Counterpoint time! Since I am not very hip-hop knowledgeable, this is going to be a pretty short post.
I knew literally nothing about Dessa before listening to this album except that she is apparently from Milwaukee, and was/is in another group. And after listening to it, I still know approximately the same amount. Chris said in his review that she was/is a poet, which definitely makes sense given the lyrical nature of this album. Other than that, color me unenlightened.
This is the album. I do know that.
Big picture: this album was pretty good! Now I’ll tack a few qualifiers on there: as I said, I do not listen to hip hop with any kind of regularity at all, so I have almost nothing to seriously compare this album to, and for all I know it could be complete garbage in the eyes of those more familiar with the genre. I will also admit that I was not hanging on Dessa’s every lyric, and therefore probably missed some interesting ideas that are present on A Badly Broken Code. But here is what I did notice and enjoy:
The Beats- Compared to most of the hip-hop/rap I’ve heard, there were some pretty interesting beats on this album and overall the backgrounds of the songs felt a lot fuller and more interesting than what little else I have heard.
Some Of The Lyrics- This mostly means the lyrics I was paying attention to or that jumped out at me. Dessa’s poetic background came through there, and the verses were interesting both in terms of content and in terms of composition. One of my favorite things about rap in general is the analogies: in my (again, uninformed) opinion, the more interesting and unexpected the analogy, the “better” the rapper. A shallow scale, to be sure, but nevertheless.
Generally, the analogies are better than this one.
And here’s what I didn’t like so much.
Album Length- As Chris pointed out, I could have done without three or even four of the songs on this album, and for basically all the reasons he said. The album felt a little long and because of that it sacrificed a little bit of, I don’t know, punch, or something. At a certain point I began to think that I had heard some of the songs already, but no, it was just similarities becoming more apparent as the album length increased. I think it would have been a better move, especially on what I guess (according to Chris) is Dessa’s debut solo album, to keep the content a little less drawn-out.
Some Beats- Maybe it’s starting to become apparent, but I like a clear structure to my music. Sonic experimentation is fine and all, it’s just not really my thing, and so some of the tracks with more… unconventional beat structures didn’t really appeal to me (at all.) But again, that’s a taste thing.
So now I guess it’s time for…
Songs I Liked
“Children’s Work” – This is one of the ones I went back and listened to again and again, and it has the key ingredient for hip hop success: Interesting analogies!
“Mineshaft 2″ – Original, I know, my two picks were also Chris’s. I have nothing to say about this song, except that I liked it. Not sure why.
Songs I Didn’t Like
“Dutch” – It got a little repetitive, frankly.
“Poor Atlas” – Not much here to excite me.
If You Liked It:
Not really sure what to recommend here… If you liked it for the lyrics, Cake is a good (although mostly completely unrelated) choice.
If You Didn’t:
Once again, lots of ways this could go… I’m gonna go ahead and suggest some post-rock! Get The American Dollar’s album The Technicolour Sleep.
So overall, I’d say the album was pretty good. Nothing really jumped out at me, like Chris said, and it’s definitely not the album (if such an album exists) that’s going to turn me on to rap and hip hop as a genre. But it wasn’t bad, and if you’re into the genre, you’ll probably get more out of it than I did.
