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Am I the only guy to grab an illicit copy of "Playing With Fire" just because Kevin Federline's in the news today?
Probably.
I thought it might generate a little sympathy, knowing his back story, which at this point is "guy hits lottery, and decides to record that rap album that every 22 year old male has cooking around in the back of his mind, but then can't keep it together". From a car-wreck standpoint, I thought maybe there would be something cruel and ironic in there about "I'm totally not going to get served with divorce papers in a week - just you watch".
There isn't, but there is a now-uncomfortable duet with Britney Spears: "Crazy", as in she's crazy to stand by her man.
The record is, on its own merits, not bad, but certainly not good. Some tracks probably elicit a very slight "head bob" in uninformed listeners, but once they're told who they're listening to, they'll go right back to what they were doing.
The real surprise is that the whole thing sounds so cheap. Federline has a very limited number of rap topics (3), but whoever claims producer credit on this has an even more limited library of synths, breaks, and effects. That same tinny guitar comes in for a one-note squeal on half of these tracks.
A really good album would have silenced Kevin Federline's opponents (one of the three topics, by the way), and the bad news is that that won't happen. A very bad one would have sent him back to the comforts of weed and liquor (topic 2), and in happier times, I am sure he imagined squeezing out one of these crap sandwiches in non-kid years. Dull as this is, I think he's as famous today as he'll ever be in his entire life.
They rushed my copy out to me, but RFTC's 2005.10.31 DVD didn't show up until 11.01. Ah well.
It's awesome, anyway. Performances are a little sloppy (the band hadn't played for a while), but anyone who knows what Rocket was all about will understand. The intensity is there, the charm... it's everything you'd want and expect.
The retail release will probably be out in March. I'm not sure if they're selling any more of these: they certainly seemed to indicate that they were making enough pre-release copies to cover the pre-orders, and that would be that.
I can see watching this every Halloween, and making new RFTC fans on a yearly basis.
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Would a viewing of this DVD make a new fan, you think? Maybe I should watch it; I've been curious, but too scatterbrained to go find their albums...
After reading some of the historical entries about this band / album / song, I went ahead and picked up the whole record from iTunes - and I've only head the actual song once.
I think Fitted Sweats (http://fittedsweats.blogspot.com/) linked to the video one day, and it'd sort of been sitting in my brain since then like "find out more about that".
So thanks everyone here for talking me into it. I'll follow up when I've digested it.
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I've been trying to decide if I should pick up "Writer's Block" or not. Let us know your thoughts once you've had some time to digest it. I would like to hear.
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I love how Britney waited until breaking up with Fed-Ex to get all hot again: