REVIEW: Len, Can't Stop the Bum Rush (Sony / WORK Group)
- Michelle Aguilar
Do you remember the first time they started running ads for mail-order '80s music compilations a few years ago? You know, where they always put some poor-bastard aging bit actor or ex-Mtv veejay into a suede vest and jeans and had him read excitedly off a cue card, "The '80s are back!"
Well, when I first starting noticing these commercials, I was soon struck by the utter diversity of the titles scrolling down my television screen -- ranging from forgotten singles by bands like Haircut 100 to hits from the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack to Young MC. There was no regard to genres, to levels of success, or any kinds of musical signposts; really, a remarkably democratic view of music of the decade.
I guess the diversity makes sense, once you sit down and think about it. The fly-by-night record labels who put together these compilations aren't exactly aesthetes or even '80s devotees, out to further a certain genre of '80s music. They're guys in their forties, in ill-fitting suits barking over phones from offices in East Rutherford, N.J. that have fake wood panelling on the walls. ("Flock of what? What the hell kinda name is that??? Well if they come cheap, I guess...Ahhh, who gives a damn?")
Toronto's Len, whose major label debut album, You Can't Stop the Bum Rush, is a bit like one of those compilations. The group, which is made up of brother and sister co-founders Marc and Sharon Costanza, along with D Rock and DJ Moves (of the Toronto-Vancouver-Halifax hip hop project The Cryptik Souls Crew) leisurely and unconcernedly strut all over the musical map, from hip-hop, to New Wave, to urban dance. The one thing these songs do seem to have in common is the 1980s, in just about all its permutations. Meaning that the album is a postmodern patchwork of incongruous influences, mixed together by Dust Brother John King, and name-checked by a few industry legends along the way.
Len delights in working with the now-dusty cliches of the 1980s. For example, Kraftwerk is recalled in the song, "The Hard Disk," which even features German vocals. Glam metal gets its moment in the sun with "Feelin' Alright," and even gets a quintessinal solo by Poison guitarist C.C. DeVille. Even the '80s invention Smooth Jazz is evoked in "Junebug," featuring utterly appropriate trumpet and sax and cheesy Casio beats.
The inimitable Biz Markie lends his atonal vocals to the choruses on "Beautiful Day," easily outclassing host mc, D-Rock, whose phrasing style at times hints at a hopeless yearning to have grown up below the Canadian border in south central Los Angeles. D-Rock's hour-by-hour description of the events of his day recalls thematically the songs of N.W.A. and Snoop Dogg, except D-Rock's days are filled with Monty Python movies, phone calls from his friends at Yale and bailing his friends out of the city jail for miscellaneous mischief.
Overall, there's enough empty cliche mining fun here. There's a certain amount of appeal to hearing songs that are bound to make your grin despite yourself, and I would feel uncomfortable recommending against it unequivocally. This album is bound to call up a smile if you're the right age to know the reference points. But this aspect is also a potential Achilles heel for "You Can't Stop the Bum Rush": After all, if someone wants to hear a collection of parodies of well-known artists, there is always the danger they'll just go out and buy Weird Al Yankovic records.
The problem becomes even uglier when you start to realize that Len (perhaps themselves even unwittingly) has called in supposed heroes like Blow, Markie, and DeVille to participate in creating cliches of their former glories, cliches that were innovative when the artists first thought of them.
To me, it comes as no surprise that this album's stand-out single is the mellow, gently catchy boy-girl duet "Steal My Sunshine," which was featured on the "Go" soundtrack in March. The trippy single, with its undeniable sample of the Andrea True Connection's, "More, More, More," is striking for its originality in comparison to the rest of the album, perhaps because songwriter Marc Costanza wrote it after getting seriously messed up at a rave.
"Sunshine" is the only song on the album that doesn't overtly sound like something else. It is the only song that almost sounds spontaneous, which automatically raises it exuberantly above the rest of the material. It's as if for a brief moment, Costanza's carefully constructed defenses against showing his real self were momentarily broken down, even though he claims he was only trying to write a Human League song.
At times, listening to this album feels like eating cotton candy: Its musical texture is a sweet novelty at first, but the pastiche aspects of these songs threaten to undermine their staying power, like the fluffy sweetness that eventually turns into a pile of sugar in your mouth, utterly lacking in redeeming nourishment. But then again, a pile of sugar can sometimes be just what you're craving...
Ahh, who gives a damn?
