Erkyah Badu vs. Herbaliser or Erykah's demise

Ok this is my first post, but I'm not going through all the motions of ZOMG my first post and trying to come up with some kind of filler, and instead, I will jump right into the matter.

I'm going to review two albums released in 2008, Herbaliser's "Same as it never was" and Erykah Badu's "New Amerykah, Part One", though not in equal weighting, as I'm going to focus on Erykah Badu's.. demise. I don't intend to write an in-depth review of either of these albums, just a rough outline. Don't expect an article-class review!

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Ok first off, these Albums are very similar in style, tone and sound. So similar, that when listening to Herbaliser's album, i can easily fool myself into thinking it's actually New Amerkyah; but, there is something about that album I don't like, and i'll elaborate on this now.

Erykah Badu's first album was ingenious. Rarely, if ever, have we heard a singer with a voice so controlled, yet so emotional and expressive, not to mention that she mixes Jazz, Blues and other black music styles as if that was what she was born to do (i guess she was). The second album built on the foundation of the first, but unfortunately, didn't add anything new in style and very few in new sound (a more hip-hoppish sound was clearly perceivable, though).

Then, we had "Worldwide Underground". That album pushes the hip hop even more, and slowly Badu's voice is being demoted to just another background intstrument, which, even though she sort of used to use it like one all the way, here now just sounds like it's trying to fit it, at times, and at others, just plain annoying; "Danger" with China Blac comes to mind, which seems to be based on the honorable hip hop principle of repetition, but just does it wrong, and does nothing but annoy. There are more songs with more annoying repetitions present too, like "Back in the Day" (the whole "pap-parap" business is maybe nice the first time, acceptable the second, but any beyond that you wish she'd just stop that). Dead is the soul singer Badu with the ever-changing, yet deeply personalized voice, instead we have someone on a retro hip hop tour de force.

Now, 5 years later, we are presented with a new album ("New Amerykah, Part One") by a singer who was for the most part just gone hiding for the named 5 years, just to resurface with a work which seems, by concept, to be even more ambitious than "Worldwide Underground", yet fails to convince on several levels. For one, it's Badu's singing. Her voice seems, aside from changes in musical style, somehow faded, unanchored, muted and faint.
The badly orchestrated overload with alludes to 50's jazz, 70's soul and 80's hip hop, in a very different form from "Baduism" doesn't manage to really make you immerse yourself into the music and believe that what you hearing is a melange of these styles (then again, "melange" is not what i would call Badu's music, at least the first two albums, anyway: a term like "layering" seems more fitting), rather it sounds very forced. The intro track, "Amerykahn Promise" is a rather good jazzy soul track, aside from the really cheap voice effects, which simply destroy the atmosphere. Leave that out, and the track is perfect. Seems someone tried to hard.
This continues through the rest of the album: we have very well written and produced tracks, but some elements in them destroy the entire atmosphere, totally needless. If you listen to the tracks, you'll find one such element in every and each of it. I promise. Additionally, the more she tries to sound normal during singing (e.g. "Me" on "New Amerykah, Part One"), the less she manages to actually do that.

What also bugs me is that Badu was away from the music scene for 5 years, and returns with an album that either is very nonsensical (in my opinion), or reflects a change in personality and style we are simply unable to reconstruct since we have no information of what Ms. Badu was going through in between. As much as this album might have its justification, as much i'd rather have wanted a less ambitious, but more true-to-her-old-self album, just because it would have made more sense.

Here's where Herbaliser's album comes into play. As i've stated before, it is very similar by style. If you intermix tracks from Herbaliser's and Badu's album, i'm sure you'll be surprised how well they mix, up to the point where each track could be from either of the two albums.

But there is a certain (bad) quality to Badu's album which (thankfully) lacks on Herbaliser: A certain skankiness, unfortunately not paired with sexyness ("The Cell" on "New Amerykah, Part One"). Having both together can make music sound appealing, but just being skanky, without being sexy is just that, skanky. It sounds like she's jumped the shark (which she in my opinion actually did, with the 2003 album), and now she's scraping for whatever's left of her stylistic repertoire ("Me" outro / interlude between Track 3 and 4).

Herbaliser actually does sound sexy. You can clearly hear the celebration of style in his music, and it has a certain preposterousness, but it works to the producers' advantage. This is what we do, because we can, and it will convince you, we know it. Badu again is simply not convinced enough of what she's doing; i don't see another explanation of adding senseless, distracting elements to songs. Ultimately i believe that she's going where she thinks she should be going to, but this isn't where she would be if she had listened to her heart, instead of her mind. Or maybe someone told her to do what she's doing now.

Either way, i can not recommend "New Amerykah, Part One". It will leave you with a certain feeling of dread; some of you might even like it, superficially, but i am sure that any true fan of the old Erykah Badu will agree that it simply lacks any depth.

If you do listen to it, and wish there was an album which sounded like it, but without this creeping feeling of dissonance and the bizarro effects: there is. Go get Herbaliser's "Same as it never was". I'm sure you'll enjoy it.