Sometimes all it takes is one song to make everything seem better.
And, again, it's Dr.Dre savin' the day for Eve on her third album,
Eve-olution. Buried at the 11th track on the compact disc,
"Satisfaction" makes everything else on this album seem better by its
presence. It's the one true standout cut, giving the album a jewel in
the glittering, if ersatz, moving-outta-the-ghetto hip-hop-princess
crown that Eve places on her own "bombshell" brow. Kicking a bassline
so hard it's bound to dent car doors and pop boots open, Dre flirts
with old-skoolism as he works a funk-strutting slow-jam stomp. Eve
rises to the laid-down challenge by laying down her best rhymes on
the record, serving up sly sentiments like "Most dudes is okay/ Half
of the rest ain't/ Talkin' 'bout what they wanna do/ In reality they
can't/ Ask 'em what their life worth/ Watch 'em draw a blank/ Guys
really ain't got no interest/ If it don't involve the bank." No
doubt, it's close to being the hip-hop/R&B number of the year, and
it's Dre's best track since he made Eve famous with "Let Me Blow Ya
Mind" — a cut which is, curiously, tacked onto the end of this
record. That inclusion speaks of the music-biz spectre that hangs
over much of this disc, it now being considered fair practice for
hits from previous albums to be stapled at the conclusion of new
ones. That said, most hip-pop records barely resemble albums anyway,
happy to let themselves be collages of production numbers, content to
pad out running-time with unlistenable skits (one of the two herein
is called "Argument," which is as horrible as it sounds), and eager
to whore themselves for sales figures by any means deemed needed.
Eve-olution, to that end, does go pretty light on the
obligatory collaborations, with Alicia Keys called in for the lead
single "Gangsta Lovin'," which is pretty light as it chases some
smarmy summery swish-funk vibe, with Irv Gotti going
tasteful/tasteless as he lays out layers of faux-harpischord keytone
over a Yarbrough & Peoples-sampling groove, the album's dice-roll at
a hit slipping on a wet spot as the in-the-mood sistas extol the
virtues of fucking violent men. The shiny, smoochy production here is
pretty representative of this record, which seems rather like Eve's
post-fame paean to livin' large. Cuts like the squeaky-clean
Snoop-Dogg-featuring tepid slowgroove "Hey Y'all," the
Trackmasters-stylin' guitar-twangin' "Figure You Out," and the manic,
ostentatious, piano/horns/wah-guitar assault of the burlesque Swizz
Beatz joint "Party in the Rain" sound like the biggest of
big-production numbers, happy to smooth over Eve's rap-bitch past for
the social cause of movin' on up.
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