CD Reviews

Santogold

Downtown

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 13, 2008

3.0 Stars

As the multiplying number of female major-label artists releasing bloop-bleep manifestos to wackiness attests, Björk’s stunt with the swan outfit was a defining cultural moment. In the wake of Swangate, it seems that female solo artists have two paths to choose from: releasing solid acoustic-based songy songs, or wearing warpaint and DayGlo and delivering vocals in as idiosyncratic a style as possible. It’s not really worth giving examples, because in the case of Santi White a/k/a Santogold’s debut album, identifying the specific reference points spoils all the fun. And anyway, the real reference point here is a bit more arcane: let’s see, an artist emerges out of nowhere with a major-label debut that is exceedingly polished, yet with a foot in a burgeoning underground scene, and with a stylistic diversity that makes every track a different exercise in genre mastery? That’s right, it’s like Lenny Kravitz’s debut all over again. The dubby patches at the two-thirds mark kill a lot of the momentum, but one would have to be pretty jaded to deny the club-banging ecstasy of “Creator,” the new-wave crunch of album opener “L.E.S. Artistes,” and/or the Ashlee-Simpson-covering-the-Police awesomeness of “You’ll Find a Way.”

Related: Risky business, Mixed, nuts, CMJ in one day, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Music, Lenny Kravitz, More

| More

view all

[ 05/27 ] "Battle of the Bands" @ Big Easy

[ 05/27 ] Mighty Mystic + DJ Sherwin + DJ Tish @ Casco Bay Lines

[ 05/27 ] "Punkfest 4" @ Keith Anderson Community Center

ARTICLES BY DANIEL BROCKMAN

RAZORMAZE ADDS FOCUS TO THEIR THRASH | May 15, 2012
For a kind-of goofy metal dude, Alex Citrone is pretty serious — especially when he talks metal, and especially when he's talking about his band, Boston shred titans Razormaze.

ZAMBRI | HOUSE OF BAASA | May 15, 2012
For those of us of a certain age who remember when school dances had a strict four-fast-songs-then-one-slow-one policy, the memory of bouncing around to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" with the anticipation of "One More Night" or "Take My Breath Away" still makes our palms sweat with hormonal anxiety.

CONFRONTING THE SWEDISH GLOOM OF IN SOLITUDE | May 08, 2012
When I am finally able to get through to the cell phone of In Solitude's tour manager, they have emerged from a massive dust cloud, their metal-mobile finding civilization after a long spell traversing the deserts of Arizona with no idea where they are going.

[R.I.P.] ADAM YAUCH AND THE BEASTIE BOYS | May 08, 2012
ADAM YAUCH, a/k/a MCA, was likely inspired to pen those words, that appear in a tossed off couplet in the middle of what would wind up being one of the band’s final singles, by his immersion in the world of illness.

INTERVIEW: SIMON REYNOLDS TRIES TO LOOK FORWARD | April 24, 2012
Quick, try to think of futuristic music that has nothing to do with the music of the past. Can't do it?