In Case You Missed It - The Cool

Lupe Fiasco
Lupe Fiasco's The Cool
Atlantic Records (1st and 15th)

Though widely cited as a "concept album" following it's 2007 release, if you were to attempt to unpack just what the "concept" at work on The Cool, you would likely be utterly confused. Fiasco moves from subject to subject as rapidly as he raps, touching on topics like child soldiers, immigration, and the ups and downs of stardom and the rap game. In a way, the fact that it's difficult to decipher the concept makes The Cool one of the better "concept albums" out there - every time you listen to his lyrics, new possibilities for interpretation open up as you unravel the metaphors and double meanings layered thickly over every track.

Lupe Fiasco made a bit of a splash with his debut, Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor, but The Cool is a real showcase of his talents as a rapper. Fiasco is incredibly diverse; he can spit fast on tracks like "Go Go Gadget Flow," the most easily listenable, bass-thumping track on the album; or he can take a slow, almost jazzy flow on the groovy "Paris, Tokyo." However he's delivering them, Fiasco's lyrics are simply amazing, and it's clear that this album is painstakingly crafted, from the writing down to the production - something that's surprising rare in hip-hop. This makes each song well worth listening to on it's own merits, as Fiasco slides easily between different styles and topics. Even Fiasco himself admits that only a few tracks really fit the "concept," and then only loosely. This opens up each track to be interpreted on it's own, for some really interesting results. "Gold Watch" asks listeners to "peruse the essentials of cool," while "Intruder Alert" unravels several heartbreaking stories about the consequences of fear.

Fiasco also churns out some fantastic head-nodding, driving hip-hop tracks. "Superstar" was the album's biggest single - and for good reason. Matthew Santos delivers a great, soaring chorus, and Fiasco provides some terrific verses that reflect on the nature of being a superstar. "Hip-Hop Saved My Life" provides a look at the other end of a music career, telling the story of a rapper's inspirations and struggle to make it. And that really gets at Lupe Fiasco's ultimate asset: his storytelling ability. Much like Springsteen or Dylan were for rock, Fiasco is hip-hop's preeminent storyteller, packing a single track with a sense of character, personality, and narrative that is simply amazing. Just listen to the driving, rapid-fire "Streets on Fire," which paints a near-future dystopia better in 5 minutes than a lot of sci-fi novels do in 500 pages. Or try "Little Weapon," which evokes the mindset of a child soldier in one verse, before moving to school shootings in the next. The lyrical dexterity and depth at work is really remarkable, but The Cool is also (unlike some "concept albums") quite easy to access and listen to. You can spend hours examining a few tracks, appreciating the multiple metaphors and storytelling at work, or you can just pop it in your stereo (ha!) and blast it for a little while. If you missed The Cool, you missed one of the best hip-hop albums of the last decade (also be sure to check out his third album, Lasers, which is set to be released "soon").

Grade: A

Next time on In Case You Missed It: Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight

In Case You Missed It - High Violet

The National
High Violet
4AD

Welcome to my new feature for The Casualty Report, In Case You Missed It. This is basically a chance for me to go back and look at some albums, movies, etc. that may no longer fall under anyone's definition of "new releases" and provide my thoughts. These will only be things that I thought warranted going back to, so they'll typically be works that I think are either very good, very bad, or have some quality or aspect that inspires me to discuss it.

For the very first In Case You Missed It, I decided to delve all the way back to the distant time of May 2010, when Brooklyn rockers The National released their fifth album, High Violet. I was first introduced to The National from their previous album, Boxer, which I was a huge fan of, and so I had pretty high expectations for High Violet (and I think my experience is the same as a lot of other people - Boxer was the band's most commercially successful album by far, and concert attendance soared for them after its release). So, it's pretty clear that there was a great deal of pressure on The National to deliver - after all, if a good amount of your fans have only heard one excellent album, you risk losing a lot of them if the next album is a piece of crap (ahem, Band of Horses, cough cough).

It is apparent 4 minutes and 40 seconds (the length of the album opener, "Terrible Love") into High Violet that not only have The National delivered on the promise of Boxer, but they may have blown away everyone's expectations. I can think of precious few songs that open an album as well as "Terrible Love" does, with its slow, head-nodding beginning that moves into one of the most swelling and triumphant finishes of the group's career (and that's something, considering these are the people who brought you "Mr. November"). The songs on High Violet sometimes resemble those on Boxer - "Sorrow" and "Bloodbuzz Ohio" sound like they would fit right in among other great tracks like "Fake Empire" or "Slow Show" - but there's plenty of diversity to be found. "Anyone's Ghost" is a haunting, eclectic number that works beautifully with lead singer Matt Berninger's baritone voice, and "England" launches into a soaring finish that sounds like it should be played at the end of an epic movie scene.

High Violet takes the sound that the band has developed over their previous four albums and adds in dollops of one key ingredient: emotion. Critics love to describe The National as "moody" or "brooding" rockers, which I think is sometimes apt. However, the excellent music and Matt Berninger's wonderful voice combine throughout the album to reach out and almost slam the listener with those powerful feelings that cause your stomach to tingle - whatever emotion that is (it's not really describable - well, certainly I do a shitty job at it), it's certainly not "brooding." Berninger has the ability to take a simple lyric, such as "It takes an ocean not to break," and I don't even really know what that means, but when he belts it out repeatedly in that voice of his it really hits me.

If you missed High Violet, you'll definitely want to check it out. The back half of the album isn't quite as consistently awesome as the start (the one-two punch of "Afraid of Everyone" - my favorite song on the album - and "Bloodbuzz Ohio" is pretty unbeatable), but I'd say it's easily going to be one of the best albums of the year.

Grade: A

Next time on In Case You Missed It: Lupe Fiasco - Lupe Fiasco's The Cool