nicely topped-off with a Lily Allen-sung chorus. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see it released as a single. Of the remainder of the LP, The Game (flipside to The People single) takes it to the streets with a fat break straight outta the 90s and the last two tracks manage to be both laid-back, introspective and not boring. Once again though, there is the whiff of the also-ran about this – the third major hip-hop release this year (after Mos Def’s True Magic and Pharoahe Monch’s Desire) that doesn’t quite live up to expectations - by which I mean that I can’t see myself wanting to listen to any tracks other than those listed as highlights above on any long term basis. I hear little sign of Common’s much-vaunted lyrical genius and tolerable lines like “Your career is a typo/ Mine is written like a haiku” are matched by lame rhymes such as like “A dreamer so I keep dreamin on/ It’s kind of like the break up of Jen and Vince Vaughn” and “Put a G in your hand, make sure you’re livin alright/ Makin’ love is me I’ma give it all night” on the second half of the LP which is pervaded by neo-soul and unimaginative beats. Where it’s good, this LP is very good, where it’s bad it’s like watery chocolate – blandly hinting at what could have been. Word.
Out now.
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www.common-music.com
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