Album Review by Mark Bayross
It seems hard to believe, but WHO LET THE DOGS OUT was two years ago…seems like five agonising minutes to me. Not to worry, here’s album number eight to soundtrack all those beach parties we like so much in sunny England.
Maybe I’m being a bit unfair here, as the Baha Men can’t help it if their “junkanoo” sound is about as relevant over here as central heating in Saudi Arabia, after all, these Bahamans have won a Grammy and picked up Billboard Awards for World Music Artist and Album Of The Year.
But do you really need another version of BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES in a steel drum party stylee? Or a cover of Harry Nilsson’s COCONUT? And while the opening title track is undeniably good fun – I can’t believe I’m going to say this – it’s not exactly another WHO LET THE DOGS OUT.
Maybe things would be improved if the Baha Men didn’t feel the need to drench nearly every track in that godawful vocoder effect that every other chart song fiddled with two years ago after Cher got to Number One with it. Things do improve in the second half of the album, though – the slinky r ‘n’ b of GIDDYUP, space hip-hop of WE RUBBIN’ and funk-gospel of I JUST WANT TO FOOL AROUND do vary the program a bit, but they hardly make this essential listening.
If they had ditched the vocoder, this would have made for a passable party album. As it is, most people would have stopped listening before they reached halfway, which is a shame.
