![]() What I will say is that I think “Electric Circus” is creatively ambitious and would probably be more interesting if “Stankonia” didn’t already exist since I find a lot of the ideas, sounds and even concepts to be extremely derivative of that album though less well-executed. In fact, the only song I remembered liking was the record with Jill Scott, “I Am Music.” Common’s “battle rap” approach (that’s what he sounded like to me on many of the records) just didn’t seem to fit or make any sense with the soundbeds they seemed to conflict way too frequently. Lyrically, I also thought Common had lost a step sure he had some bite, but it also didn’t even seem to fit the sound of the album. ![]() I thought it felt contrived and pretentious and, like, obvious. In 2002, I absolutely hated this album for a few reasons I thought Common sounded terrible over the beats, which I similarly thought were lackluster. Some folks loved the ambitious nature of the album, with Common and team similarly leaning into the funk and rock aesthetic of Parliament Funkadelic that seemed to have so positively inspired Outkast’s “Stankonia” album. Was that what we were about to get with Common’s “Electric Circus”? While the Dilla, Questlove and Neptune’s-helmed project got pretty favorable critical reviews, the conversations being had in hip-hop spaces weren’t all that favorable, hence the album being polarizing. It wasn’t exactly a chart banger, but it definitely tee’d up the album and had folks like me wondering just what in the world kind of album we were getting. The colors, the lyrics on signs, the deaf woman in the window to whom he is proposing in the most adorbs way possible. The video is instantly memorable, even from 20 years ago. It was actually quite genius from a visual standpoint. I’m not even saying that the song is terrible it just seemed like such an obvious chart chaser that it caught me off guard. Blige-assisted radio record with a video that had “ladies love Common” written all over it. ![]() That was until the first single, “Come Close,” a Neptunes-produced, Mary J. ![]() 10, 2002, Common (born Lonnie Rashid Lynn) released his fifth studio release, “Electric Circus.” Coming on the heels of arguably his best release, 1999’s “Like Water for Chocolate,” anticipation was very high for the album. Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. ![]()
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