MeShell Ndegeocello vs. DJ Dangermouse

MeShell Ndegeocello - Bitter v. DJ Dangermouse - The Grey Album

This was a strange match-up for me. Neither album was exactly within my regular genre, so it made it even more difficult to make a comparison. I like MeShell’s voice – kind of hearkens back to Sade, but earthier, deeper – almost like Tracy Chapman. But ultimately, it didn’t have enough variety. I’d start listening, thinking: “hm, this is alright” Then 15 minutes later I’d check to see if we were still on the same song. The instrumentation at the beginning of the album is nice – lots of strings, but toward the end it goes into bad sax solos, long guitar riffs, and cheesy background singers. In the end, I wasn’t compelled to listen to it again.

The Grey Album, on many levels, is brilliant. But there was some difficulty in rating it as an album since it’s a mashup of two others. So to a certain extent, things I liked or disliked about the album were due to the original from the Beatles or Jay-Z. That being said, this is still a pretty impressive album. The idea is unlikely - combining the Beatles’ White Album with Jay-Z’s Black Album to create – you guessed it – the Grey Album. This is something that should have failed, but he pulled it off with finesse. I don’t like all the songs uniformly: “99 problems” is tiring and pretty offensive – same for “Dirt off my Shoulder”. But I love “Encore” and “Change Clothes.” I also love that it resulted in a huge battle with EMI, and both Jay-Z and Paul McCartney supported the mashup. Unfortunately, this will probably not become part of my regular playlist – the lyrics are too raw for the young ears at school or home.

So – for interest and originality, DJ Dangermouse moves forward.