Music of the Weak: The Fact That This Album Is Free Almost Makes Up For the Fact That I Dropped $16 On I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

El-P – WeAreAllGoingToBurnInHellMegamix2

Q:  How many El-P's does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A:  The world is fucked.

Good ol’ El-P—such a serious artiste, you want to pinch his little cheeks.  While clearly the greatest rap music innovator of the last decade (Andre 3000 might run a close second), he often seems pinned down by the weight of his own ideas.  His songs are like water balloons filled with gasoline—hilarious weapons hatched by a diabolical mind, ready to burst and ignite, but only under the perfectest circumstances.  He has a sense of humor like the popular kid at the back of the classroom that thinks of himself as an outcast. Even his punchlines sound wounded.  He usually tries to do everything all at once, which yields the occasional masterpiece like “Stepfather Factory,” but usually results in high-concept, high-aesthetic music, lacking the directness and listenability that would do justice to his ideas.

WeAreAllGoingToBurnInHellMegamix2, El-P’s free mixtape available on the Def Jux website (described by Aesop Rock as “Over 90 minutes of sad, sad music scraped up inside El-P’s black heart,”) liberates him from the need to make a, you know, statement.  As a result, he turns in what may be his most consistent album*—if not his out-and-out best.  Opener “Hoobity Blah” has just about everything you would expect from a great El-P track—big, dumb guitars; abrasiveness; a direct and aggressive flow—plus that little bit of self-awareness hinted at in the title.  Self-awareness is a bit of a tricky issue for El-P, because it usually goes down with a heaping spoonful of pretense.  But, since this is a cast-off album, that aspect of his humor gets neatly subdued.

There are even two potential singles!  “Krazy Kings 3” sets a classic rap conceit—a series of “This is for…” shout-outs—over a squelchy bed of electric machinations.  El-P’s lyricism is 100% on point, detailing ugly scenes with a signature smirk, especially when he describes “A thought so beautiful I want to put my cock in it.”  “Mike Douglas,” while not flashy, could be a crossover hit on a proper album.

The old, overly-complicated El-P does make an appearance with “Fuck the Law,” which starts out with an “Iron Man” drum-beat and a fantastic horror sample saying, “Take him to the darkest dungeon, introduce him to the rack, feed him up on bread and water, watch his nerves begin to crack [scream & cackle]” before bursting into another sample of Bun B from Dizzee Rascal’s “Where Da G’s” that doesn’t quite fit onto the beat.  It would be so awesome if it worked—El-P’s rap is lean and effective, and each individual part is genius, but they don’t all fit together.

Otherwise, the instrumentals consistently compel—which makes sense, since it’s a free album of presumably in-progress material.  “45 Caliber Blues” and “Dirtier Than Thou” merge El-P’s production style with sounds more associated with former labelmate Rjd2.  “45 Caliber Blues” pits an extended Moby-style gospel sample over a spare guitar loop and just enough of a beat to make it hip-hop, recalling both Rjd2’s “Smoke & Mirrors” and El-P’s own “When the Moon was Blue.”  “Dirtier Than Thou” accents its elctro-industrial beats with a vocal sample screaming, “Oh God!”—recalling Rjd2’s “The Horror.”

WeAreAllGoingToBurnInHellMegamix2 would have benefited greatly from more actual rapping (“Dirtier Than Thou,” for example, could have easily supported a verse or two), but even as an odds n’ sods type album, it has an incredible cohesiveness.  It may be that El-P is finding the virtue in simplicity.  It’s enough to hope that these tracks become the springboard for a future album—and that he doesn’t end up combining them all into one song.

*Not counting the jazz album he put out in early 2004.  Apparently people are still pissed about that one, but it wasn’t bad.

-Martin Brown, 2008

Comments

[Kenny]

I'm glad to hear the mix is dope, but soooo much I disagree with in this review.

Funcrusher/ Funcrusher Plus was his best album. I think he needs Len's guidance when constructing a song. That's why Little Johnny was sooooo good. Big Juss and El-P absolutely tore the shit out of the beats on Funcrusher, making it an absolutely amazing piece of music.

As for his solo stuff, yeah, he does get crushed by his own seriousness, but he also gets destroyed by his ambition to re-create the Bomb Squad's Phil Spector approach. That's why Fantastic Damage was ass. (That's also why Murs's The End of the Beginning sucked, too.)

[Marty]

Kenny, you know, I wasn't even *thinking* about Company Flow shit, so our opinions actually aren't that far apart. Fantastic Damage was aiight, definitely not the masterpiece it was painted as, but I wanted I'll Sleep When You're Dead to be so much better than it was.

Murs, man, still hasn't found his vibe--though the 9th Wonder albums are close--but he and Def Jux was such an odd pairing on top of that.

[Kenny]

Marty, you know, if you subtract the Co Flow out of a discussion of El-P, then I can completely agree with everything you said. I think the problem I've had with El-P's solo work is it lacks any real song structure. It's mostly a beat with a guy rhyming with no tangible harmony over it.

As for Murs, I never understood the Def Jux thing. I mean, I understand why he signed on, he wanted the visibility, but the Def Jux sound was just *never* going to fit him. I did *really* like Murs 3:16, though. It's one of my favorite albums ever, but I have a soft spot for the old school style of 9th Wonder's underground stuff.

[Marty]

As far as El-P goes, his stuff has an indie rock structure--which is why I think that scene gloms onto him so hard--but every once in a while you'll get something like "Stepfather Factory," which is about as perfect a song as I can think of. And to bring it back to WeAreAll..., the reason "Mike Douglas" and "Krazy Kings 3" work so well is that they're traditional rap structures.

As far as Murs goes, I love 3:16 too and I have a similar soft spot for 9th Wonder, but I still think Murs is only hitting about 1/5 of his potential. He's just that good. When and if he ever hooks up with a producer who he's in sync with and who's an innovator, I think something really special could happen--they would just have to ween him off those Pete Rock-style beats.

But, yeah, dude, you are totally on point. I agree with everything you've said.

[sebastian]

Fuck the law is perfect, some people...