Review of the Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!

Alright guys. Let's just back away from the last few posts with all the unpleasant comments they generated and move on to something I'm sure we can all love. Saul Williams's new album:

The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!

I'll admit I was leery at first because while I liked some songs of his previous album, it was by no means my favorite, but I still wanted to support this new "label-free" experiment Trent and others are working on. I'm happy to say that my fears were completely unnecessary, and this album totally rocks! Download it for free or download it for $5, the choice is yours, but just DOWNLOAD IT! The cover of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is almost worth the $5 on its own, and you shouldn't cut yourself short in the sound quality on this one or any of the other heavily layered tracks. Free 192kps mp3 = crap -OR- $5 320kps mp3 = much higher quality. Or even go for the $5 FLAC lossless audio, but be prepared to use a conversion program to get it to play.

You can clearly hear Trent's NIN influence in the music, and he is credited on most of the songs. If a person were to listen to Year Zero and this album back to back, I don't think they'd be surprised to learn they were recorded about the same time (both being worked on while Saul was the opening act during the [With_Teeth] tour). Both are beautifully layered with "noise," but where Trent makes his lyrical points blunt with NIN, Saul speaks in wide-ranging metaphors cleverly concealed in catchy, dance-able beats so that his "message" isn't completely overpowering. I recommend listening to the whole album before specifically reading the lyrics; it makes it easier if you can hear the flow as you go. Saul has a sense of humor about studying lyrics so closely though. If you're reading through them in iTunes, when you get to the last song, instead of lyrics you get "enough already. Stop reading and dance" and then a plug to his other book The Dead Emcee Scrolls ("available now in bookstores" he tells us).

While I like all the general topics brought up throughout the songs (standing up for yourself, problems with political authority, self doubt, etc), I wasn't so keen about all the "N" bombs being dropped. It's just not my style and therefore not normally something I even give a chance, but after reading a bit from a document included with the leaked tracks, you realize he's intentionally trying to make you feel uncomfortable.

"The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! is the lovechild of Trent and me. The NiggyTardust concept sets me free to do more on stage with costume, etc. than one might expect from a regular Saul Williams show. It allows me to put my theatre training to use. I've also thought long and hard about all the discussion surrounding racial epithets etc. and chose this title as a means of furthering the dialogue while also showing how creativity will outlive and outshine hatred of any kind."

He's wanting to change the interpretations and negative connotations surrounding it. That's commendable and should make for an interesting show when he goes on tour to support this release. So our dear RoRo was onto something. Saul's taking it back, y'all.

But like Saul said, "enough already" on over-analyzing words because the music is pretty amazing too. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" has been overhauled into a bouncy, up-tempo beat that is infectious. It started with just tapping my foot, but by the second round of "oh, oh, oh"s, I was singing along. This one sticks in my head all day and is definitely one of my top three picks. While the majority of the other tracks have that NIN-influenced abrasiveness or sound "hard" because of the delivery of the vocals (e.g., "Black History Month," "Convict Colony," "Break," "Skin of a Drum," "The Ritual"), the songs that really stood out and blew me way were the softer and self-doubting "No One Ever Does" and the simply structured "Banged & Blown Through." I love the vulnerability of the keyboards and the soft texture of the vocals in "No One Ever Does." And while the drumbeat of "Banged & Blown Through" is strong, the falsetto backup vocals manage to still make it feel vulnerable and it gets me every time. That's not to say I don't like the harshness of the other songs mentioned above because I do. In fact, I would say it's the perfect set up to make these softer tunes really jump out at you.

I feel the album artwork is also worth mentioning. I felt that leery sense again when I heard Rob Sheridan had a hand in it, but it's not as bad as all that. The booklet is included with the download as a .pdf file, and much of it reminds me of what was briefly shown in Saul's book (s)he, only with color. Even the lyrics, handwritten in most cases, add to the eclectic group of artwork. There seems to be a running theme of Roman-inspired horses, a few images of Egyptian Gods, and this little voodoo-looking guy. You can clearly see him on page 26 of the booklet, but notice that he's also hiding behind a layer of paint on pages 17 & 27. His little eyes peek out at you. Kind of creepy, no? My point here is that anyone concerned with this new manner of music distribution and seemingly inevitable extinction of album artwork or booklets needs only look through the included .pdf file to see that it will be okay. Perhaps that makes me old school, but I like looking through that stuff. It enhances the tone of everything else. I'd like to think of the much criticized ARG as Trent's online (albeit elaborate) version of Year Zero's "album artwork."

Overall, I think that Trent and Saul mesh well together, and I hope they stay close for future projects. Their two styles and passions (music and lyrics/spoken word) compliment each other. It's been fun delving into this album and its layers and layers of content, and I can't wait to see what else is waiting to reveal itself in subsequent listens. Bottom line people: YOU SHOULD GET THIS.