SINGLES GOING STEADY: "SHE'S PLAYING HARD TO GET" BY HI-FIVE

When it comes to new-ish R&B, I tend to respond favorably to the most dated stuff of the early 90s.  Music critics would classify this sub genre of R&B as "New Jack Swing." With its hip hop drum samples and cheap synthesizers, the majority of this music doesn't really hold up by today's standards.   Why it holds up for me, I'm not exactly sure.  I think it might have something to do with me being very young at the time of its popularity.  If that means I miss being a little kid, I don't think I'm alone.

Hi-Five was a reasonably successful R&B quintet from Waco, Texas.  Signed to Jive Records, the same record label The Backstreet Boys would become famous on several years later, the group had a few hit songs and were featured on the soundtrack to the movie Boyz N The Hood.  The standout member was a talented singer named Tony Thompson, who joined the band when he was 15.  The band broke up in 1994 but apparently still plays from time to time today. Unfortunately, Tony Thompson passed away in 2007.

I don't think I heard this song when I was a kid—or at least I'm not pretentious enough to claim I remember a song that wasn't a huge, worldwide smash when I was three years old.  Come on, who would believe that?  That said, since I don't have any warm, fuzzy memories associated with this song specifically, I think it speaks to how good it actually is.  In other words, my opinion is influenced only by the words and music.   Here's how I describe it: catchy.  

"She's Playing Hard To Get" by Hi-Five

There is something about those synthesizers that soothes me like a lullabye.  If you've already read my article on smooth jazz , you will recall that I like to sleep to this kind of thing.  I won't deny that they sound awful though.  Sounds sort of like the synthesizers they used for music on the show Barney—and I never was a fan of that particular dinosaur.  He would have ruined the movie Jurassic Park if he had made a cameo.   Let's be thankful that Spielberg had the good sense to not include Barney in that movie—or in any of his movies, for that matter.   I haven't seen Lincoln, but I guess we'll have to take a chance and assume Barney the Dinosaur doesn't play Robert E. Lee!

A REVIEW OF "CURB" NICKELBACK'S 1996 INDEPENDENT DEBUT ALBUM

Curb by Nickelback 

Curb is an example of an album which is almost impossible to listen to impartially.  In this case, hindsight will never pass the vision test.  Nickelback is so big—and so detested—that most serious music listeners will be disgusted before they even listen to the band's 1996 Canadian debut.  It's like looking at a deer which has just been run over by a truck.  There may be a sign of life, but you know there's nothing that can be done to save it.  It's technically alive, but we might as well say it's dead, just so the kid next to us doesn't get his hopes up.  So it is with  Curb, which was unfortunately written and recorded by a band named Nickelback.  

On this album, the then unknown Canadian rock band Nickelback, sounds like a group that might cause an A&R agent to jot down the following notes:

• This band sounds tight and Chad Kroeger is a good frontman, with maybe just a bit too much of a forced, gravelly timbre in the voice.  I think that's something that can be fixed with some coaching though.  It also might indicate a need for a much better producer.
•  As for their songs, some are okay. Radio friendly, for sure, but still just okay.  No number one hits, although "Pusher" has some strong potential.  It has a good hook on both melody and lyrics in the chorus as indicated by the line "ask much anymore."  Sort of sounds like Stone Temple Pilots meets Alice in Chains.  Verses of song need some help—not horrible, but a little trite.  Perhaps they need a cowriter.  
• A few songs really suck:  "Curb," "Where?," "Sea Groove," "Just Four"
• "Fly" channels a small Kurt Cobain/Nirvana similarity 
• Lyrics range from okay to incredibly difficult to decipher.  With music this forceful, however, it's essentially meaningless.

The reason I did this hypothetical scenario was to force myself to be intellectually honest and recognize that Nickelback shows promise on Curb.   I recognize that my notes are sort of cheap, because we all know how well the band capitalized in the end.  Some of Curb is really awful, so awful that you have to admit that they sound really good today by comparison.  Honestly, it's night and day.  The one good cut is "Pusher," a song I actually repeated a few times.  It had to be their single.

Here's the thing.  This is the worst thing Nickelback ever did.  There's just no way this album can win.  Nickelback fans will dislike it because the quality isn't anything close to that of their popular music, a lot of people will hate it simply because it is Nickelback and the rest will hate it because their intuition tells them: this music really sucks.  

But keep in mind, a lot of bands really suck when they start out.  Some get better over time, while others wind up as "medium main sequence suck stars" for the remainder of their careers.  In other words, early Nickelback is still better than 90% of bands you'll ever catch at a local bar.  

Curb by Nickelback 

THE BRILLIANT URSULA RUCKER

Ursula Rucker

Poet/singer Ursula Rucker creates the kind of spoken-word music you wouldn't be surprised to hear at the Whitney Museum in New York City.  It is beat poetry, but then it's not really beat poetry either.  Actually, it's better.  It's a provocative, matter-of-fact sort of thing.  Kind of like speeches over jazz-influenced, electronic music.  In Rucker's case, the music falls behind her words like a waterfall.  

There is no convoluted imagery in Rucker's work.  When she says something abstract like "I ain't no fish" as she does in "Uh-Uh," she begins another line with "the reason for the fish analogy..."  It makes for an artist whose transparency is both incredibly refreshing and totally unpretentious.  And when you can call a poet unpretentious, you just can't let that poet get away  You gotta reel them in to your music collection—like a fish.  

Rucker's poetry is controversial in a lot of ways.  On the one hand, it's controversial because of what it advocates— individuality and a rejection of the status quo.  But her use of language is just as controversial.  She uses words like "cunnilingus," "fuck," "dick" and "tits" and graphically describes how each thing or process is exploited.  Cunnilingus is  actually the subject of an entire song.  It's very sexual, but not remotely raunchy.  It's beautiful when you really get down to it.  One could make the argument that this is the kind of music you could play for a high school English class.  Then again, maybe not, knowing how perverted teenage boys can get.

But the fact that I am advocating the use of Rucker's art in a classroom suggests that her work is not only meant to be be studied and examined, but also enjoyed.  I have a feeling you will enjoy entering Ursula Rucker's little universe, too.  You can enter it right now at www.jamiedoesmusic.com—but don't enter the url.  You're already there, stupid. 

Ma'at Mama by Ursula Rucker