All Bad

Carson gave this album on2011-01-27.

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Recently, I was sent a promotional copy of John Gillette's "All Bad". While this is not my typical fare, I do listen to at least a little of all genres and believe that this album stands apart from much of its ilk.

For starters, unlike much modern music in the genre, John Gillette does not use Auto-Tune to repeatedly flagellate deceased equine (beat a dead horse). This is a refreshing change from what dance radio thinks is good. Also, Gillette has a remarkable singing voice which I did not expect before listening to the album; this is also a nice change from much of the music I've heard on dance radio in the last couple of years.

For the most part, the messages are not very deep, but when clubbing most people are interested in the rhythm, not philosophy so this can be overlooked quiteeasily. This is especially true in light of the fact that the beats are danceable to the point that the tracks made me want to "seat dance" while listening to them at work. I did however find something in the lyrics of "Battery" that made me think. In this song, Gillette uses batteries as a metaphore for how music gives energy to dancers: if the DJ "keeps playing that shit, she's gonna keep shaking that shit". This seems intuitive, but I have never really of thought of it that way before.

The only difference that I notice between the "Clean" and "Xplicit" versions of "Battery" is that the word "shit" is silenced twice in each chorus. While this makes it much more radio-friendly, no actual content is lost and, due to the placements of the removed word, it is not annoying - or even noticeable - like many other radio edits.

The only song that I really found a problem with was "Light Show" which felt like it was trying to do too much musically. "Raise the bar" more than makes up for this deficit though whith it's smooth vocals and flowing melody.

Even though the messages aren't very deep, the purpose of this kind of music is to make people move on the dance floor. And, to that end, it works very well. This is a solid album that would make an excellent addition to the collection of any DJ or frequent party host.

Track	Name		Carson	Katherine		Track	Name		Carson	Katherine
1	SWAGnificent Intro					7	Raise the Bar
2	All Bad (Clean Vers.)					8	Light Show
3	Battery (Clean Vers.)					9	Get Right
4	All I Want					10	All Bad (Xplicit Vers.)
5	Party of the Year					11	Battery (Xplicit Vers.)
6	TRK 6