Q-Tip - Amplified

When this album came out, it got pretty much nothing but bad press. The word was that the Abstract had gone pop and it just didn't work. I was naive enough to go on this word and not even get the album to give it a chance. I eventually picked it up about 6 years later in a used bin somewhere. This album has aged a lot better than you might expect. It doesn't sound anything like the popular hip hop of the time, nor does it sound like Quest minus Phife. If anything the closest thing to it in sound is The Love Movement, but the production on Amplified is a lot sparer.Q-Tip does very little message rapping on this, very little narrative, etc. and those of us like myself who are used to his verses being perfect examples of easily-memorizable, impeccable simplicity, will find a different Q-Tip here. In part I would think that being freed from the reins of Tribe allowed him to just stretch out and have fun; at the same time, the cover art and his fur coat, bare-chest look suggest that the label was pressuring him to dumb down his sound and vision. The middle of the album is strongest, from the sing-song "Let's Ride" and "Things U Do" to the crunchy "Go Hard," the Moroder-y "Go Hard"and the *almost* anthemic "Do It." What it comes down to is that this is a good Q-Tip album. It's only a disappointment when you compare it to the huge shelf of classics that have his name on them. The album does a sonic and conceptual U-Turn with the last track, "End of Time." After 11 tracks of having a great time and enjoying life, all of a sudden we're on the brink of apocalypse. Not too convincing. Then there's a not-too-hidden bonus track where Tip raps his autobiography, which is by far the most honest and heartfelt track on the album. All in all, I have to say that if this were a debut album by an unknown artist, it would have been lost in the sands of time. This is the only project Q-Tip has ever been involved in that is not essential.