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                              *  M  U  S  I  C  *

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                   ALBUM REVIEW BY <GENIE> OF NETWORK TRASH
                    'HIPOCROSY IS THE THE GREATEST LUXURY'

                                      by
                     The Disposable Heroes of Hipophrosy.

                           (4th & Broadway BRLPX584)



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( NOTE: This was originally meant to appear  in  PB #21, but I didn't finish it
in time! )
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You know, I  was  unlucky  enough  to  see  Cliff  Richard  plug  his umpteenth
Christmas single one day, and  in  the  interview,  he  said he didn't like rap
because "anyone can talk" !!!!! Well, er yes, -anyone- can talk, but not just -
-anyone- that can talk is a poet! The  best rap -is- poetry and will definately
be remembered longer than any of the  lyrics  of  your songs, Cliff! And no rap
acts I've heard of are daft enough to  be paid-up Tories, mind you, neither are
that much poets.
     Anyway, this album by The Disposable  Heroes of Hipophrosy (Michael Franti
and Rono Tse) contains examples of this class  of rap, and covers a pretty wide
range of subjects. It's also a pretty good  value album, almost half an hour on
each side! So let's look at each track, one by one:


     SATANIC REVERSES

     In 1992, the European economic community will attempt to reform.
     In 1997, the city of Hong Kong will become a part of the People's Republic
     of China.
     In 1999, and this is no  coincidence,  the  nation of Panama will  control
     it's own canal.
     While in the United States, civil  rights  have collapsed at the  hands of
     fundamentalists  And national insecurity's at an all time high.

This one's  about  the  right-wing  and  religious  clawback  of  various civil
liberties in the land that is ironically supposed to be the bastion of freedom,
and contrasting it with the change taking  place  in the rest of the world. The
lyric connects the attempted persecution  of  the  arts  (eg that 'Piss Christ'
picture.), the phoney cleanup of  the  Valdez  oil  slick, and the crackdown on
illegal immigrants- the  message  being  that  if  the  first  of  the three is
continued then there will be little  to  oppose  the  other two. The backing is
deliberately chaotic- loads of  avant  guarde  jazz  samples floating around as
well as funny electronic squeaks.  There's  also  a sample of Gregorian chants.
Remember when Enigma got in the  top  ten  with  similar  chants set to a dance
beat? Well, when it was played  over  in  the US, fundamentalists slammed it as
'blasphemous'!


     FAMOUS AND DANDY (LIKE AMOS 'N' ANDY)

     Uneducated, undisciplined,
     Undisciplined, but mostly unaware,
     We join the 'Flavor of the Month' club,
     We swallow the Flavor of the Month.
     Holding our crotch       was the flavor of the month,
     Bitch this Bitch that    was the flavor of the month,
     Being a thug             was the flavor of the month,
     No to drugs              was the flavor of the month,
     Kangol                   was the flavor of the month,
     Rope gold                was the flavor of the month,
     Adidas shoes             was the flavor of the month,
     Bashing Jews             was the flavor of the month,
     Gentrification           was the flavor of the month,
     Isolation                was the flavor of the month
     My pockets so empty I can feel my testicles,
     'Cause I spent my money on some plastic African necklaces.
     And I still don't know what the colours mean:
     RED, BLACK and GREEN.
          I just happened to catch them  playing  this one live on BBC2's 'Late
Show', and  the  version  there  had  the  same  words  but  sounded completely
different to the album version. Don't worry if you don't know who Amos 'n' Andy
are- there's a small clip of the show in question at the start of the track, so
you'll get the idea- it's basically  a  crappy  sitcom with two black guys that
bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to  real  life! And while Amos 'n' Andy
act out scenes in cosy sitcom-land,  blacks  in real life are being pressurised
into the usual media stereotypes.  The  backings  good  on this one and there's
some great guitar near the end of this track!


     TELEVISION, THE DRUG OF THE NATION

     Back again, 'New and improved',  we  return  to our irregularly programmed
     schedule,  hidden  cleverly  between   heavily   breasted   beer  and  car
     commercials. CNNESPNABCTNT but mostly B.S.
     Where oxymoronic language such  as  'virtually  spotless', 'fresh frozen',
     'light yet filling', and 'military intelligence' have become standard.

Quite a lot of you might have heard this track in some form or another, as this
is quite an old track and dates back to the time when Hipophrosy were still The
Beatnigs- in fact The Beatnigs performed a  version  of this piece live on that
old C4 music programme The Tube  in  it's  final  series.  So if you think that
Bruce Springsteen was terribly original when he  did  a song with the line "150
channels, and there's still nothing  on",  then  think  again! I also notice U2
pinched a couple of samples of the start  of  this track for their ZOO TV tour.
This one's pretty unusual in not being  done in any rhymes whatsoever, but done
in an almost narrative form. Modern poetry on a rap record?!


     LANGUAGE OF VIOLENCE

     The first day of prison was always the hardest,
     The first day of prison the hallways the darkest,
     Like a guantlet, the voices haunted:
     Faggot, Sissy, Punk, Queen, Queer.
     Words he used before had a new meaning in here
     As a group of men in front of him laughing came near.
     For this first time in his life, the young bully felt fear.
     He never been on this side of the name-calling,
     Five against one, they had his back up against the wall and
     He'd never questioned his own sexuality
     But this group of men didn't hesitate their reality.

Anyone who thinks rap is all 'gangsters'  and  glorying in violence might get a
bit of a shock here!  This  is  detailing  a  violent  story in a pretty brutal
terms, but also showing  the  power  of  words  in  such situations: 'Words can
reduce a person to an object/something  more  easy  to hate'. The backing has a
strange women wailing noise played backwards for some reason.
     It might as well be noted here that when Hipophrosy appeared on "The Word"
to do "California Uber Alles", Michael  Franti  originally wanted to do a short
poem on homophobia, but it had to  be  cut  since  "The Word" had overran on an
item about breast enlargement through hypnosis!  Franti camly announced this in
front of the audience and millions of viewers, then, to great applause took off
his T-shirt to reveal  the  words  "FUCK  HOMOPHOBIA"  freshly inked across his
chest! Now, how many other raps groups can you name that do this sort of thing?


     WINTER OF THE LONG HOT SUMMER

     On January 2nd the Bush administration
     Announced a  recession  had  striken  the  nation.  The  highest quarterly
     earnings in ten years were posted by Chevron.
     Meanwhile a budget was placed in our hands
     As the deadline in the sand came to an end.
     So much for the peace dividend-
     A billion a day was what we spent,
     And our grandchildren will pay for it to the end.
     When schools are unfunded, and kids don't get their diplomas,
     They get used for gunboat diplomacy-
     Disproportionately black or brown we see:
     Bullet catchers for the Slave Masters.

If you haven't guessed already, this  is  the  Gulf War Franti's talking about,
and he keeps a  low  voice  during  this  epic  (nearly  8 minutes) and densely
detailed rap lyric. The backing's excellent on this one- some great percussion,
and a simple sequence of samples.


     HIPOCRISY IS THE GREATEST LUXURY

     The bass, the treble, don't make a rebel.
     Having your life together does.
     America has the image of a young one
     Fast livin', not giving an expletive,
     No respect for his or the lives or of those around him.
     Suicidal, homicidal, or at least extremely unbridled
     How convenient for those who would like to destroy him.

In comparsion to the other tracks, this  one is strangely upbeat! And as hinted
from the bit  above,  Michael  Franti  appears  to  be  slightly patriotic! (As
Leonard Cohen said: "I love the country, but can't stand the scene". OK, I know
that sounds like a typcial student  talking  there, but I thought "Democracy Is
Coming To The USA" had one  of  the  funniest  lyrics in years!) The backing is
also the most standard of all the tracks  (eg  a  lot of "YO! YO! YO! YO! ...."
stuff, though that might be deliberate,  given  the nature of the song), though
there is a nice sample of some funny organ music halfway through the song!


     EVERYDAY LIFE HAS BECOME A HEALTH RISK

     Meanwhile back in the backyard, father lights up a barbecue fire
     And he sizzles hormone injected meat on top of a toxic source of heat.
     He becomes light-headed as the toxins  easily  meet  with the Lite beer in
     his head, And he glaces to his portable television set
     From his  eyes,  he  wipes  the  double-vision  sweat-  visions  of  white
     supremicists posing as right conservationists
     Holding an Aryan agrarain Woodstock lead the stray sheep into the flock,
     Hookin' 'em in with the music of flower power
     Change their energy to fire power.

Again this draws a couple of apparently  disparate subjects into one rap lyric.
I have to be  honest  here,  I  know  very  little  about  what  all the racist
organisations are doing in America, so I couldn't relate to some of the lyrics,
though they are pretty well written, but the  rest of them I could recognise as
being spot-on! The backing is the usual high standard.


     INS GREENCARD A-19 191 500

This is a minute and  a  half  long  sample  montage,  with  a  phone call to a
"Greencard" advice line overlayed onto it.  A  Greencard  is needed by every US
citizen to  prove  that  they  are  living  in  the  US,  and  are  not illegal
immigrants! The voice in  the  advice  line  sets  the  whole  tone by sounding
friendly at the start,  and  sounding  more  aggressive  as  it  gets nearer to
telling how to report illegal immigrants! Also is the constant repeition of the
phrase "For English, press 1 now"- you get the picture....


     SOCIO-GENETIC EXPERIMENT

     You see, I'm African Native American  Irish  and  German, I was adopted by
     parents who loved me. They were the same  colour as the kids who called me
     "nigger" on the way home from school.
     I cried until I found out  what  I  meant.  Then I got some equipement- my
     fists, man. I was a hitman with no friends.
     But who the hell am I cursing those  whose  skin is half my DNA? Why am I,
     and why shouldn't I be ashamed of this fact?

So much for big ego-trippers! The  words  pretty much speak for themselves, and
the backing is done in a great  reggae-dub  style, which apparently how quite a
lot of the next album will sound.


     MUSIC AND POLITICS

     If ever I would stop thinking about  music  and politics, I would tell you
     that sometimes it's easier  to  desire  and  pursue  the  attention of 100
     strangers than it is to accept  the  love  and loyalty of those closest to
     me.

Phew! Talk about humble pie! The  rest  of  the  lyric  is full of this sort of
stuff and is accompanyied by  just  a  simple  rhythm guitar, played by Charlie
Hunter.


     FINANCIAL LEPROSY

     Theives generating revenue, lottery poverty tax,
     Landlords and Druglords and "Praise The Loords", they prey upon us.
     How did they ever manufacture consent,  a  meal in every trashcan, myth of
     the "Happy Hobo",  COINTELPRO  (Counter  INTELligence  PROgram), The Cosby
     Show.
     Why did they cut the Pell Grant, so they can build cells-
     Ten years in prison but no tenure at university.
     Is this ethnic diversity, or is it public policy?

Again, I don't quite understand all of the lyrics, but I can appreciate some of
the great play on words in some of  the parts. The backing is again dischordant
in places, with a great backward bassline. It also contains samples of a female
speaker making important points, either at  a  conference  or on a TV show. (It
appears to be some sort of debate anyway.)


     CALIFORNIA UBER ALLES

     Now it's 1992, Knock knock at your front door, hey guess who?
     It's the suede denim secret police,  they've  come  to your house for your
     long haired niece.
     Gonna take her off to a camp, 'cuase she's been accused of growing hemp.
     Don't you worry, it's only a  shower,  and  now for your clothes, here's a
     pretty flower.

As said before, they peformed a  cut  down  version  of this one on "The Word".
Some of you might recognise the song title as being originally done by The Dead
Kennedys. Well, you're right, this is an updated rap version of the song, which
presents quite a  different  image  at  the  New  Age/"sunshine  state", and in
particular governer Pete Wilson, from the one  shown  on  TV! It might be a bit
out of date now  since  the  last  US  elections,  but  it's still an important
chronicle of the times, and considering it  was recorded well in advance of the
Rodney King case  and  the  riots  in  LA,  it  gives  a  lot  of the political
background to these events.


     WATER PISTOL MAN

     Must everything in life have political ramifications,
     Even taking kids on vacation or having a simple operation.
     But my friend Billy told me that  sometimes it sometimes takes a grown man
     a long time to learn what it takes a child a night to learn- my son proved
     his words:
     "Water pistol man, full of ammuntion,  squirtin'  at fires on a world-wide
     mission. But did you ever think to stop and squirt the flowers in your own
     backyard."

It's back to the humble pie bit again  for  the last track. There's a couple of
really nice samples in the this one, and a great long guitar solo, that goes on
right until the tape machine gets switched off! However, the biggest difference
is that Michael  Franti  chooses  to  SING  the  words-  no  mean  feat really,
considering that they make a pretty  dense  block  of lyrics to say, never mind
sing. And apart from a couple  of  slightly  awkward  bits, he manages to carry
this off pretty well.



VERDICT: This is one of the best  rap  LPs  of 1992! There's a lot of political
records around, but this one stands out  because  it has great music to back it
up, and there's not even any  ego-tripping,  unlike a certain Hammer bloke. So-
buy it! That's all we can say!

<Genie!>


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