They will keep doing this, won’t they? On first hearing this single I was ready to rush to Blogger with an early-review hatchet-job; but where some have monkeys on their backs I have a sloth, and for once I am in its debt. I confined myself to a snip or two on ILM, and let the record settle into my playlist, ready to quietly step forward at the right time and crease my forebrain double.
The right time turned out to be at the Club Night last Wednesday, where one of the CD players had fucked up and almost nothing would play. ‘Ghettomusick’ would, and hearing it at high volume the buzzing synths on the ‘verses’ (I am not sure what to call any of the parts of this song) sounded like a lattice of angry lasers, ready to cube anyone who’d cross Outkast’s path. This part of the tune is a cousin of the hyperkinetic panic pop ‘B.O.B.’ minted, but this band never make one record where five will do. Where the nu-soul hook fits in is anyone’s guess, and I can’t even begin to make sense of Big Boi’s hilarious and creepy bedroom-eye-rolling ‘Feeling good, feeling great’ bit. Need to play it some more, I suppose.
It won’t monster you as much as some of their singles but it is, yes, another confoundingly good record, and like everything they’ve put out since ‘Ms. Jackson’ it sounds twenty times better the twentieth time you hear it. The only concern I would have (and it’s not even a ‘concern’ unless you’re Outkast’s marketing guy) is that a single as crazily patchwork as this feels like a step back from the marketplace. Outkast’s ‘uniqueness’ is their USP, but play on it too much and their potential as a hip-hop gateway erodes.