gonzales - "the joy of thinking"
the beats on gonzales' new record reference commercial rap, but his take on it is more cartoonish, more fallible in contrast to radio slickness (trying to convince us not to dance to it?!), still clearly affectionate (bit like the streets relationship to proper ukg maybe). generally this works well until he opens his stupid mouth - since the entertainist (where he proved himself a rapper of note) he has apparently not bothered to come up with a single decent verse so the record is full of half-arsed hooks, crappy cabaret shit sung by himself and others, and some nice instrumental bits.

"the joy of thinking" is one of the half-arsed hook songs, but luckily its a really good hook ("you need to rediscover the joy of thinking")! and its co-sung by peaches, who has a very pretty voice when not being disgusting. it makes me want to hear gonzales doing records with nivea or mya or someone, because he has some really good pop ideas that would make more sense without him cultivating this unlikeable, laboured persona over the top of them.