Synkronized - Jamiroquai > Reviews > Jay's Black Capricorn Day

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Lacking inspiration
Lyrics	Mediocre
Quality and consistency of tracks	One hit and lots of B-sides
Value for Money

Advantages:	it contains a pop classic  -  'canned head'
Disadvantages:	Completely unoriginal and sounds hypocritical in places

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Once upon a time Jamiroquai were innovative, interesting and original... however all fairy tales must come to an end. Nowadays Jamiroquai are no better than your average pop group, except this time they are not run by a greedy manager, they are instead run by an over-greedy, money grabbing lyricist by the name of Jason Kay.

The sold out style worked on the previous release of Travelling Without Moving, hell it even worked on the albums first single 'Canned Heat' but unfortunately this is the exception rather than the rule. The album truly is a tragedy, and could very well signal the end of the band.

However, the album may not be all bad.. sure the lyrics are laughable, gone is the day of shouting for political freedom, screaming for help to the environment.. but some of the beats still have that funky vibe.. and Canned Heat will no doubt remain one of the best pop tunes of recent years. But its not Jamiroquai, thats the problem, this is an album for fans of pop music, not an album for Jamiroquai fans.. something which is disheartening for people who have followed them for years.

I sit listening to the album for the first time in a year and suprisingly it does sound marginally better.. I actually think I like the track 'Where Do We Go From Here'.. the lyrics are childish, have no soul, but its still a funky lil ditty, maybe not in the class of 'Alright' but it still has something, and the instruments are much more prominent than a lot of other tracks on the album, and yes there is a vague hint of a bassline. The same applies with the track 'Soul Education' which although is lacking in musical credit or originally is full of fun. This track was originally pencilled in to be released as a single but somehow things fell through and as far as I know it only made the shelves in France.

The 2 other tracks which I can stand are 'Falling' and 'Butterfly'... 'Falling' is a light flavoured love song, hardly in the mould of earlier material, but its pleasant enough, if hardly inspirational. 'Butterfly' is probably the only original track on the album and although it takes a few listens to get into, it does give the album a sense of hope, maybe there is life in this band yet..

Unfortunately, this is as good as the album gets, 4 average tracks and 1 classic pop single.. the rest is middle of the road pop trying to be cool, but somehow it just doesnt work.

There is one track on the album which is of abnormally bad quality, this track being 'Black Capricorn Day'... The track consists of a repetitive beat, which you know you have heard elswhere.. and then you have the chorus with even more repetition, this time on the word 'Hey' which quite frankly sounds.. well.. silly.

I just hope this album was a mistake, afterall it had to be re-written and re-recorded in a very short space of time after the departure of Stuart Zender. They played with an inexperienced bassist and this shows, with there being little in the way of prominant bass lines, something which was a feature of the band in its early days. I am biased though, there is no doubt about that, and therefore this album gets a big thumbs down from me, simply on the basis I know they are capable of so much more. If you are a pop/dance album, no doubt this album will be worth the expense, but I can hardly see the appeal it will have for fans of other genres or just music fans in general.