Customer Reviews

Hidden Beach Recordings Presents: Unwrapped Vol. 2 [Limited Edition w/ Bonus CD]

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought three copies of this on Tuesday morning(one for me and two for Christmas gifts for relatives in Colorado and Maryland).

As I listened to it for the first time, I was very pleased with what I was hearing. The music is really fresh. Hell, the music is great! I opened it in the parking lot and listened to it in my car. As a woman was exiting the store, I told her to buy it also as a gift for someone she knows (she was doing her xmas shopping). I let her listen to some passages on several tracks. Her eyes lit up and she said "Thank You!" and returned to the store to buy it as well.

I hope that you keep producing music such as on Hidden Beach Recordings Presents:Unwrapped Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. I have enjoyed listening to Patrice Rushen for years. Recently I also purchased the Mike Phillips CD. Mike's playing is pleasingly sweet! I had a lot of fun with other people listening to the one track with the dialogue about the saxophone.

I have been calling my friends to tell them to go out and buy the Limited Edition Vol. 2 asap.

Thank you for the music!!!

Jeff C.

HIDDEN BEACH RECORDINGS- UNWRAPPED VOL II
As stated on this CD, the roots of Jazz and Hip Hop are definitely intertwined. It's crazy that it took over 15 years for someone to come up with a Jazz/Hip Hop influenced work. The first Unwrapped CD is classic, a true classic. It's a CD people 20 years from now will be listening to. So with much anticipation they have released VOL II. And the beat goes on! This is another great work. The CD starts with a remake of the hit "Always on Time"(Ja and Ashanti). The wack "Streetwize" CD from last year tried to do this song but man they just didn't do it justice. The Spanish percussion is good on here along with the rhythm guitar. "Roll Out", the Ludacris joint, got madd luv on this CD. Mike Phillips makes his first of several appearances here and works it. He uses his famous Vocoder(think Roger Troutman). The scratchin and the drum programs are verrrry nice. Tribes "Electric Relaxation" makes an appearance also. Great song to include on this work. The guitar really goes hard on this one. Coolio's "Gangsta Paradise" is one of my favorites. The violinist here Karen Briggs(you might remember her from "Showtime At The Apollo" amateur night fame) goes off. Now this song is impressive. This song is very physical and I'd love to see this performed live. I bet she carves up the violin on this one. Mystikal's "Bouncin Back" actually shows up twice, one being sort of an extended version. The second version really isn't needed but they really worked this song! They totally changed it up and made it into a "big band" production. Real nice. Will Smith's "Summetime" shows up. This is one of my favorite songs anyway, especially the Kool and the Gang original. Another good job. Erick Serman's "Music", my favorite hip hop song from 2001, is done really well here also. Mike Phillips really gets going on this one. Track 11 is a medley of some ole greats: "The Choice Is Yours" Black Sheep, "Rebirth of Slick" Diggible Planets, "Woo Hah" from Busta and "Award Tour" from Tribe. VERY NICE. Good way to end the first disc. The second disc really could have just been added to the first disc. The Jay Z "Girls Girls Girls" is once again totally reworked and I'm really feelin it. "Get Money" is the second time a Lil Kim production has made it to the "Unwrapped" laboratory. It's a very smoothed out version with some Roy Ayers type keyboard flava. Overall I liked tracks 2-8, 11 and 2&3 on the second disc. You really can't go wrong with this formula, well Hidden Beach can't go wrong shall I say. Their preparation, selection of songs and mixing/engineering is superior to anyone else out there tryin to do this. Every song is not a favorite of mine(Nelly didn't rock me and The Joe/Pun track didn't knock me over) but every song is at least good with most of them being great. This is a helluva followup to an instant classic CD. Keep bringin it on!

This CD is what I have been looking for. You get to the point in your life where you are still young enough to like hip-hop, but old enough to appeciate a little jazz. This CD has it mixed into one, which is(simply put)GENIUS!! That is where I am right now. I have the best of both worlds. Waiting for volume 3!

Right from the intro track of DJ Forgot-His-Name-Already, I knew I was in for something because they were already patting themselves on the back for fusing jazz, hip hop and R&B. I thoroughly enjoyed the first album, which snuck up on a lot of people and got airplay in some of the most unusual venues (I heard the whole thing spin at a football pre-game) and in some of the most unlikely CD players; so I can "understand" the excitement, but an intro and outro "somebody finally got it right" was unneccessary because jazz covers to hip hop and r&b songs have been done.

Now my beef with the album... I love jazz, and I applaud Hidden Beach's approach to try to attract more of the younger set to the art form by wrapping some of the hot garbage that is lying out in the streets in a comfy sousaphone solo but man those choruses kept coming back to haunt me. I absolutely couldn't stomach "Roll Out" and I kept blinking at "Still Not a Player". I almost lost my mind with the presumed need to put "Electric Relaxation" on here. Tell me something, for a blazing song like "ER", isn't doing a jazz cover of it redundant??? Tell all the kiddies to go find Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Brew" and call it a day.

Again, if you're trying to branch out into jazz and don't know where to start, grab the first Unwrapped, but if that's not enough, do some homework and find the original samples to the songs.

It so happened that I saw this in Best Buy and didn't know what it was. A co-worker burned me a copy and I could have went crazy! This CD was the only reason I liked being at work! (ha ha) Being a musician myself I love good music (especially freestylin') and this is GREAT music! Nobody can complain about having a ambiguous blend of hip-hop and jazz. I can hum to this (and play pretend instruments) and my brother (the hip-hopper of the family) can also enjoy it. This was a great idea.

I bought all three volumes after listening to the clips on Amazon.com and I have not been disappointed!! These cd's are in my bedroom on my computer and in my car for road trips. Awesome!

RJ

Music is about your tastes. Several people here slammed this one and in my opinion it is NOT as bad as they said. It is not as quite good as the first one but it does grow on you and is pretty good. The reason I say that is there are a few tunes (Bouncin Back) which is kinda 20's era jazzy and some may not be ready for that but it does work with the song. This is not a carbon copy of the first one, (maybe thats what some expected) but still enjoyable. Use your own judgement based on what you see here. The majority (80 to 90%) said that it is good and thats why I bought it after I listened to it.

I don't know if my expectations were too high from my experiences with vol.1. All I do know is I wasn't satisfied with vol.2. It felt like something was missing...soul? I don't want to knock the concept. I love that and everything about what the first one represents. I hope the series continues. I will continue to support. You should, too.

Over the past year, I have been HBUW v.1's biggest supporter and hype man to my friends and family. I must say however that v.2 dissapoints. The concept is still cool but every song sounds the same. While Patrice Rushen is a talented legend, hearing "her" keyboard in every song got old quick, then the electronic sounding saxaphones dissapoint. There are bright spots. "Roll Out", "Girls..." (of which Jay Z's version I didn't even rock) and "Hot in Here" all show promise but were missing something. "The Latin tinge on "Player" was fresh but could had evolved better. "Electric Relaxation" is probably the best put together jam on the CD due to it being subtle and not subject to the aging "Unwrapped" stylings. I wish Unwrapped a great 3rd take and perhaps the additions of new musicians and vocalist would be nice. One song I would like to hear redone is Bone Thugs... "Fo the Love of Money" instrumental which is already sort of a smooth jazz format with the jazz guitar (Peter White would be a good addition here) in the beginning and piano solo. Take away the moaning and it would make a great addition to Unwrapped 3.

Major Sigh
I don't know -- I listened to the samples at the site and they didnt sound as professional as the original CD (which is still a rare gem to have).

Most of the items on the new disc seem to be poorly produced (at least the beginnings) - they all sound like they were produced on a low quality keyboard.

Some of the songs did get nicer after the intro.

check out hiddenbeach.com to listen to the cuts and decide for yourself

ill pass on this one for now

well...
not as good as the first one... but a whole helluvalot better than the copycats...
a couple of the cuts seemed kinda harsh and forced together... not all hip hop transfers easily into a jazzy format... the more jazzier the original song, the more success they have with their renditions...
but still, overall, you can have you some good cognac moments with this one!