#2088 DJ Shadow - The Less You Know the Better

Around the time this album came out, DJ Shadow gave a really candid interview.

He basically said, I didn't want to keep making Endtroducing. But when I put out The Outsider, people didn't seem to like that that much. So I put this out as an album that would please everyone.

It's possible Josh Davis doesn't even like that whole atmospheric//transcendent//amazing thing Endtroducing did. Maybe he just wants to be a producer of shitty hip hop tracks. It's a little sell-out-y, but can I really, really nail him for it?

But if his goal was to please everyone, shit, I don't know. I don't think this album get enough credit. I think he kinda did. I mean, this is some of his better fuck-Endtroducing-Imma-make-beats work, and some of his better atmospheric stuff. Not to mention, dude is still cratedigger mastermind - that sample on Give Me Back the Nights is fucking *staggering*. Front to Back's pretty great too.

I'm as bad as anybody when it comes to backfitting everything to Endtroducing. But let's step back to the first-album test. What if we wiped out prior DJ Shadow work (and RJD2-type followons for good measure) and this was a greenfield superfresh record -- I think it might be a classic. That first half's kinda cloying, but it settles in on the 2nd, turning, if grudgingly, into a kinda great DJ Shadow album, packed with mysterious samples and moods and tones. And those albumwide gestures and callbacks, it works. I think its at least as good as Private Press -- I think people were still salty about The Outsider to be honest and never gave dude a fair shake.

Shadow's got a real sense of pacing, of atmospheric flow, of sample selection, he just can't seem to get out of his own way.

So I'm defending the guy.

Counterpoint:

I think some of his missteps come from trying to get mainstream play. See also, in retrospect, his track on Mountain featuring Run the Jewels -- "fine fine I'll do Endtroducing, but can yall at least maybe give some radio play to these radio-play-ready tracks that I put on my album for that express purpose?"

He really does want it both ways.

Can I bury the guy for wanting to break? I guess not. But I can't overlook the fact that he can't seem to make a record for the heads, that he's gotta undercut himself. In rock we call that selling out, and I don't know that he gets a pass here.

This is a pretty good balance, a pretty good record. Better than it gets credit for. But you can feel the way it doesn't commit, that it holds itself back -- that there's something fucking great waiting to happen, that there's something brilliant waiting to be had, but the conduit, the man himself, just can't let it happen. So much potential, greatness when you overlook the distractions, but I can't help but resent having to put that work in. Wish dude could just make a record as great as the one he keeps teasing in the margins 4/5