Published on Aug 2, 2001
Carlos Santana, what have you wrought? Given the success of your
comeback album
Supernatural, you’ve almost made it a prerequisite that any
artist who has been out of the public spotlight for X amount of
years needs to make their return felt by enlisting the help of
nearly the entire remainder of the music industry.
We could argue until the cows come home about whether
Supernatural was a good album or not – but one can’t deny
that it did put Santana back into the public eye. Now, rappers
Run-DMC are trying the same thing with their first album in eight
years –
Crown Royal.
They should have waited longer – say, for an album of real
material.
You know you’re in trouble when one-third of the group – in this
case, DMC – only appears on two tracks, and all but dismisses the
album in the press. The sad fact is that Run-DMC finds themselves
in the unenviable position of playing a game of musical catch-up…
the problem being that they’re stuck in the halcyon days of the
’80s. Remember that time, when they literally saved Aerosmith’s
ass?
The plethora of guests who dirty the hands of Run-DMC do more
harm than good on
Crown Royal. Unlike
Supernatural, these cameos don’t do anything but distract
from the rather weak repertoire of songs that the group offers.
Stephan Jenkins, I think I’m going to make fellow reviewer Jason
Warburg’s day when I say: You’re no Steven Tyler. “Rock Show”
proves it. As for Sugar Ray (who appear on “Here We Go 2001”),
aren’t your 15 minutes of fame up yet?
Wait, it gets worse. Everlast tries to do his best Steve Miller
impression on “Take The Money And Run,” but the re-written lyrics
do nothing for the song. (That’s more of Run-DMC’s fault, though.)
And as for Fred Durst (“Them Girls”) and Kid Rock (“The School Of
Old”), the less said about these tracks, the better.
Even when rappers and singers from the soul genre are brought
into the fracas,
Crown Royal finds Run-DMC shooting themselves in the foot.
Tracks like “It’s Over” (featuring Jermaine Dupri), “Queens Day”
(featuring Nas & Prodigy of Mobb Deep) and “Let’s Stay Together
(Together Forever)” (featuring Jagged Edge) all prove that without
good songwriting, cameos don’t mean shit. (Someone better call Al
Green and beg for his forgiveness for butchering his classic
song.)
Yet there are two signs of life right at the end of
Crown Royal. “Ay Papi” (featuring Fat Joe) is the first
suggestion that someone in Run-DMC’s camp had done their homework
since
Down With The King, while “Simmons Incorporated” (featuring
Method Man) – well, I can’t tell if this one is a boast or a good
old-fashioned pimp slap. In any case, it is the best way to end the
album.
Make no mistake, I happen to like Run-DMC, and there’s nothing
more I’d like to see than them put out an album that would live up
to the standards of something like
Raising Hell without trying to capture the vibe of over 15
years ago. As for
Crown Royal, maybe it would have sounded fresher in 1999,
when it was originally scheduled to be released. But we have to
live in the here and now with the product in front of us. All I can
say is this: when you name an album
Crown Royal, you’d better not offer your listeners the
musical equivalent of Thunderbird.