Today was a good day to do laundry. The temperature was a bearable 79F, humidity was low, it was breezy, and every piece of clothing I own was dirty. Really dirty. Y'know when you don't do laundry for, like, two months and it just gets all sick and nasty? People be comin' over, "Man, wasn't that the same Jon Spencer shirt you were wearing yesterday?" Oh, you can act like you're all Mr. Clean and shit, but everybody hates to do laundry. Fact of life.

Just going into it, I knew five huge trash bags full of clothes were gonna take at least three hours to wash, and cost upwards of $15.00 at the Ashland Wash Lavendaria. I had some time to kill. So, after I threw in the almighty first load, I walked down a couple blocks to my local inner- city Walgreen's for something to read. Have you ever seen the magazine selection at an inner- city Walgreen's? They don't exactly stock Martha Stewart's Living. There was not a white boy rag to be found-- no Spin, no shitty Alternative Press, not even a goddamned Rolling Stone. I settled for Vibe and the Source.

My findings were that Vibe isn't all that hot-- a good feature here and there, average reviews, a lot of Silvertab ads. But the Source is something different altogether. Y'know, I like hip-hop-- I really like it. Rap is good, too, if it's good rap. (Don't give me none of that wack-ass Will Smith shit.) The Source whoops on a llama's ass. It's funny as hell. Or maybe it's just that I'm a suburban white kid that's not familiar with the slang, like the first time you heard a British guy say "bollocks." But there's something about hip-hop termage that bowls my ass over.

Here was the really interesting thing about these magazines, though: there were hundreds of ads for turntable equipment. Only makes sense, right? The two go hand- in- hand. But what's the deal with Ministry of Sound teaming up with hard liquor companies? Or a Jamiroquai interview? Or Matador Records advertising the release of their forthcoming Arsonists record? Where does the line between big beat & electronica and hip-hop & rap blur? Is it possible that the future could bring huge features on Amon Tobin, Bentley Rhythm Ace, or (apocalypse alert) Air (French Band) in the predominantly No Limit- focused media?

I haven't paged through the two magazines enough to see whether or not there's a write-up on the Freestylers, but if there is, it doesn't belong. Not because the stuff is essentially just average big beat, but because their sound isn't exactly the freshest thing to hit the streetz this year. There's no denying that the guys behind the Freestylers moniker have been deeply immersed in Britain's dance scene for ages. The three founding members, Matt Cantor, Aston Harvey and Andrew Galea, had all dropped their own records by the early 1990s, and the band has even pushed out several Top 40 crossover hits in the U.K. The problem is, their latest full- length, We Rock Hard, sounds as stale as last week's toast crumbs.

Right off the bat, these guys practically scream predictibility. From the faux- urban packaging, to song titles like "Drop the Boom" and "Spaced Invaders," to the five middle- aged white guys on the record's cover, it's clear that this is another "musically diverse" big beat offering with side orders of hip-hop, reggae, and cliche.

And it is. The beats are substandard, meaning "not original," the shoutouts are completely obvious (the track "Here We Go" features the band in a sparkling moment of genius, yelling-- you guessed it-- "Here We Go"), and even their samples (all from songs by Public Enemy) are played out. And does anyone wanna hear some guy with an affected Jamaican accent rap over this garbage? Does anyone wanna hear these guys sing such mind- numbing drivel as "Here we go on a ride with the new Freestylers/ (Here we go, here we go!)/ Freestylers/ (Here we go, here we go!)" in thick, bloody English accents. People, do I have to plead? Don't buy it!

-Ryan Schreiber