Listen To This

DJ Shadow's The Outsider opens with an unnamed lounge crooner promising, "This time, I'm gonna' try things my way". Then the record plunges into 20+ minutes of Shadow-produced hyphy (San Francisco's answer to crunk) before starkly shifting genres across ten more tracks, making the statement the record's spiritual refrain. It's as if the SoCal dj got fed up with being known as the Jesus Christ of turntablism and decided to make something that wouldn't be expected to result in Radiohead's next great album. In Shadow's defense, he deserves to deliver this risky, uneven, self-indulgent mixtape. He is, after all, as responsible for Okay Computer as Radiohead is. The high moments--such as the crunk-done-right "Seein Thangs" and slow-smoldering "Backstage Girl"--definitely atone for the low ones, like the awful "What Have I Done". The difficulty with The Outsider has less to do with the record or the dj and more to do with the expectations of his fans. There are no OMG moments as on Entroducing or The Private Press. Instead, this is a record that's enjoyable for what it does right and wrong. It's also a record that may have been necessary to give DJ Shadow some much deserved breathing room for the second act of his career.

A nice distraction.