Review Summary: To spit or swallow, that is the question.
As our society becomes increasingly more obsessed with celebrity downfall, a lot of people do not realize that their unhealthy hobby with trashing superstars increasingly incites artists to perform more outrageous antics, purposeful or not, to feed the frenzy of brain-dead retards who enjoy a dose of reality television daily. Case in point, Tiger Woods career is destroyed because of scandalous behaviour that began with a simple car crash. On the flip side of the coin, you have upcoming pop superstar Adam Lambert, who’s career began with a reality television show and whose opportunity is now in jeopardy because of a purposeful stunt where his flaming sexual imagery should have finished him off faster than a hooker giving a hand-job to highschool student. Both of these recent celebrity mishaps are not only a drop in the bucket but are also a reflection of people’s sick fantasies of superstar down-turn. Let’s not converse over the issue of a dummied down society who washes themselves in pop idol mishaps and let us focus on artists who fall between the cracks of this sick public fantasy. Robert Van Winkle aka “Vanilla Ice” is one of these artists whose fallout was completed long before
Hard to Swallow was released. However, like the celebrities mentioned above, Van Winkle is kind of harder to categorize. Whether Van Winkle was purposely looking for an attention-boost to his career through the creation of the worst rap-metal album in existence or whether he was being dead serious, we will never know.
The main reason why we will never know is because people didn’t care. I can only imagine the public’s reaction when Van Winkle announced that he would be working with Ross Robinson back in 1998; people most likely laughed and never gave it a second thought. You would also think that working with someone who put nu-metal on the map and produced some of the best selling nu-metal records to date by artists like Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot, would guarantee success and yet this still turned out to be one of the biggest failures in metal history. Considered a comeback by some,
Hard to Swallow did go on to sell 100,000 copies, but I can’t see anymore justification for a supposed ‘comeback’ other then units pushed. The music is atrocious, plain and simple. This brand of rap-metal is what gives nu-metal a bad name, playing into every single cliché known to man and packing them so tightly into each and every track, it could make you puke. Even the half assed nu-metal riffs sound recycled and dated (remember folks; nu-metal’s humble beginnings were only around 1992). If thrash metal can rehash the same guitar riff for twenty years than why can’t nu-metal? The reason no points go towards originality is because of the overuse of those downtuned, leftover Korn riffs that are horribly complimented with creepy guitar effects. Even DJ Swamp’s turntables try to give the music that edgy hip-hop feel but instead sound like a housemaid frantically polishing hardwood. Also, nu-metal wouldn’t be nu-metal without the use of hip-hop rhythms that, in this case, do nothing to propel the music forward.
Any humour that can be found through the music is completely sucked dry (and swallowed for all we know) when Van Winkle steps his ‘mic skillz’ up to the plate. Van Winkles lyrics are some of the worst in the sub-genre, plain and simple. His cover of his number one hit “Ice Ice Baby” has been, you guessed it, overhauled and transformed into a hideously mutated cover called “Too Cold” that doesn’t even warrant a description (that’s how bad it really is). Not only has Van Winkle shit all over his past, he also somehow manages to come up with lyrics that could have been written by a pubescent teenager trying to make it on the rap circuit. Taken from “Zig-Zag Stories”, these examples of atrocities to man shouldn’t incite laughter, but rather a reason to stop reading this review:
This is a zig zag story that I had last night/ A six pack, a joint and I was feeling alright/ Lit up tha chronic and what did I see?/ This bad-ass bitch creeping up on me/ She had the look that could get the Ice cooked up in a second/ I pictured her getting undressed and getting’ butt-naked/ She walked up to me and said her name was Mary Jane/ Ain’t no shame in my game, down to do anything/ Took me by the hand, ask me if I’d like to fly/ You know I like to fly/ ‘Cause I wanna get you high/ Get you high all night/ ‘Cause I wanna get you high/ Get you high all night/ And I wanna get you high
*Shivers*
If you are of the age between 25-30, you will most definitely remember when Van Winkle released
To the Extreme with his infectious, poppy rap that appealed to millions. Sure we can sit here and hark on Van Winkle for his dabbling in gangster rap. However, if career blunders are what we’re talking about, all focus should be set on
Hard to Swallow. Even if we’re on the topic of people’s fascination with celebrity downfall, Van Winkle isn’t even worth mentioning because this album is a joke and no one cares. Why he would purposefully release trash or truly think he’s making a decent comeback record beats the hell out of me. What Van Winkle has created is another reason for people to hate nu-metal, plain and simple!
