kuuleimomi's Full Review: It's All About the Stragglers by Artful Dodger (UK...
Artful Dodger (currently nonexistent project) is a UK garage group that made Craig David a star. Their music could be classified as Pop/R’n’B meet drum’n’bass. The recipe is very simple: you take some catchy lyrics, add a lot of bass and scratch the track. Their music is very pop: some of the tunes would be stuck in my head forever, like “Please don’t turn me on”. Their music is very R’n’B: it’s perfect for the dance floor. And yet is very distinctively British, and I’m not talking only about the accents. If you need a disc for a party, this would be your bet, especially if you can find the disc I have: it has a bonus track of club remix of all the tracks on the album. Priceless.
The tunes in spite of the general recipe above are diverse. That’s mainly because there are different guest singers. There are female singers and male singers. That is like the same dish with different seasonings. There’s a lot of Craig David, MC Alistair (with the track “Are You Ready”, just classic), Lifford features in two songs, he has a very smooth voice, but my favorite one is Melanie Blatt (“Twentyfourseven”) from the currently nonexistent girl group All Saints. She’s an angel and she definitely sings like one. Even though her track seems to be a bit more lyrical, it has the same mood, so you’ll just keep on dancing.
Pacing is also different from song to song. There are slower tracks, there are faster tracks. Some of them are rougher, like someone is tacking nails down the wall. Some sound very pop. But yet it’s a great dancing stuff. Album starts with “Think About Me” featuring Michelle Escoffery, a slower beautiful song, that speeds up halfway through. It kind of sets the tone. If you’re playing this during a party, it gives a nice warm-up.
Dancing is what this album is for. Not a single “quiet” track, though most of the tunes are love songs. Artful Dodger use a lot of bass, just like any R’n’B, but it’s so much more than it. UK garage is not like hip-hop or what you mean by saying garage overseas. It’s not like trip-hop, and yet it’s not exactly drum’n’bass. Think Morcheeba remixed with more bass, Kosheen with a lyrical side. But then again talking about music is like dancing about architecture. Think Craig David and “Re-Rewind”, because that’s one of the tunes done with Artful Dodger that’s on Craig David’s first and the only one worth listening album “Born To Do It”, though I can swear I’ve heard “Woman Trouble” on some version of that disc as well.
On a good day I love all of the songs on the album, except one: “We Should Get Together” featuring Nadia (who the hell is Nadia?). Anyway, it’s the last track before the remix party. I have the UK edition from London Records, it has the same 13 tracks as the American edition in Epinions database, plus 8 bonus tracks that are basically one remix set. For your American pleasure they have two bonus remix tracks: Think About Me and Please Don’t Turn Me On. If I were a record label (that is CEO preferably), I’d release those two as separate singles with numerous bonus remixes. So it makes sense to add only those two remixes, but frankly I really enjoy my bonus set.
I bought this album in 2002, because when I was looking through the track titles, I realized that every song looked familiar. When I gave it a spin, every tune sounded familiar. I can’t say that I’ve ever been to the UK (I have not), I’m not sure that Artful Dodger broke through to the Russian scene so that I’d know their songs, and I don’t believe that Artful Dodger is the next Beatles, whose songs are recognized on the intuitive level. What is it then? They make good music and anyone, who’s into UK R’n’B and other dance music is up to Artful Dodger.
What I don’t like about this music is that after a while my ears hurt from all the bass. I become in the mood for something easy on the ears. I get tired from catchy tunes, scratches (as in DJ scratches) and being in a mindless club mode. Then I’ll listen to jazz. But when I just got this disc I think I’ve been listening to it for a month without it leaving my CD player. Right now I’m looking back at those fabulous times when I was a teenager and Craig David was a big hit and everyone knew what Artful Dodger is, and feel like I should start my very own nostalgic collection of European music, including Take That, East 17, Catatonia and Massive Attack.
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