Published on Jan 19, 2000
Chuck Prophet seems to want the best of both worlds.
On one hand, he knows that he has the chops to be an excellent
rock musician and songwriter. On his latest release
The Hurting Business, he makes this obvious – even daring to
add in a bit of a hip-hop influence with the use of turntables
(and, if my ears heard correctly, some well-placed samples).
On the other hand, Prophet seems to want to embrace the musical
poetry of roots rock. Not many bands have been able to create such
a successful merge – and even when a group like The Jayhawks or The
Bottle Rockets have been able to do so, there’s always some genre
that seems to take a precedence in the music.
In Prophet’s case, he definitely keeps his feet planted in the
world of rock musically – and, in retrospect, this seems to be the
best place for him to be due to his writing and vocal styles. But
he does succeed in transcending the usual mental level of rock, and
reates some music that challenges the listener to pay attention –
just like good roots rock. While this mixture doesn’t always
succeed on the same levels each time, Prophet stays pretty
consistent and ends up with a very enjoyable album.
It doesn’t start out looking like a smooth picture. Prophet gets
off on rocky ground with “Rise,” a track that doesn’t seem to know
which direction it wants to go in. Fortunately, Prophet is able to
get things turned around quickly with the title track, a strange
tale about a true love/hate relationship. The thing is, Prophet
sings this in such a style that if you’re not paying close
attention to what he’s saying, you will miss the whole point of the
song. (I admit I fell in this trap; I had to go back to the CD
booket and re-read the lyrics to fully understand.)
Prophet soon proves himself to be a powerful social critic,
though he attacks his subject with a backhand rather than an
all-out assault. “Apology” dares to show us what crybabies we’ve
become in our lives (and how it can tie in to a relationship),
while “Dyin’ All Young” has a few different tales of passage
wrapped up in a nearly five-minute package.
If Prophet has any weakness, it’s that he seems to always
meander from whatever subject his songs start out about to some
aspect of interpersonal relationships. “It Won’t Be Long” seems to
start off as a criticism of how the media can capture pictures of
someone experiencing the greates pain of their lives – but then
twists it back into some non sequiturs that vaguely tie into a love
story of sorts (“I like T-Bone Walker / I like my Wonderbread / I
like to quote back into your face / All the things you never
said”). Other songs that fall into similar traps include “Lucky”
and “God’s Arms” – tracks that are otherwise very enjoyable.
It’s not that Prophet fails with
The Hurting Business, but it does occasionally feel like he
had a hidden agenda when he was writing for this album, and it kept
popping its ugly head out to totally change a song’s subject
matter. If this one aspect of
The Hurting Business could have been corrected, this would
be an incredibly powerful album. Instead, it’s merely enjoyable –
and even there, that ain’t too bad.
2000 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault”. All rights
reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
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