Fatboy Slim, real name Norman Cook, set himself up for this one. His new album, Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, is just that. It sits somewhere between pure genius and garbage.
Fatboy Slim
Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars
Astralwerks Records
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While at some points Cook shows how he is on the cutting edge of the record-spinning business, other times he is simply dull and repetitive. Sometimes his samples are creatively placed and add another layer to the music and sometimes they're just plain annoying.
On tracks like "Ya Mama" and "Talking Bout My Baby," Cook merges catchy and explorative beats to create a sweet dance rhythm. But overall this album is lacking, especially on tracks like "Weapon of Choice" and "Retox," where the beats lack any sort of depth and come off sounding monotonous, leaving the listener screaming "When will this track end?"
As much as Cook enjoys mixing beats, he also explores mixing vocals on virtually every track (typically not his own). On "Love Life," the one and only Macy Gray lends her vocals to create a horribly annoying track full of weak draining beats and poorly written vocals. In a rather bold move, Cook borrows Jim Morrison's vocals for a kind-of-but-not-quite remix of "Bird of Prey." The beat is spacey and imaginative, but it is certainly not the Doors.
On other tracks Cook seems to be working a little too hard to make commentary rather than concentrating on creating a truly quality track. On "Star 69" he goes after wannabe DJs and attacks racism on "Drop the Hate." Not that there's anything wrong with that, but he shouldn't have ignored the song, leaving it to suffer in agony. Listeners will ignore the message if they don't like the song.
Cook has enjoyed an enormous amount of success lately thanks to his last release You\'ve Come a Long Way, Baby and its addictive single, "Praise You." But while that album teetered on genius and ingenuity, Halfway takes a long step back to a sort of limbo state. The album as a whole lacks any sort of consistency, as it seems Cook is trying just a little too hard to make commentary and explore new styles. Maybe next time he'll make it further than Halfway.
