Customer Reviews

dc

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

 

 

"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".

I wish I had read the reviews before I purchased this one, I found myself constantly skipping through the tracks getting pissed off, I have been a Basehead fan since Play With Toys (I owned the original, recalled version of that disc) and to come to current times and see DC...it's very depressing, I dont know what state of mind Mike Ivey is in but he needs to awaken. I realize that he is sporting his Christian beliefs now in his music, but he has misplaced the tenacity that made the early (Drunk 'n High) Basehead discs cult classics. Maybe he should try mixing the Blues with Hip-Hop (ala Chris Thomas King and just about any of the younger Fat Possum artists) on future efforts, but this Christian-Hop thing isn't workin'.
I gave it 3 stars only because Mike Ivey has so much promise...it's okay for him to believe like he does now, but it was the original Basehead sound that put Mr. Ivey on the map.

Way back when, at the dawn of the last decade, a lazy, laid back classic was released by a little group recording in a little studio for a little lable from a not-so-little brown town. Now, here we are, in the twenty-first century, and the same mind that brought us the inspired "Play with Toys" pays homage to the not-so-little brown town with the almost as inspired "DC."

Bridging, almost seamlessly, the not-so-wide divide that seperates Hip-Hop from Jazz, "DC" is almost as underproduced as "Play with Toys," - and that's a good thing! Instead of hitting you over the head, a la "Kansas," with his wild beats and over-the-top lyrics, Mr. Ivey settles down a bit, and turns the volume down to a dull roar. Sure, the beats are still there, just more subdued. The lyrics are as wise and witty as they were with "Play with Toys."

So, at first, there was the laid back classic. Then, the ay oevr-produced "Kansas." He cooled things off just a tad with "Faith," and now, here we are with "DC." Perhaps, the next one will be every bit the classic of the first - but untill then, "DC" is pretty darn close.