Hero1
02-13-2003, 01:47 AM
i dont like this review..but its just funny that they mention pm dawn live on the astral plane :cool:
P.M. Dawn:
The Best of P.M. Dawn
BY CHRISTOPHER WEINGARTEN
Recent greatest hits packages from L.L. Cool J, EPMD, KRS-One, Ice T, Heavy D and the Boyz and A Tribe Called Quest have confirmed what hip-hop fans have known for years. Not that "best of" formats are marketable to nostalgics, but that rap artists, even the most innovative, sound best in a singles-based medium. All of the artists mentioned have spearheaded definitive mini-revolutions early in their career and followed them by spotty careers marked only by a few memorable singles, and the alternate astral-plane dwelling new-age rap figureheads P.M. Dawn are the exception to the rule.
From their inception, P.M. Dawn sounded more like Windham Hill than Sugar Hill, rapping with the abstract heart-on-my-sleeve fractal melodrama of the Smiths over swooping ethereal dreamscapes of Vangelis, preaching (higher) consciousness to a rap world ambivalent to either. Creatively (though not commercially), their career has remained relatively stable, only occasionally fumbling through the hyper-sappy pretensions of 1998's Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry For Bringing You Here, Love Dad. "Falling off" in the rap world is what usually constitutes the need for a greatest hits package, but despite comparative commercial floundering, P.M. Dawn dramaturgical approach to cosmic ambience was never, technically, "on."
The 10 "hits" offered on this brief retrospective reveal a jarring creative consistence, a near-impossibility in the rap world, but P.M. Dawn would always much rather float above the hip-hop nation, appearing momentarily to create orchestral think-music revolving around the saturated hooks of Spandau Ballet and George Michael, allowing the backbone of a song to crack under the pressure of cerebral overproduction. The Fugees sampled Enya, but P.M. Dawn lived it and these ten tracks are a living testament to a hip-hop group that transcended the genre's confines to the point of outliving the expectations of being creatively devoid by four albums. The only down notes are the conspicuous absence of the original version of "Reality Used to be a Friend of Mine" and the club-friendly house remixes (by Todd Terry, CJ Macintosh and David Morales) that comprise the album's melancholy conclusion. These weak retreads are slightly overbearing, but actually an appropriate dénouement for a brilliant group who made a decade's worth of slightly overbearing trance-hop.
P.M. Dawn:
The Best of P.M. Dawn
BY CHRISTOPHER WEINGARTEN
Recent greatest hits packages from L.L. Cool J, EPMD, KRS-One, Ice T, Heavy D and the Boyz and A Tribe Called Quest have confirmed what hip-hop fans have known for years. Not that "best of" formats are marketable to nostalgics, but that rap artists, even the most innovative, sound best in a singles-based medium. All of the artists mentioned have spearheaded definitive mini-revolutions early in their career and followed them by spotty careers marked only by a few memorable singles, and the alternate astral-plane dwelling new-age rap figureheads P.M. Dawn are the exception to the rule.
From their inception, P.M. Dawn sounded more like Windham Hill than Sugar Hill, rapping with the abstract heart-on-my-sleeve fractal melodrama of the Smiths over swooping ethereal dreamscapes of Vangelis, preaching (higher) consciousness to a rap world ambivalent to either. Creatively (though not commercially), their career has remained relatively stable, only occasionally fumbling through the hyper-sappy pretensions of 1998's Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry For Bringing You Here, Love Dad. "Falling off" in the rap world is what usually constitutes the need for a greatest hits package, but despite comparative commercial floundering, P.M. Dawn dramaturgical approach to cosmic ambience was never, technically, "on."
The 10 "hits" offered on this brief retrospective reveal a jarring creative consistence, a near-impossibility in the rap world, but P.M. Dawn would always much rather float above the hip-hop nation, appearing momentarily to create orchestral think-music revolving around the saturated hooks of Spandau Ballet and George Michael, allowing the backbone of a song to crack under the pressure of cerebral overproduction. The Fugees sampled Enya, but P.M. Dawn lived it and these ten tracks are a living testament to a hip-hop group that transcended the genre's confines to the point of outliving the expectations of being creatively devoid by four albums. The only down notes are the conspicuous absence of the original version of "Reality Used to be a Friend of Mine" and the club-friendly house remixes (by Todd Terry, CJ Macintosh and David Morales) that comprise the album's melancholy conclusion. These weak retreads are slightly overbearing, but actually an appropriate dénouement for a brilliant group who made a decade's worth of slightly overbearing trance-hop.