Couple of hip hop duds.

While I have been listening to the electro-house-hyphy stuff lately and have enjoyed Swayzak and a revisiting of some Chromeo records, checking out some Justice along with DFA's various projects (DFA Remixes Ch. 2 can't come soon enough) I also givin two other mainstream hip hop albums a run through. I streamed both Jurassic 5's Feedback and Pharrell's In My Mind and I am glad I did. Cause I'd be pissed if I had bought them.

In My Mind is Pharrell's solo debt. One half of the Neptunes production team he gets help from Kanye along with others but it doesn't really help. The record is lame. Its a mixture of hip hop and R&B and the R&B component is atrocious. While the hip hop tracks aren't atrocious they are over produced and at their basic level they just aren't catchy. Isn't this the Pharrell that along with Hugo dropped some serious hits and was producing crazy stuff? I find it odd that a producer of Pharrell's talent didn't save a couple gems for his own record.

Feedback isn't much better than In My Mind. Its not poor for the same reason Pharrell's disk is, but Feedback is indeed poor. While I thought Power in Numbers was an advance on their Quality Control album this is a big step back. Outside of wanting to hear Charli2na's rhyme and his cool as hell voice this album has nothing to offer (sorry DMB fratboy fans). I am getting tired of the whining that nobody cares about hip hop and only J5 knows hip hop bla badee bla bla if you care some much make something fresh that says something. Feedback doesn't push any buttons and it doesn't go any place they haven't been. The record is just downright predictable and boring. Looks like Cut left just in time.