Reviewed by Graham Reid
VARIOUS
Tommy Boy, Greatest Beats
(Tommy Boy)
This often compelling four-disc compilation (discs available separately) doubles as a history lesson, and reminder of the legacy and influence of this hip-hop label's first 15 years from 1981. In other words, the years from Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force's Planet Rock through Stetsasonic, Queen Latifah and Naughty By Nature to De La Soul and Coolio's Gangsta Paradise.
This intelligently compiled cross-section covers the hits and marginalia of a label that was in the vanguard of scratch'n'sample (often to their financial detriment when they didn't get necessary clearances) but could equally take care of the hit end of the spectrum.
And a label with artists who worked from the hip-hop corner but had a punk attitude to sampling. Tommy Boy artists -- black and white -- would eclectically lift bass lines and drum samples from all kinds of old jazz, techno-pop, spaghetti western and funk. They covered a lot of intellectual and dancefloor territory.
And to help the next generation into the art, these discs include a mixman studio so you can remix one of the album songs on your own PC: Tommy Boy's join-the-club ethic.
Outfits such as LA Irish hip-hoppers House of Pain may have come off as lesser lights at the time, but their metal-rap on Shamrocks and Shenanigans fits perfectly here with other artists who were singles acts out of their depth on albums.
Tommy Boy not only had acts which married techno with hip-hop (Bambaataa lifting from Kraftwerk), but also found space for Duran Duran-styled hip-pop (Information Society), Ru Paul's crossover from drag culture with Supermodel (You Better Work) and tedium such as Maria by TDK.
In fact, by the third disc there's an attrition of the talent. But if the history of music belongs as much to the Herman's Hermits/Flock of Seagulls/Vanilla Ice lineage, then Information Society and Club Nouveau (a spin-off from Timex Social Club, you'll doubtless recall), deserve a place here alongside such seminal movers and shapers as Coldcut (here with People Hold On featuring Lisa Stansfield), Digital Underground and Coolio.
Guests in the grooves include Notorious BIG (with Total on Can't You See), the Jungle Brothers and Monie Love.
Tommy Boy might not have the street cachet of Death Row but there's ample evidence here that, when firing on all cylinders, they were pasting down some extraordinary material by names whose work has added depth and dumb pop, lustre and litigation to the history of hip-hop dance culture.
* * * *
GLEN MOFFATT
A Place to Play
(Scoop de Loop/Metro)
This Auckland country singer-songwriter picked up the Al Hunter mantle on his excellent debut album , Somewhere in New Zealand Tonight, and here confirms his status as one of our finest songwriters.
Moffatt crafts material which hangs tough in relationships (The Least You Could Do with its matter-of-fact, "Listen, I'll get along without you here babe, it's nowhere near the hardest thing I'll ever do"). He offers a memorable death ballad in Daisy Chain, co-written with Ritchie Pickett (Roy Orbison should have lived to record this one) but also throws in Rachel, a fiddle-driven dancefloor rocker, and unself-consciously refers to the Warratahs and Hawkes Bay.
Moffatt not only possesses a distinctive voice (and an excellent band) and writes from within the various country traditions he's schooled in, but like Hunter also has something to say about this place.
Although The Course of True Love (also co-written with Pickett) is a classic slice of late 50s Tex-Mex ballad pop which could have been sung by anyone from Bobby Darren through Buddy Holly to John Hiatt.
Not quite the immediate winner the debut was (the title track lacks a bitterness in delivery the lyrics suggest, Radio Radio isn't the strongest to open on), but Moffatt has written his name large again and is, after two strong showings, a talent too big to ignore. Recommended.
* * * *
--Graham Reid, Weekend TimeOut
Elsewhere - Firing on all four in history of hip-hop
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