The Roots - Game Theory
Product Information
Track List: Game Theory
Click on or song title to hear an audio clip. Windows Media player is required.
- Dilltastic Vol Won(derful)
- False Media
- Game Theory
- Don't Feel Right
- In The Music
- Take It There
- Baby
- Here I Come
- Long Time
- Livin' In A New World
- Clock With No Hands
- Atonement
- Can't Stop This
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Album Details: Game Theory
- Release Date:
- 08/29/2006
- Label:
- Def Jam
- UPC:
- 602517001268
User Reviews: Game Theory
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Game Theory
, December 11, 2006Reviewer: jmangan469 - See all jmangan469's reviews -
What??!!??
, September 21, 2006Reviewer: SeppiNotti - See all SeppiNotti's reviewsPros: What????!!!
Cons: WHAT??? Please...
GREAT!!!!!!!!! GET IT!!!!!!!
read all (3) user reviews for Game Theory
Pro Reviews: Game Theory
| EXPERT RATING: From AMG Reviews Game Theory is the Roots' equivalent of a Funkadelic playlist containing "Wars of Armageddon," "Cosmic Slop," "Maggot Brain," "March to the Witch's Castle," and "America Eats Its Young." It's a vivid reflector of the times, not an escape hatch (of which there are several readily available options). Spinning turbulence, paranoia, anger, and pain into some of the most exhilarating and startling music released in 2006, the group is audibly galvanized by the world's neverending tailspin and a sympathetic alignment with Def Jam. Batting around stray ideas and squeezing them into shape was clearly not part of the plan, and neither was getting on the radio. The songs flow into and out of one another to optimal effect, with an impossibly stern sense of peakofpowers focus, as if the group and its collaborators instantly locked into place and simply knocked the thing out. With the exception of the elbowthrowing "Here I Come," nothing here is suitable for any kind of carefree activity. The extent of the album's caustic nature is tipped off early on, after glancing at the hangman on the cover and hearing Wadud Ahmad's penetrating voice run through lines like "Pilgrims, slaves, Indians, Mexicans/It looks real fcked up for your next of kin." The point at which the album kicks into full gear, just a couple minutes later, arrives when tumbling bass drums and a Sly the Family Stone sample ("This is a game/I'm your specimen") are suddenly overtaken by pure panic pulseracing drums, anxious organ jabs, pentup guitar snarls, and breathless rhyming from Black Thought and Malik B. "In the Music" exemplifies the deeply textured nature of the album's production work, with its rolling/roiling rhythm throbbing bass, clanging percussion, tight spirals of guitar made all the more claustrophobic by Porn's amorphous chorus and Black Thought's and Malik B.'s hunchedshoulder deliveries. Even "Baby," the closest thing to a breather in this patch of the album, arises from a sweltering jungle bog. After "Long Time," the ninth track, the levels of tension and volume decrease, yet the moods are no brighter, even if the surfaces leave a different impression. "Clock with No Hands" is introduced as a sweet slow jam with a light vocal hook from Mercedes Martinez, but it's as paranoid as anything else on the album. Jack Davey projects the chorus of the slower, Radioheadsampling "Atonement" in a druggy haze while Black Thought speaks of "being faced with the weight of survival." The closer, an eightminute suite titled "Can't Stop This," features a J Dilla production previewed on his Donuts, released the week he left this planet that opens and closes with testimonials to the musician's talent and humanity. Taken with or without this staggering finale, Game Theory is a heavy album, the Roots' sharpest work. It's destined to become one of Def Jam's proudest, if not most popular, moments. - Andy Kellman, All Music Guide |
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Though popular success has largely eluded the Roots, the Philadelphia group showed the way for live rap, building on Stetsasonic's "hip-hop band" philosophy of the mid-'80s by focusing on live instrumentation at their concerts and in the studio. Thou...Full The Roots Biography
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-- ©2008 All Media Guide, LLC
Pros: Great beats/ Great lyrics
Cons: Production could have been a little tighter
For those scared that The Roots were on the road to selling out when they signed with Jay-Z