"Up to date / state of the art / take part, get taken apart as I make my mark"
Welcome to the South Easy
Lauryn Hill – Consumerism
Amazed to find myself liking the new Lauryn Hill single ‘Consumerism‘. Having said that her second new song this year, and first since serving three months for tax evasion, is very much of a piece with the first one ‘Neurotic Society‘ so I should have been prepared. Not sure whether to reject the prevailing wisdom that she’s mad or point out how madness is the only sane response to the modern world. I guess that’s why I didn’t like her old records too much. Too smooth. I couldn’t believe her cos she didn’t sound like she’d been scarred by life. Yeah, yeah, what do I know about her life? Nothing, that’s just the way it sounded. Not sure either how well her words here would stack up transcribed and analysed at length, but anyway enjoying the way certain phrases jump out of the melee: ‘corporate greed in Jesus’ name‘; ‘habitual inferior vision, consumerism‘. Reminds me of Yeezus. The same relentless energy, maybe how that album sounded before Rick Rubin reduced it.
"Up to date / state of the art / take part, get taken apart as I make my mark" 