Ice Ice Baby
Always thought "Under Pressure" was a stone cold bore, but then I don't think I heard it until after I'd heard "Ice Ice Baby," which I love (or strongly like). I think it helped that I originally heard "Ice Ice Baby" when it was first appearing in hip-hop strongholds (major urban markets) but before it hit nationally or the video showed up. So I was hearing this utterly ominous bassline across the chill San Francisco night, and an uninflected voice going "Ice ice baby" in a cold synthesized whisper. It didn't feel cute or energized or pop at all, and was better for this. I paired it in my mind with another Bay Area hit that summer, Paris's "Break The Grip Of Shame," with similar menace from the bass and the barren delivery, the same dark atmosphere. Interestingly, "Break The Grip Of Shame" is a "conscious" black militant rap, a fact I noticed but that wasn't key one way or another to why I liked "Shame" (and I didn't for several umpteen listens even know that Vanilla Ice was white, though I suppose I should have figured it out from his name).
I'm guessing that "Ice Ice Baby" entered my life in a sonically different manner from how it entered most of yours. And getting it through the radio I was hearing it fit the nightscape rather than concentrating on words or dexterity or anything. But also, for me, still, it works overall as a track, not as a vehicle for a rap. And maybe I tend to listen to music differently from some of you - not that I listen to everything the same, and I can, you know, decide to follow a Charlie Parker solo or hear Louis Armstrong re-order space in a single breath, and be totally taken by a master like Spoonie Gee ruffling across some syllables and digging into others. But I generally am taken by an overall sound, not this or that particular element, which is why the first forty or so times I heard "Ice Ice Baby" I didn't even notice Ice's clumsiness and his falling behind the beat, and these don't strike me as debilitating flaws now, even though I've since been made hyper conscious of them.
(I posted this the other day over on Popular, along with some vintage appraisals by Greil Marcus, Chuck Eddy, and others of "Ice Ice Baby" and "Pop Goes The Weasel.")
Click to viewI'm guessing that "Ice Ice Baby" entered my life in a sonically different manner from how it entered most of yours. And getting it through the radio I was hearing it fit the nightscape rather than concentrating on words or dexterity or anything. But also, for me, still, it works overall as a track, not as a vehicle for a rap. And maybe I tend to listen to music differently from some of you - not that I listen to everything the same, and I can, you know, decide to follow a Charlie Parker solo or hear Louis Armstrong re-order space in a single breath, and be totally taken by a master like Spoonie Gee ruffling across some syllables and digging into others. But I generally am taken by an overall sound, not this or that particular element, which is why the first forty or so times I heard "Ice Ice Baby" I didn't even notice Ice's clumsiness and his falling behind the beat, and these don't strike me as debilitating flaws now, even though I've since been made hyper conscious of them.
(I posted this the other day over on Popular, along with some vintage appraisals by Greil Marcus, Chuck Eddy, and others of "Ice Ice Baby" and "Pop Goes The Weasel.")