Ginuwine
In the information age, the music of choice is the music uploaded with the most information, natch, like Ginuwine’s number-one R & B single “Pony.” In the space of just a measure and a half you get car skids, “Atomic Dog” panting, that bleep you hear after you swallow the strawberry in Pac-Man, and a mad funny bass line that sounds like Zapp’s Roger Troutman after a mighty swig of bicarb. “Pony” was easily the quirkiest, trashiest, silliest, most instantly recognizable song on R & B radio at the beginning of this year.
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But alas, another feature of the information age is that information can disappear as quickly as a click-and-drag of the mouse. Now that “Pony” is dropping down Billboard’s Hot 100, Ginuwine (aka 22-year-old D.C. native Elgin Lumpkin, ouch) is in danger of being lost forever in the trash can of history. No big deal, you might think; part of the charm of current R & B is its disposability. But what his surprising debut album, The Bachelor, makes clear is that Ginuwine wants to be remembered. He’s reaching out to audiences that for the most part have little use for quirky, silly, trashy, recognizable singles: trip-hopsters, east-coast b-boys, album-as-art aesthetes, etc. And if said music fans would only reach back, they’d find that The Bachelor is as impressive in its own way as Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and Tricky’s Maxinquaye.
“I’ll Do Anything/I’m Sorry,” and “World Is So Cold,” the first sounds on the record are gloomy thunder and rain; cold wind blows between cuts; the operator disconnects Ginuwine’s reconciliation attempt at the end of “Hello.”
