It’s a little premature for Van Hunt’s bio to be heralding the fact that his third album-Popular-breaks from the explicitly Prince-influenced direction of his first two-Van Hunt and On the Jungle Floor. It doesn’t, at least not completely.
Videos by American Songwriter
Label: Blue Note
[Rating: 3 ½ stars]
It’s a little premature for Van Hunt’s bio to be heralding the fact that his third album-Popular-breaks from the explicitly Prince-influenced direction of his first two-Van Hunt and On the Jungle Floor. It doesn’t, at least not completely. But it doesn’t need to. Prince’s artistic wake is broad and Hunt is good at keeping things interesting. Popular is an edgier, more avant-garde album-a good distance from the retro-tinged soul he started out with-but he hasn’t lost touch with enticing dance grooves. Hunt deals with sex a lot, but in a way that’s brazen and clever. There’s a jerking, snaking drum-bass-and-horns ménage à trois titled “prelude (the dimples on ur bottom),” a spacey wah-wah guitar-laced declaration of bedroom preferences (“SNM”) and an exercise in electro-funk carnality (“the lowest 1 of my desires”). There’s also social commentary (“turn my TV on” and “popular”) and sweeping soul (“bits & pieces”). It’s a rare album that’s both jarring and danceable, but Popular is one.
you make me laugh jewly,to give this album 3 stars is a joke and completly out of order,remmeber van hunt played,produced,arranged,and write the hole album on his own, so jewly please tell me a soul artist out there makes music better than van the man hunt cause i know every soul artist out there today and they r not in his league a part from prince 5 stars all the way