Style and a smile from big Will (Willennium - Will Smith)

Member Name: daddygratis

Product:	Willennium - Will Smith
Date:	14/06/01 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good mix of songs, Some good rapping, Nice collaborations

Disadvantages: Too diverse for one album, Requires a new angle?, You either like this guy or you don't

Forget Big Willie's first album and dismiss this as a sequel. "Willenium" has its own feel, its own merits and its own faults.

There are notable chart successes on it, Millenium and Wild Wild West being by far the biggest two and an array of would-be hits with a host of collaborations, including L'il Kim, Tatiana Ali and an interesting re-uniting of the old two play with Jazzy Jeff. It's a mix match of modern sharp tunes with some retro 80's rap all tied together by Smith's own unique and ear pleasing vocals. And this is really the problem.

The first half of the album is very much the Will Smith we have come to know in recent years. Addictive re-workings of some classic tunes, with decent vocal harmonies played through the soft mouthed Smith. I'm Comin, Millenium and Freak It, follow this to a tee. His lyrics are enticing they're funny at times, I wouldn't go so far to say they're thought provoking but the cunning use of syllabuls and vocab keeps you on your toes with an uplifted feel.

Then we have the collaborations with the ladies, a nice turn, with the tunes a little more gritty and the rapping slightly more industial in strength. After the brief interlay with Wild Wild West which really was the best thing about the entire dismall sham of a movie, Smith moves into retro world. So much so that you'd think you were listening to an early experimental album.

The scratching, the cheesy 80's, V/O's, the crowd workings and the repetitions are all here, with Smith it seems, almost taking pity on Jazzy, trying in a valiant effort to get him back up into the limelight. Only it really doesn't work. There's none of the happy go lucky innocenece about these songs, that we heard so many years ago with Summertime or Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble.

It's certianly less commercial, which while not a bad thing in principle provides only to slpit this album int
o two very different moods.

Unlike Big Willie Style it doesn't grab you from the off but requires a little more effort on the part of the listener and after a few playings you do get hooked into the little subtleties of the raps and the complex beats, especially those in the latter half.

But overall, the album feels misplaced, a bit of this, a bit of that and the next offering from Mr. Will will have to be a little more definite in mood. If he's going to go back to his routes and give us some more retro stuff then sell it that way. If he's going to keep with his commercially light family filled feel (Just The Two Of Us) then keep it within that. Clearly his efforts to gel the two have not worked although the songs on their own merits are good.

If you judge on the mood of an album you'll see this point. If you don't you'll read this thinking, "Enough already, it's just a album."

Either way "Willenium" is certainly a good buy but don't expect the thorough softness Smith gave you with BWS.

Summary: