Not for fans of "Play With Toys"
05/22/2003
(1 out of 5 stars)
""Play with Toys" ("PWT") has spent a great deal of time in my CD player over the years. It is a brilliant, funny, and very creative work. It is also not strictly rap, but rather combines singing and spoken word pieces backed by some great music. On PWT, Michael Ivey (and friends) cover all the important issues in life to college-aged (and beyond!) guys: love, beer-drinking, heartbreak, fighting, and beer-drinking. That disc is definitely worth investing in.Being such a fan of PWT, and after not hearing from Basehead in some time, I was very excited to see that there was a new disc. Unfortunately, "DC" is no PWT. This is not to say it is necessarily a bad disc. I just came at it with the expectation that, like PWT, Basehead would be funny and funky and clever with samples and music. These expectations, however, were not met. I bought "DC", put it into my CD player, played it once, and have not felt any desire to listen to it again. First, the recording is of very poor quality; "underproduced" is an understatement. Second, unlike PWT, which tempered its heartache with laughter, this is just depressing. Third, the music lacks the beats that made PWT such a gem. Finally, it sounds as if Mr. Ivey has left beer and girls behind and turned fully to God, which may well be comendable, but makes for rather austere listening.Listening to this disc was the equivilent for me of randomly running into an old friend at a party that you haven't seen in years. Here was the guy you used to party with. The guy who was always having trouble with women, but was always very funny about it. So you start talking to him, only you quickly discover he no longer has any sense of humor, has found God (and wants to talk to you about God), is bitter about his relationships, and views his previous self as verging on evil. Soon you are nervously looking for any chance to escape. How did this happen to him? He used to be so cool and funny!! Again PWT is brilliant. Buy that disc now. I did not come to [put down]Basehead, but Deltafront's glowing review misses the mark, in my opinion, when it compares DC favorably to PWT. These are two very different recordings and fans of PWT would be well-advised to steer clear of the misconceived "DC"."
Track Listings (10) - Disc #1
