Hip-hop and hippie-rock have an important unifying quality: they’re both perfect party soundtracks. So its no wonder the past decade has birthed a legion of frat-rockers ready to mix rap's spunk and jam-music's groove.
Taking their moniker to heart, the Fun Lovin' Criminals combine serious hip-hop beats with fun, breezy blues solos. Like G. Love and Special Sauce and Sublime, they create a party mix of styles, spicing their songs with elements of ska, techno, and hard pop. Yet unlike many of their alternative rap peers, Fun Lovin' Criminals aren’t hippies at heart - they’re hardcore.
A thick, ruff, twelve song collection, Welcome to Poppy’s is the bridge between Special Sauce and Incubus. With a gruff, scratchy voice akin to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ Dickey Barret, FLC vocalist Huey belts out his lyrics with rap-metal energy, while bassist Fast lays thick, hard lines too hard for funk and too flexible for metal. Like a DJ, they layer their sound with samples and danceable grooves, building dense lyrical passages on top of their beats. Through tracks like “Running For Cover,” FLC proves they're rock stars at heart, sampling porn-like hooks and urban beats, but while they may be the life of the party, they might also want to concentrate on their studies.
Much like G.Love and Boston’s Dispatch, Fun Lovin' Criminals’ secret talent is their ability to make rapping seem simple and fun. Largely due to the nightlife subject matter, their prose is personable, not weighty and unapproachable. And while rock stars often use rap as a lyrical ringer, the Criminals' confident and casual delivery makes theirs easier to swallow. And the trio of New York Based musicians can weave their words as well as their hip-hop neighbors.
The Opening track, “Too Hot," sets a distinct tone for their fourth album, and despite their New York address, they recall a Los Angeles ethos, similar to Sublime’s early material. Entitling tracks like “Friday Night,” the subject matter at times appears sophomoric, at times dangerous. The lyrics and attitude is more akin to California punk than Rastafarians, but they certianly draw from jam music’s funk groove. “Stray Bullet” and “Living on the Street,” may be directly linked to rap through it's words, but its tempo is clearly nurtured in sweaty, Brooklyn nightclubs.
During its seminal seventies youth, heavy metal was blues-rock’s bastard child. Bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath built their metallic riffs upon blue cords and frets. Fun Lovin' Criminals manage to surface the blues in Incubus like jams through quick, technically proficient solos.
Welcome to Poppy’s breathes with an organic energy, manifested in their blues background. “You Got a Problem” is based around sloppy, acoustic tingled blues and uses its production to add emphasis, not direction. Similarly, “Got Our Love” has a soulful underbelly, filled with Marvin Gaye like chords.
Although an enjoyable listen, Welcome to Poppy’s isn’t as mature a listen as its authors may have hoped. Though Huey’s rhymes are tight, their lyrics remain caught in Saturday night group activities, whether its thug life or female courting. Like the Beastie Boys, who also incorporated weighty music into their frat-boy montage, Fun Lovin' Criminals are aiming for academic honor role, but their music lacks the musical depth of the Beastie Boys or the seamless, slim appeal of Sublime. Much like G. Love, the trio provide an instant pre-party, but still lack the preparation to deliver a full ragger.
