Mr. Fingers – What about this love? Promo 12” 1992
Side A
- Kenlou Mix
- Gonve Mix
Side B
- Luv Dub
- Masters At Work Dub
- Instrumental
From just looking at the cover I’m already reconsidering this little experiment in exploring my wife’s record collection. This dude is wearing some kind of Miss Muffet looking kufi on his head and for some reason the beaded curtain he’s trying to call a necklace is swaying in the wind. He’s rocking some kind of black and white shirt thing that kind of looks like the house music version of those two tone shirts middle age white dudes wear when they go to Vegas to relive some pitiful ass version of their idea of Swingers. This just looks like it’s going to be some soulful house type shit right out the gate.
Well this first track starts off with fucking singing and piano stabs. This is not going to be good, I’m already cringing. Then the goddamn house bullshit kicks in and I’m pretty sure my nuts have dropped. I’m not a fan of songs with love in the title in general as it usually tells me that it’s something to avoid at all costs. There are moments where the beat drops out but the worst is that it comes back. I like repetitive rap but I am not with someone constantly asking “what about this love?” This song is desperate. I think the end is my least favorite part where they chop up this woman saying “What What What about this love.” The only people I want to hear repeatedly saying What are Norega and Lil Jon.
Okay now we’re on the Gonve mix and I’m struggling to figure out what the difference is. I don’t like when people tell me all rap sounds the same but when I listen to house I can understand. I thought maybe the bass on this was trying to be more funky but I think it’s still as annoying as in the previous version of this song. This song makes me feel like I’m listening to tears dancing. You know like when they show a sweaty dance club in a movie or a photo and it’s all glistening. Yeah instead of sweat this is as if everyone was drowning in their own pathetic tears. Oh I thought I just heard the difference in the two but then I’m still not sure. I went back and repeated both tracks and I’m still kind of lost.
Looking at the tracklisting I see Masters at Work on the B side, I’ve heard of them before, maybe mentioned in Urb when read that 20 years ago and could not comprehend what Deep House meant (I still don’t know). I haven’t actually listened to their music but I’ve seen that name. Maybe that will be better but first I have to get through the Luv Dub. This one has bongos and beat hits a little harder. Not that I like it anymore than the previous version but at least it doesn’t sound as similar. Like the previous versions were on some more lounge type vibes and I could see this being played in a club. Not a club that I would want to be at but it could be played at one. Listening to this version makes me think of why the TR-909 is not as cool as the 808.
Okay now we’re at the Masters at Work version, no bongos, but they introduce some new shit that sounds like sticks hitting a box, like a metronome made of tin. Mr Fingers verses are absent as well so maybe that’s better, just a little bit of this woman singing about love. Oh now we get to the clap part, everything but the beat drops out and you get claps and then they slowly start building it back up again until finally sticks in a box returns.
You know when I see an artist’s name some what frequently sometimes I think I should check them out but then I hear this and realize yeah I wasn’t missing out on not learning about the Master at Work catalog.
And finally we are at the last track, the instrumental. We’ve made a full 360 and returned to the original boring. I don’t get the appeal, I think the worst is the funky bass line from this Gene Perez dude, like when he starts doing some twangy hee haw strumming that’s the worst of the worst. It’s not a lot but it’s enough to feel like you just go dick tapped. If you don’t know about dick tapping it’s when idiot ass teenage boys play a game where they hit each other in the dick and it fucking hurts. But the worst is when you think you dodged it get tapped right on the tip, it’s barely there but it hurts. That’s basically what this was like, I barely got punch in my dick and I don’t like it.
Stef says “Larry Heard, One of the godfathers of house music” oh and she has doubles of the record too, she liked it enough to buy it twice?!?!
Oh man and this is only my first review.
I started this today. If you’ve ever been curious about my opinions on music that isn’t rap well then this might interest you. Basically it’s going to be rap-centric reviews about music I don’t know much about.