Customer Reviews

Digital Elf

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I feel guilty... i own all of his albums, (even the mini Brewskies album), i love all of James Kochalka Superstar's comics and music but only gave him a 3 star rating here.... why?

I wanted to give him 5 stars like i would on all his other albums, i really did. And if you are looking at this album you are probably already a fan - so whatever don't worry about my 3 star review - buy it, its still great. But if somehow you stumbled into this album's Amazon page without knowing JKS already i would say go back and buy a previous albums first. Any one of them, they are all 100% 5 star gold. This is the one I listen to least.

Its not that this album is bad, its that (to me) it was disappointing. First off its not even 20 minutes long; that right there is a BIG strike against it. If it had been sold to me as an EP maybe I could have swallowed it better? Or maybe just as an MP3 release? (It is called Digital Elf so that would be fine). But i bought the actual physical album which was full CD price. Insult to injury the album came in a cardboard slip with no info. So the mp3 version is really not a bad way to go on this one.

Secondly I referenced the Brewskies album already - that was a mini album that him and his buddy made in the guise of a white rapper and DJ; it was fun but not JKS level if you know what I mean? Not an album everyone would buy. Just fans of his really. Unfortunately Digital Elf feels more like the Brewskies mini and less like a JKS album proper for the most part; with songs like "North End", "Beyonce", and even the similarly titled "Bacharach" song on each of them. Its the white rap style of his that can be funny - but musically I am not a huge fan of. Sure "Dragon Puncher" holds up to his old stuff, but that's about it. I wouldn't put anything else here on a greatest hits album of his. And sorry but like James with a real band. Game boy bleeps and loops are fun and sometimes done well, and maybe he just couldn't get the band going for this, (again it is "digital", I get it!), but it just fell short to me.

What I would have liked to see is maybe on TOP of the songs collected here; he has a great back catalog of unpublished songs, maybe he can't use them or doesn't like them I don't know? And i know it was a gameboy theme here, (maybe that's part of the problem?). But "beat down in the shower", "raindrops of the dead", the beautiful version of "honey I sure miss you", "ruvy monkey", or "christmas can of corn" - anything like that would have put some more oomph and needed minutes into this album. Here is to high hopes for the next release!