Negativland
Dispepsi
[Seeland]
Rating: 4.0
I'm confused about this one. Or, as my good pal Jerry Seinfeld might say, "What's the
deal with Negativland?"
Dispepsi is the zillionth record by everybody's favorite sonic subversives.
These guys have made some awesome records: Escape from Noise, Helter
Stupid, Free, and their most famous, the outlawed and long out of print
U2. Dispepsi is not a great Negativland record. The problem is not
in the basic premise of "Advertising has bled into everyday living and gosh does
that suck." That's child's play for Negativland, so how do they fuck it up? By
hammering away on this Pepsi and Coca Cola schtick. Great basis for one or two
tracks, maybe even an EP a la U2. But a whole album? Worse yet, when
Negativland gets around to doing something more "song oriented," their usually
sharp hooks are nowhere to be found. Maybe they were out catching a movie. Out
of the four tunes, only "Aluminum and Glass: The Memo" succeeds with its fake
commercial jingle augmented by a market researcher's inbetween verse commentary
on how the ad should look.
Yes, there's still plenty of great cutting and pasting on this album. (Shining
moment: the repetitive Michael J. Fox bite, "Hi, I'm me. I'm using this to sell
you this," and the best use of a Michael Jackson sample this side of the Residents.)
But this album is exactly like a can of Pepsi: if you let it go on out in the open
for too long, it'll lose its fizz. Hey, what's the deal with that?
-Jason Josephes