[You Drive Me] Crazy

I bought Common's Finding Forever. Why? Cause I like Be, and I enjoy me some Kanye West, so I just assumed that things would be just as good the second time around. Nevermind the fact that all of the leaked tracks prominent on blogs, message boards, and the Can't Tell Me Nothing mixtape did little to nothing for me. I didn't even bother to download it in advance. I just said 'fuck it', took my ass to Best Buy on new release Tuesday, paid my ten dollars and hoped for the best.

"Hey Tauwan you got that new Common album? Is it any good?"

"Well, it's not that it is bad, it's...I don't know...it's like good background music you know. You put it on and it just plays. Nothing really stands out and it's easy to just forget about it. I'm not saying it's bad. I don't know. It just coasts... And he also does this whole pop culture referencing thing that can be a bit jarring."

I don't know. It's weird. When Lil Wayne says something like "But Im A Champion Wheres Da F**king Rocky Theme/Damn Rest In Peace Apollo Creed/I'mma Monster Everyday Is Halloween," I find it funny and inventive, but when Common drops a line like "She was the type to watch Oprah and The Today Show/Be on the treadmill, uh, like OK Go" I go 'okay that was cool, but don't let it happen again.' But it does. Over and over again. And it's funny, I am not a hip hop head or supremely knowledgeable of Common's back catalog, and yet I still find myself saying 'look bruh, step ya game up and step away from Kanye's rhyme book.'

What was I talking about?

Oh yes.

So there's this one track on the album with Lily Allen, Drivin Me Wild, a song that did nothing for me when I first heard it over at Nah Right a few weeks back. But then I put it on the pod, took a nice trip, and pressed play. Needless to say the track came across much, much better through a pair of ear phones, with a less critical ear. More than anything I marveled at how soulful Ms. Allen sounds as she gets her ad lib on with a few words from the chorus as the beat fades to black. [Seriously, skip ahead to end. She sounds damn good]

And now there's a video for said track and boy is it all over the place. It's nice to see Laura London again [What happened to her and Turtle on Entourage? And am I still the only one who loved him some ATL?], but there is just too much going on. I guess a story of some sort is told, but have fun keeping up with that or not being put off by Jeremy Piven trying to catch the beat in da club.