It's been a long time coming
but the full length Lady Sovereign album has finally arrived! Cleverly
titled Public Warning! the disc features a handful of new songs
and a nice helping of tracks that you have probably heard if you regularly
visit anything music related on the internet. I think it was a
blessing and a curse to have so much praise dumped on Lady Sov over the last
year or two because due to the long wait two groups of people have been
created. One group, containing the kids who have been on the bandwagon
for awhile, were not expecting to be hit with a sort of greatest hits
collection from Lady Sov and then the other group, containing the kids who
just pushed Love Me Or Hate Me to #1 on TRL, who have only recently
come across the British sensation. I'm sure the guys over at Def Jam
realized that rolling out a debut album that features a sound that isn't
exactly mainstream can only be helped by having a nice portion of proven
songs on the disc. So while a lot of people think the album is
lackluster (I'm looking at you Pitchfork) I think it is pretty solid and
more importantly it will be a hit with the kids, which is the point and
exactly why I don't blame the label heads for only giving us a few new
songs. Now I realize that some of you may be wondering why I would be
OK with such a thing but my reasons are not even remotely complicated.
I simply think that mainstream hip hop right now is incredibly awful and
therefore I am willing to accept such major label trickery in exchange for
the hope that maybe, just maybe, the kids of America will start supporting
something different. I picked one new song and one old to share with
you guys, enjoy.
:Lady
Sovereign - Those Were The Days:
I think that this is probably my favorite song off Public Warning!
and I believe it is entirely based on the fact that it
doesn't sound like anything else that I have ever heard her do. Here
she slows down, creates a hook that is undeniably catchy, and delivers
something that, amongst a bunch of tracks where her mouth is moving as fast
as it can to quasi-punk enthused music, is a breath of fresh air. My
favorite part is when she lets you know what this song is all about in her
first couple of lines; 'I'm about to go cheesy/I don't give a shit/Because
every word I spit/Well I mean it."
:Lady Sovereign - 9 To 5:
This song has been floating around for awhile and if you like this then I
would recommend checking out the Ordinary Boys version that popped up on the
net earlier this year. Lady Sov takes this song in stride and like
Those Were The Days she strays away from rhyming a whole slew of
incomprehensible British gibberish and instead provides one of the more
sing-a-long worthy songs in her catalog. I love how this feels like
something I should be listening too on the beach when I am supposed to be at
work.
Public Warning! is out now and even if you aren't new to Lady
Sovereign I would highly recommend picking it up, which you can do at any
place in the world that sells music. The biggest midget in the game
awaits you on
Myspace.
-
John Laird -
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