The start alone. Oh man. The cheesiest of orchestral stabs, the clearly beyond-fake audience yelps, the worst/best introductory MC in the universe, and then Mr. ODB himself emerging, breaking down in tears and general obscenities and doing a capella pornographic versions of old Roberta Flack and Carole King hits when not practicing the kind of rambling rants that he would later use to such entertaining effect at the Grammies. In the absence of Richard Pryor, godhead is, I do believe, here.
By default, careful marketing and of course the RZA overseeing the whole mess, the Wu-Tang Clan probably end up as being the biggest thing in rap for the decade, I'll venture, if only because they're the one bunch that have consistently lasted as a collective effort over the years (Death Row collapsed in on itself, Def Jam is a mockery of what it was, Public Enemy long since ceased to matter to anyone, Tommy Boy is reinventing itself as an art label to survive, Snoop is still chasing his comeback and Dr. Dre's new album may be coming out soon, but if he's agreeing to a reunion of NWA with Snoop replacing Easy-E, forget it -- he's already working towards his own pension fund. As for Master P and Puff Daddy, oh puh-leez -- the Foghat and Journey of rap, those two.).
But anyway, the Wu, yes. Thing is, the two official albums aren't actually that good, at least to me. Sorta boring, actually. Somehow, what works the best is when all the members do their nutty side projects, and then things get crazed, and leave it to the one guy who actually seems to do the most crazy stuff in real life to have the best album. Of course, one must be wary of the 'to be nuts is to be genius' equation, which is smack, and for all I know his new album is garbage on a stick -- great title, though. But here, things are just right.
So we get the moody weirdness which the RZA practically patented, pianos and spectral beats and all the other stuff Tricky went nuts over, and rightly so, but then we get ODB's slurred, groovy voice (oh yes) , his personal sound effects as needed, his arguments with himself, profane exclamations, shaggy dog (and other things) tales, guest appearances from the other Clan members, false starts and reverse applications of sound (if you will) and it all just gets more and more wrong and right as it goes along. And, of course, more kung fu movie samples than the world can comfortably imagine.
One amusing cover as well -- Coolio after the bad haircut, pretty much.