Citizen Cope
The Clarence Greenwood Recordings.
Clarence “Citizen Cope” Greenwood’s descriptively titled sophomore disc is an unfortunate step-down, or at least sideways, from his promising but not spectacular self-titled debut. Greenwood’s music is an interesting hybrid between downtempo, hip hop, and reggae. He croons and half raps lyrics about our troubled times, but they are too specific to carry universal import and too unfocused not to sound a bit confused.
Greenwood has opted for a very produced sound. This lets you enjoy the quirkiness of his often-interesting instrument and style choices, but overall it’s not a wise move. The songs themselves have a loose, unfinished-in-not-necessarily-a-bad-way feeling that is choked by the lavish, artificial arrangements. If Clarence was some guy playing around in my garage I’d think he was great, but with the whole studio behind him he balances awkwardly on the edge of sounding pretentious to the point of being silly. Criticisms aside, there are some fine songs here, and it’s definitely an interesting even rewarding listen, but all in all it can’t quite outdo being average.
Article comments
1 - Archer
If there were people who agree with what you say, I'd expect to see maybe one comment here as testament to your brilliance. Not so . . . huh.
It's O.K. really. I heard that some "critic" once told Robert Plant that his band's music would go over like a Led Zepellin. Were you that critic?
Thanks.
2 - Shelby McDuff
As a 53 year old woman who enjoys a variety of music I am always looking for new sounds that are on the edge, not radio sounds or sweet music. Citizen Cope has a great beat going on even though repetitious,
a nice segue between songs and a young innocent maybe even unfinished sound--a rawness to it. There's something to be said about not overproducing a sound.
3 - Stuart McWilliam
You sound like you know how to do a better job than him, and with his equipment you could do better? well, perhaps he chose not 'overproduce' for a reason...the sound is very unique.
"but they are too specific to carry universal import and too unfocused not to sound a bit confused." -- sounds to me like he is experimenting and trying some new, he gains some fans like myself who appreciate unfocused, and non-universal sounds that aren't trying to win over the masses..
To each his own.. I think most of the CD is not that great, but Sideways really grabs me. Most people don't like the repetitiveness of Sideways, but comming from an electronic music listing history, I find that repetition is what emphasizes and strengthens a chosen meaning within the song, I think this is what he was trying to achieve in Sideways and he pulled it off amazingly well... at least, in the non-santana version.
4 - Damon
because i criticize something I can do better myself?
that's just about my least favourite argument in the whole entire world. I don't have musical talent. I have, however, heard about 250 albums that were released this year so I feel I have a bit of an idea of how to judge music.
btw, i thought he DID overproduce. his first album was less produced, and, imo better.