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Album Review
by SashaS
8-4-2004
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| Not artwork but the UK state of mind |
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Various: 'State of The Nation'
(Nation)
State Of The Nation - pearl compilation in front of...
How it will all end? Listening to the Radio 1 we heard the most illuminating question to a pop star I decades: “When was the last time you vomited?” What human wastage do we try to extract from finding out about minutiae in a life of a pop star’s pathetic existence?
Don’t these wannabes-without-fixed-talent have any notion of their limitations? Will Young covers ‘Hey Ya!’ for the very same ‘BBC Radio flagship’ - nurse, I need my medication! -and gets applauded for such travesty? Who does he think he is, the late Johnny Cash? [Hopefully he’s heard of him.]
Usher topping both charts, replaced by another vacuous boys-with-guitars popsters, McFly?! Or, any ‘music-on-heat’ although the ‘singing sex’ of Beyoncé is strangely compelling… Still, people, who are you who buy this aural garbage? You need help, indeed you do. Help to cure you from advertising, commercials, hype… And, ignorance: there’s never been greater musical choice around but listening pleasures appear to focus and specialize in… one’s chic is another (wo)man’s geek…
Now, let’s help you broaden it: ‘State of The Nation’ is the compilation of the label’s 15 years and this diverse, wide and exciting, it’s hard to find elsewhere. This is a global testament that flies continental ends - Far East or Argentina to Brixton - to unite us in our humanity. Listening to this makes you feel how narrow-minded and racists culture is on our sorry little Third Rock.
But, it is not only WorldMusic but a Fusion of many a style, and done with extra hot toppings: “most of the artists who’ve passed through Nation have been instructed to ‘make it crazier’, to push things that little bit further, to go ‘weird if you want to’,” the press release helpfully explains. It surely gets wild…
Transglobal Underground opens with a Hungarian Gypsy big-beat ‘Rude Buddah’, followed by Charged’s Punjabi punk-drum&bass ‘Korta Boy’ and Lunar Drive’s Native American’s trance-dance on ‘Transcend The Murmur’… There is Asian Dub Foundation (‘Strong Culture’), Fun-Da-Mental (‘Sunday School’), Prophets Of Da City (‘Da Struggle Continues’) as well as few lost gems, such as Hustlers HC’s ‘Let The Hustlers Play’ - a Bhangra Hip-hop from 1993.
Novel, hypnotic and taste-reviving, this is a pearl of a disc. “Still pushing back the boundaries of creativity and motivation, and still discovering new, unchallenged areas of music,” the label claims factually.
There are only two kinds of music: one that does and another that doesn’t move a listener. This one does the right thing, brilliantly.
9/10
SashaS
8-4-2004
‘State of The Nation’ compilation is released 05 April 2004 by Nation
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