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While the media — like the total, like, dicks that they are
— invariably picked up and ran with the angry-young-woman
"angle," the real story with Kelis's Kaleidoscope was that,
back in the '99, it introduced the world to the bill-paying
productional skills of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. Over two
years on, the duo, the Neptunes, done come a long way, sister, what
with that N*E*R*D record and choice paid-work jobs for Mystikal,
Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Britney and P.Diddy under their fashionable
studded belts. And now they're back working with the singer whose
star set their own star rising. And, with Wanderland, we get a
whole disc of choice Neptunes tunes, an album-long display of their
focused talents, not just a couple paid-up moments in the middle of a
money-slung producer-hiring soup. Even more than that, they show a
caring consistency on the set, so it's an album that sounds like an
album, even if there are a couple of moments that do jump out. One
such jump-out comes when the record starts off in stellar form with
single "Young, Fresh n' New," a fresh entry into
the-most-fucked-up-tune-to-get-spun-on-gormless-commercial-radio
ranks. All belligerent bass-buzz, wired-up keyboard blasts,
syncopated handclaps, and raining Space Invaders sound effects, the
nattily named number is equal parts avant-electro knock-up and
giddily-emphatic pop-song. But, such single material — like the
suspiciously angry-young-woman anthem "Get Even" (sample lyric: "I'm
a survivor") and the No-Doubt-collaborative bad-rock-song "Perfect
Day" — is the only time the album ruffles its
laid-out-seductively-on-the-feather-cushions feathers, the set
maintaining an expressed purpose to produce beautiful sole music,
even if the spaced-out kineticky beats and minimalist synth-symphs
don't leave the digital world. Like on "Digital World," when the
shuffling electro-stabs lay it down under the angel-humming buzz of
fluorescent light, over which Kelis details her history of having to maintain love via voice and electronic mail, and, thus, how the pale-blue glow
of the unblinking eye of the soul-sucking computer screen can come to
represent love — or failing love — itself. The album is
filled with lyrical juxtapositions just as poignant, although, this
said, you get the feeling that Kelis is an innocent imprompteur, and
that her belief in both UFOs and God — and a possible
relationship between them — is absolute and earnest. Which makes
me think, in a thought symbolic of how I feel as listener here, of
one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard anyone say: I don't
believe in God, but I believe in you.
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