POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Pop Sample Debate: Head Vs. the Street

There’s a curious distinction in England between pop music that is “intelligent” and that which is said to pander to the base tastes of the masses. It is a debate that might very well be the San Andreas fault of future pop--head music versus street sound.

During the weekend, the Hollywood American Legion Hall got a taste of the debate as the cerebral Massive Attack entertained a crowd of yawning Hollywood trendoids on Friday, while the edgy Prodigy took the stage the next night and inspired a smaller, younger audience to aerobic frenzy.

Attack leads the Bristol break-out of slow, thoughtful dance music now popularized by such groups as Tricky and Portishead. This “intelligent” sound is quite culturally English--seen as the improvement of otherwise uncivilized American music. The Prodigy represents the London “break beat” scene: fast, raw, bass-driven sounds that have been called the true hip-hop--even the gangsta rap--of England.

Attack, whose dub sound (reggae light?) has received critical acclaim, couldn’t quite pull off a show despite having a salad bar of musical treats--a deejay, a programmer, guest vocals. Playing in a hall steamier than a South Carolina summer, Attack induced massive malaise with its slow, uninspired hip-hop beats and anemic rapping. Band members swayed out of obligation to the thick, slow songs from their back-to-back albums of 1994-95. It was as if the red-and-white dough-boy balloons flanking the trio were the devil and the angel on the shoulders of Massive Attack, and the group couldn’t agree on whose advice to take.

*

In contrast, the Prodigy was entirely devilish. Led by the toasting and raspy-throated come-ons of emcee Maxim Reality, the foursome had people dancing in their seats. Ironically, the Prodigy’s visionary “Experience” album was widely blamed for the death of dance in England in 1992: The candy-coated jackhammer jungle drums and uplifting piano bridges were all the fickle British critical establishment could take. Today, Prodigy members--the Beastie Boys of England?--are heroes, credited with helping fuel a bass-driven “jungle” music scene that is sweeping England.

The Prodigy spread out songs from its latest album, “Music for the Jilted Generation”--songs that expand the bass invasion by adding industrial-strength guitar and slower beats. The Adidas and Puma crowd was ecstatically attached to the stage, and in the end rushed the platform to dance in a Warholian display. London was in the house.