Saturday 22 October 2011

When The System Finally Falls


This track, Common Market's Every Last One, is an obvious crowd-pleaser.  The repeated chorus - "every last one of us!" - sounds on paper to be a little long, but the rhythm is simple enough to make it easy to sing.  There's two anapaests there: every last one of us.  Splitting it into three iambs or trochees would have been confusing; people would trip over their tongues at live shows.

RA Scion's flow is very competent.  Sometimes he's a fraction behind the beat, and something about his voice isn't as crisp - after all, he's no Geologic - but he's very good.  It's funny, actually: Geologic is a little too muted sometimes, too chilled out, while RA Scion isn't relaxed enough.  His lyrics are wonderfully idealistic:

We 'bout to change the mentality
Of old world savagery into a new reality
One where teachers and lawyers will trade salaries
And liquor stores are razed to make way for art galleries

And, on occasion, anarchistic:

When the system finally falls – who people gon' call on to show conduct?
Every Last One of Us!
When the new sun rises and we've all survived – who knows it's not just luck?
Every Last One of Us!
It's a kingdom that we gotta construct – who's ready to build from the ground up?
Every Last One of Us!

I'd go into detail about Sabzi's beat - melodic, airy, satisfyingly electronic - but honestly, I don't think he's ever produced a bad track.  In the Blue Scholars' Evening Chai he samples a conversation from the movie Three Kings (the one between Matt Damon and his haunted-eyed torturer - "what is the problem with Michael Jackson?") and it doesn't distract from the quality of the song.  "Michael Jackson is pop king of sick fucking country", we hear, and we think yes. Now it all fits.

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