ALBUM REVIEW: Buck 65 - Situation

Buck 65
Situation
Warner Music, 2007
**** out of 5

Have you ever had one of those moments when you overheard something that you wished you hadn’t? Maybe you heard your parents in the next room talking about your Christmas present while they thought you were asleep? I accidentally overheard someone talking about Situation, the new album by eccentric East Coast hip-hop artist Buck 65.

What I heard, probably on the CBC or some other irresponsible rumor monger, is that Situation is a concept album based on an idea of what society was like in 1957, or something like that. Of that I’m not convinced, but no matter. Situation may be Buck 65’s most wholly pleasing album since 2003’s Talking Honky Blues.

True, the song 1957 mentions everything from Sputnik to Arthur Miller’s bizarre marriage to Marilyn Monroe, but essentially that’s where the whole scurrilous whisper campaign begins and ends. However, there are lots of interesting ideas to explore here, from sexuality to all manner of outsider culture. I suppose that sexuality and outsider culture existed in 1957 too, but the analogy is not laid explicitly, and so it sounds as though it could be a contemporary observation.

The rhyming is more nuanced, assured, and the stories are interesting observations of the seamy side of society, like a hip-hop version of an Edward Hopper painting. Track three, Dang, effectively stitches its rap directly to The Incredible Bongo Band’s take on Sandy Nelson’s Let There Be Drums.

Like the past four Buck 65 albums, Situation takes hip-hop into more alternative territory. I mean, if you consider Julian, Bubbles and Ricky to be avant-garde from the mainstream, then Buck 65 will sound like meeting a long lost cousin. Richard Terfry raps like Johnny Cash sang: low, gravelly and intriguing. Seriously, the man sounds like he smokes about 3 packs of Export greens a day, and his close-talking lends him an intimacy that make us want to lean in close to the speakers.

The gravelly intonation and heavy breathing sounds a little like Tom Waits, a fellow observational writer, narrating Frank’s Wild Years. On The Beatific, he’s a lecherous peeping Tom spying on his cute neighbor and then being disgusted with himself: “The invisible man, I’m hiding in the bushes / The invisible man, I’m stewing in my own juices”. Spread ‘Em sounds like a pervy Dragnet-type bust: “Spread ‘em, up against the wall, lover-boy. Spread ‘em, up against the wall, sweet-cheeks”.

So, although I didn’t really catch the 1957 concept I was told pervades Situation, what I did hear is really quite good. It’s a sharp, well-observed album full of humanity, all quirks and frailties. I’ll try and remember to leave the preconceived notions at the door next time.

Review by Greg Hood-Morris

Agree? Disagree? Email Greg at criticizegreg@gmail.com