DJ Shadow -- The Outsider

DJ Shadow is much the same type of music as Cut Chemist, in fact DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist have put out albums together. This is DJ Shadow's fourth solo album. Now this cd is an interesting one for me, as a big fan of this kind of music and having gotten this album at the same time as Cut Chemist's cd I was expecting to really like it and the beginning blew me away. The Outsider Intro kicks off the cd with a really cool introduction and then the cd goes into the incredibly jazzy "I'm Gonna Try It My Way" which is by far the best song on the album. But then Shadow completely abandons the styles he was going for and goes into playing sidekick to a bunch of to a bunch of nasaly rappers. See he does the opposite that Cut Chemist does, he makes it into a cd by a bunch of rappers that features DJ Shadow. However, luckily this trend dies off after seven songs and suddenly goes back into what it started as, an interesting and explorative cd. It gets really good by the time it makes it to the song "What Have I Done" featuring Christina Carter. The addition of Chris James on both "Erase You" and especially "You Made It" make the cd much more enjoyable. And right when you think he wouldn't go back for the last two songs he goes back to the rap that doesn't work. The only rap song on this album that I liked was a song called "Enuff" with Q-Tip and Lateef. This cd has gotten such mixed reviews and I can see why, he basically tries to take two very different cds and mix them into one and it feels very alienating. I think all of the songs could have worked if he had put out two albums or maybe made this as a double album and added more songs of each flavor then it may have worked but in it's current state it doesn't flow.

This album could work for specific people but not everyone. The stuff that he does that isn't rap is some of his best stuff and could appeal to almost everyone I know, but the rap songs may only appeal to one or two people I know, so this one is hard to recommend to anyone. This one is getting 2 1/2 stars. This cd really has some of his best and also some of his worst stuff. At least there isn't really any mediocrity on the album.