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Artist : Twigy
Title : Twig
Styles : Synthetic Hip-Hop
Label : Toshiba EMI / Reservoir Records
Reference Code : TOCT25979
Released : 2006/05/10
Running Time : 51:52
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| REVIEW >>> Twigy's been in the game now for well past 2 decades (which is about 15 years more than your average MTV emcee) and for the most part the man has stayed true to his music during this period of time while hip-hop itself has had enough evolutions and devolutions to write to your grandchildren about. Having listened to Twigy since 1993 i've had a good chance to follow his career through the good and the less good times and my personal interest towards this album went ahead of a lot of other releases that have been stacking up on our office waiting to be reviewed. Twig is the man's 4th studio album as a solo artist. For better or worse Twigy has always and i mean from the very beginning of his career fallen into the category of "love him or hate him" and the man has pretty much divided households more efficiently than your dad's visits to the 2 dollar blowjob sale on the highways of Poland. Even the man's latest release together with the Hi-D was titled "Love Or Hate" and Twigy has remained true to that "Love Or Hate" status and has never seemed to care much about coming out with club bangers or commercial choices to advance his career. Truth be told Twigy has never sounded at home when he's been featured on club tracks and listening to a 100% commercial album done by Twigy would probably sound just as weird as hearing KRS-ONE getting awarded for the summer dance hit of the year. There are things in this world that are not meant to be matched and having said that how does Twig compare to Twigy's previous works as a solo artist. Twig in many ways is what one could have expected from a new Twigy album and again when it comes to Twigy himself and his performance as an emcee on this album, you will either get to love or hate once more. As an emcee it has always been hard to classify or put the man into a certain category and what you hear on Twigy's albums are almost always unique experiences whether you like his music or not. Once again we're treated with the Twigy-like soundscapes that have to be heard to be understood but at least there is one thing about this album that many people can most likely agree on, which is the the production side of this album. How does Twig fare in that department ? Twigy's achille's heel throughout his career has been the inconsistent beats in both quality and style and this album is no exception to that "formula". While keeping things fresh is always good, the album suffers from bad balancing mostly due to the amount of skits that brings down the number of actual songs in this release because the skits don't seem to serve any purpose aside from featuring a bunch of friends on them. Whether you will like this album or not depends a lot on how you feel about Twigy as an MC because if you're looking for some true underground hip-hop or mainstream commercial club stuff this album doesn't have much to offer to you either way. It's by no means underground and at the same time one can hardly call this stuff highly commercial even though some of the beats might as well be featured on another album that was meant strictly for the dancefloors. All in all it's a mixed bag which brings down the overall quality of the album because it's obviously trying to appeal to everybody and a more commercial hip-hop approach is not something that matches Twigy's style. However as i said before this album should not be thought of as being entirely a mainstream release but out of all the work that Twigy has done during his career (whether it is with his groups or as solo) this comes off as the most commercial release from him to date. The problem with the production is that while it's not completely worthless it's often too simple and lacks ambition and direction. On some tracks the beats are enough to do the job to carry you to the next track but there are tracks that are dragging quite a lot because of the uninspired production such as the tracks 9 (あ･うん Feat. Zeebra, Dev Large & Boy-ken) and 11 (Bomb On Hills Feat. Uzi, 565, Shinnosk8, D-life, Hab I Scream & Hannya). It is tracks like these that bring the score of this album down because no matter how you look at it, production-wise the tracks sound like some spare gas that was released in the toilet while taking a break from the recording for the rest of the tracks, filler material indeed. This album no matter how you look at it would have worked much better as a mini-album with let's say 5 tracks on it, which is a pretty good estimate of how many good tracks you will find on this release. As a mini-album with 5 tracks however, Twigy could have concentrated on making those tracks as good as possible but the limited amount of time was instead used to make another 5 tracks that completely lack the inspiration and thus make the album harder to enjoy as a whole. If you are one of those people that haven't liked Twigy since his first or second solo album then this album will not make you like him again or give you any faith for a better future i'm afraid. The album's potential is pretty much washed away with too much filler material and the lack of standout tracks amongst the few good ones that are included on Twig. Aside from those 2 tracks mentioned before the album has enough moments to keep you off of the fast forward button but even at it's best it's not gonna be anything that will make you put it on repeat either. In the end one can hardly blame anyone else except Twigy himself for any possible disappointments, because he produced the whole album with the exception of 3 songs (13. Slow Life Feat. Gama, 響 言奏, 15. 願い Feat. Macka-Chin, 17. 明日) that also happen to be the highlights of the whole package production-wise. Maybe next time Twigy should leave the production to others and just concentrate on his rapping where he has always shined, because as a producer on this particular album Twigy is definitely not at his best. Words By : Jesse Viinikainen (jesseviinikainen@yahoo.com) |
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02. Righ` Now! Feat. You The Rock★, 加藤ﾐﾘﾔ 