El-P - Fantastic Damage
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Music CD Cover
Artist: El-PEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2002-05-14
Music Label: Definitive Jux
Soundtracks:
- Fantastic Damage
- Squeegee Man Shooting
- Deep Space 9mm
- Tuned Mass Damper
- Dead Disnee
- Delorean
- Truancy
- The Hang, The Front, The Bush And The Shit
- Accidents Don't Happen
- Stepfather Factory
- T.O.J.
- Dr. Hellno And The Praying Mantus
- Lazerfaces' Warning
- Innocent Leader
- Constellation Funk
- Blood
Free Music Notes for Fantastic Damage
Free Music Review: Call me Hiroshima, 'cause I'm blown away!
Hit: 5 Stars
I, coming from a stock of Strokes, Coldplay, and Wilco fans, often hear copious amounts of slander against rap music. While I do not partake in these raucous typhoons of villification, I can understand there is a sizeable degree of truth to these harsh insults (however provincial it may be, coming from long-haired, Velvet Underground worshipping white suburban youth). Eminem, despite his talent, is starting to skinny-dip in the waters of hypocracy, his "yo, fornicate this celebrity status and money" message begining to become worn out and void of real meaning. Others, like Jay-Z, are big commercial tools, making more money from their sneaker products and clothing lines then from the real music. Finally, there are guys like the Insane Clown Posse, who just disgrace the genre completely ...However, as the motherly adage goes, "do not let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch." When I hear people talk about how rap not only a) has no talent, but b) takes no talent, I simply respond with two words: El-P (or Aesop Rock).Fantastic Damage is one of the more brilliant CDs I have heard in my life, right up alongside Wilco's 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' and The Beatles 'Rubber Soul.' However, El-P does not choose a low, brooding, whispering tone for Fantastic Damage. On the contrary, he decides to do to our ears what the Allies did to Dresden in the Second World War: demolish them. Fantastic Damage is loud and chaotic, intitially coming off as raw, unpolished sound, but really being a meticulous and detailed production effort by El-P himself. Car horns, bombastic percussion, rotating helicopter blades, and an assortment of voices ranging from cold and eerie, deep and robotic, or just raging and bizarre, all come together to make an apocalyptic sound that cannot be heard anywhere else. I've read that the movie Akira has had a large influence on El-P (on many different levels), and one can really detect it's presence on this CD. El-P doesn't go with a low, shriveling, post(maybe pre)-destruction "OK Computer" sound, but rather a sound of "now." We've been thrown into the middle of the chaos, with an Orwellian system of authority trying to maintain its grip on the people whilst anarchy erupts.
El-P doesn't shy lyrically. What makes Fantastic Damage so phenominal is that it's incredibly strong in both the musical and lyrical departments--a definate rarity in today's musical world regardless of the style. El-P is not a rapper, he's a poet, and possibly the only poet in the rapper community. When El-P weaves his words, he makes Eminem's skills look like mulch under the kitchen sink. El-P doesn't revert to primitive insult rhymes or the banal boasts of his own abilities, but rather constructs his thoughts, ideas, or themes into his songs. Not only that, but his rhyming is some of the finer uses of the English Vernacular. El-P doesn't spit simple four-word raps but eight-to-nine word lines with esoteric references and completely unorthodox rhymes. He's incredibly clever too, using wordplay like "Pol Pottery," "American History Exobytes," clever innuendos like, "Flight of the accidental tourist, morbid," or refreshingly true observations such as, "You're all teenage poetry, martyrs without causes." The verbal assault is as deadly as the sonic attack on your senses.
El-P will not get the widespread recognition he deserves for this CD, but it doesn't matter. I would perferr he keeps critically acclaimed but not a national superstar, as he would eventually follow the path of Eminem and become a great hypocrite, his message suffocating under the pillow of superficiality and payola. Fantastic Damage is in every way an excellent CD, and should be bought just for the sake of having it. If you are a true music fan, buy this--even if you may not like it--because it's an original sound that deserves to be heard.
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