re: wordplay

Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken word album makes me wonder why there aren’t more spoken word albums out there that make it to the “mainstream” or to blogs or to music magazines.  Maybe it’s because it’s easier to sound unpretentious if you’re singing your poems in a melody (i.e. you sound like a musician if you’re singing and a poet if you’re speaking).  Maybe it’s because a requirement for success in spoken word is a great voice, or at least a voice whose timbre is unusual or interesting (i.e. memorable).  Anyway Scott-Heron doesn’t sound pretentious and has a great voice, so win-win there, though the “Flashing Lights” sampled opening and closing tracks from the album, I’m New Here, kinda bug me, simply because their content doesn’t line up with the content in “Flashing Lights,” and so, a bit of a dischord.

Though it’s just occurred to me that the “Flashing Lights” beat could be a sample itself.  I might look it up.  Here’s hoping for some kind of russian doll situation.