ARTIST: Bunny Rabbit
TITLE: Lovers and Crypts
LABEL: Voodoo-EROS
GENRE: Electronic
BITRATE: 175kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 51m total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-02-20
RIP DATE: 2007-02-19
Track List
----------
1. Saddle Up 3:26
2. Dirty Dirt 3:43
3. It Ain't Easy 5:31
4. Rio Grande 4:11
5. Lucky Bunny Foot 4:08
6. Lovers And Crypts 5:17
7. Pussy Queen 4:32
8. Dolphins 4:23
9. We Rollin' 4:26
10. Bunny Baby 4:27
11. Sexy 4:01
12. St. Guillen 3:39
Release Notes:
She's trying to give Peaches a run for her money i suppose.
As a lad, I always found my dadÆs wincing distaste for ôbubblegum musicö
amusing. I wasnÆt around for the æ60s, when the old man was an aspiring greaser,
satire geek and Music Machine fanatic. I didnÆt have to hear ôYummy Yummy Yummyö
over and over and over again on the AM, when I was waiting for something else
and had nowhere else to go. I would never understand how offensive it was to him
that younger people had honed a smirking, pseudo-academic ôappreciationö for the
sort of music that had once driven him to hormone-inflamed conniptions. And, as
a teenager myself, I never really had to endure its analogue. Compared to the
creations of Spector and Kasenetz-Katz in their day, kiddie punk, tween pop and
jiggy rap arenÆt that ubiquitous now. Alternatives can be found, and with
numbing ease.
But, damnà it didnÆt take todayÆs bubblegum (at least tween pop and jiggy rap)
any time at all to find their reactionary, pointy-headed, (consciously or
unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly) ironic champions. Walk into the wrong
room, and youÆre suddenly No Fun if you dismiss Hillary Duff and Yung Joc
without a fair hearing. To admit that Justin Timberlake is not a Prince-level
genius, or that Crazy Frog would embarrass Bill Drummond and Leo Burnett in
equal measure, is to reveal some deep personal weakness, or to risk living in
uninteresting times. But thereÆs nothing wrong with liking Kool Keith, too, so
long as you're not all "rockist" about it.
ItÆll be no big surprise that these Top 40 apologists rally behind Bunny Rabbit.
Sasha Frere-Jones (articulate Top 40 apologist, witch-hunting race-baiter and
New Yorker scribe) began the charge after Bunny Rabbit MySpace-friended him.
Lovers And Crypts will likely start a lot of ostensibly music-based
sociocultural arguments that IÆm going to enjoy staying out of.
Like ôYummy Yummy Yummyö before it, Lovers and Crypts is too slight a record to
bear the baggage itÆs going to be saddled with. The tracks (laced by someone
called Black Cracker) are a slipshod pastiche of the last 20 years of dance
music û electroclash on a tight budget. Sometimes theyÆre disassociated and
creepy, sometimes theyÆre marginally funky (or at least reminders of what
funkiness feels like), but theyÆre never particularly interesting. Likewise,
Bunny RabbitÆs rapping is a thin, girly, disturbingly affect-less string of
low-level hip hop clichΘs, an adolescent mix of self-aggrandizement, mechanical
sexuality and uninspired toilet talk.
The whole thing has the unmistakable vibe of a half-assed inside joke. At his
most obtuse, Kool Keith always makes sense if you connected the dots; itÆs just
that the things heÆs suggesting are more easily negotiated as
stream-of-consciousness humor than as dark, paranoid pathology. By contrast,
Bunny RabbitÆs pathology seems to be pure, terrified emptiness, the inability to
communicate anything outside of twice-removed pop-cultural detritus. If these
pampered Williamsburgers take this sort of attitude into their midlife crises,
you can look for it in forthcoming editions of the DSM. But at least they wonÆt
have to wait that long to be praised in the New Yorker.