Eamon Blog

Today's Shelf Pull: Fugees, The Score

The hooks open the door. The sequence gives you a reason to stay.

Fugees make the distance between a tightly worked rap passage and an open, melodic chorus feel remarkably short.

Some albums make you choose between following the words and following the tune. Fugees make that distinction feel rather unnecessary on The Score. The writing asks for attention, but the hooks are hospitable enough to let you settle in first.

Today's shelf pull at Kilmorna in Listowel is the 2017 vinyl edition, spread across two records. That is an edition detail, not a promise about sound. The attraction is the programme itself: rap, soul and reggae touches sharing a coherent musical space.

Listen for the handover between rhythmic speech and melody rather than treating them as separate attractions. The pleasure is in how little ceremony that change requires. A chorus can open the room without making the surrounding rap feel like an obstacle to reach it.

There is confidence here, but confidence alone would make for a fairly tiring album. The melodic side gives it another register. It is possible to enjoy the immediate appeal and still notice how the sequence keeps changing the terms of your attention.

Side A begins with Red Intro, then moves through How Many Mics and Ready Or Not before Zealots and The Beast. That order is worth keeping intact. The familiar title is a point along the route, not the whole journey.

The opening stretch invites two kinds of attention: the forward pull of the rapping and the way a memorable hook holds its shape. Neither cancels the other. Listen to the balance, and the record feels less like a collection of competing strengths.

There is a useful discipline in not skipping straight to recognition. Let Zealots and The Beast occupy their places after Ready Or Not. Even when a particular song brought you here, its neighbours help determine what you take away from it.

Side B brings Fu-Gee-La, Family Business and Killing Me Softly With His Song together. Three titles, and a good reason not to think of an album side merely as a container. The relationship between a rap performance and a sung melody becomes the listening subject.

Family Business sits between two of the catalogue's highlighted songs, Fu-Gee-La and Killing Me Softly With His Song. Give that middle position its due. An album is often most interesting where recognition stops doing all the work and attention has to take over.

On Side C, The Score is followed by The Mask and Cowboys. Here is another opportunity to listen without using the best-known songs as signposts. Follow the phrasing, then the melodic shapes, and notice which one you find yourself carrying into the next track.

Across the record, the soul and reggae touches belong to the musical vocabulary rather than a separate itinerary. The useful question is not which category wins. It is how the balance of rhythmic insistence and melodic ease keeps your ear engaged.

Side D pairs No Woman, No Cry with Manifest / Outro. The printed sequence makes a modest practical suggestion: leave time for the ending. A recognisable song near the finish need not become your stopping point, especially on an album built to be heard as a continuous programme.

The Score is a studio album, not a compilation, and that distinction matters to this way of listening. Familiar songs can acquire the air of independent objects. Putting them back among their neighbours restores the simple business of one track following another.

For a first listen, there is no need to prepare a case for its importance. Start with the voices, the rhythmic variety and the hooks. Those are substantial pleasures before anyone begins arranging the record on a historical shelf.

For a return visit, resist the efficient version of listening that only checks the favourites. Play the sides in order. The less familiar stretches deserve more than the courtesy of being left on while you wait.

That is the case for pulling The Score today: not to admire a reputation, but to hear an album. The hooks make entry easy. Staying with the sequence gives that first welcome somewhere to go.

On the shelf today:

Fugees - The Score

2LP, 2017

Hip-Hop / Rap

EUR 33.95

Available from The Kilmorna Collection, Listowel

Buy or reserve: https://www.thekilmornacollection.com/vinyl/score

Buying vinyl records in Ireland: https://www.thekilmornacollection.com/vinyl-records-ireland

On the shelf today

Fugees - The Score

2LP / Hip-Hop / Rap / 2017

EUR33.95 / Available now

Order / Reserve