28 May 2012

Elusive - Hip Hop For Hipsters [2012]


Tracklist:
0.1: Elusive – Intro-Sub Culture (3:43)
0.2: Elusive – You Are (3:49)
0.3: Elusive – Secrets Of Our Mind (2:40)
0.4: Elusive – All I Want (1:49)
0.5: Elusive – Together (2:46)
0.6: Elusive – Effortless Cool (1:28)
0.7: Elusive – Love Will Make You (3:0)
0.8: Elusive – Watching (3:20)
0.9: Elusive – Vintage Mainstream (2:21)
0.10: Elusive – Distinct Sensibility (2:31)
0.11: Elusive – Great Concentration (2:34)
0.12: Elusive – Are You Really Happy? (2:40)
0.13: Elusive – M.A.R.Y. (4:6)
0.14: Elusive – Hipster Clap (2:32)
0.15: Elusive – Only Way To Get Down (2:35)
0.16: Elusive – Good Loving (2:32)
0.17: Elusive – In Your Eyes (2:49)
0.18: Elusive – Spiritual Cleansing (2:43)
0.19: Elusive – Midnight Intellect (4:1)
0.20: Elusive – We Can (2:11)
0.21: Elusive – World On Wheels (3:23)
0.22: Elusive – Let Me Be (2:58)
0.23: Elusive – Oh Me (1:24)
0.24: Elusive – Outro-Don’t Say Good Bye (1:57)




Elusive is a Los Angeles-based producer who has been releasing records for years and has worked just about everybody in the California underground, from Gift of Gab to Planet Asia to Living Legends. I was particularly intrigued by the title of this collection, since everybody has a slightly different idea as to what a hipster is, and what they listen to. Naturally, I was curious as to how Elusive was going to address this.

This leads me to my biggest problem with the album – the title. After listening to it several times through, I still don’t think I understand why Elusive chose it, as there’s nothing particularly hipster about it. The beats are fine - lots of down tempo songs with well-placed soul samples that are quite enjoyable. It’s not necessarily a standout album, which I would attribute to a lack of melody and song development. There’s not a lot of information about Elusive or this album, so I’m not sure if this was originally designed to be an instrumental release. It plays like a collection of demo-beats that were planned to have someone rhyming over them. That said, the beats are still solid, if unremarkable.

If this album was presented as a collection of b-sides to tide over fans, there wouldn’t be any room to complain. It’s a decent assembly of down tempo instrumental hip hop that you can put on and chill out to. But given the title given to the collection, I have to say I’m disappointed. There are so many different ways that an album with this title could play out, whether it’s building songs off of hipster classics like Wire or addressing how most hipsters stop at Lil’ Wayne with their hip hop vocabulary. Unfortunately, we get none of this, and that’s why I find this album ultimately disappointing.


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