The Gift of Game

by

Crazy Town

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I heard the popular single 'Butterfly' on the radio numerous times and I wondered who the heck this group "Crazy Town" was. All that I did know at that time was that I really was into that song and I wanted to hear more songs of the "Gift of Game" album.

I download a few off of Napster, namely "Only When I'm Drunk" and "Hollywood Babylon". Let me just say that this CD rocks. I quickly went and bought the CD the same night I heard these songs and I wasn't disappointed.

There is such a wide variety of influence in their music from old-school House of Pain and Beastie Boys to the new flavor of Limp Bizkit.

If you are into deep beats with hard chords, Crazy Town is the place to be!

You know that generic, talentless band that everyone always refers to as only using three chords, only in it for the money and chicks, and all they can talk about is playing girls and getting drunk? Yes, it's what all ignorant people think of if someone says "rock music", and Crazy Town IS that group. Seeing as talentless groups like Crazy Town are in the lead as far as today's rock industry goes, it's really no surprise that hard music has gotten such a bad name.

The track that many people associate this group with is "Butterfly", due to it's catchiness and overall appeal to the pop world. I even admit that the first couple of times I heard it, it got my foot tapping and I got into it. What so many fans don't realize is the fact that the song is so damn catchy is because Crazy Town didn't really write it. Every instrumental section of the song, save for the lame turntables, originally comes from a Red Hot Chili Peppers song (a real rock band.) All Crazy Town had to do to get a fast buck was water it down, throw a DJ into it, and write some rap lines and a catchy chorus over it and they had themselves a Top 40 single. The reason that I'm dwelling so much on this one song is that it is so representative of the group and their (lack of) work as a whole.

The rest of the tracks on the album are easily forgettable and discarded, as just about all of them have closely similar beats, lyrics, and stereotypical song meanings about playing girls, getting laid, and getting drunk. One of the few, more humorous tracks is "Toxic", as the singers, Epic and Shifty (very mature, eh?) talk about how hard they rock the mosh pits. "Toxic" is great if you need a good laugh. The only songs that have any standouts among the rest are "Butterfly", simply because of the good instrumentals, "B-Boy 2000", which was saved by amazing rapper KRS-One's presence, and "Players (Only Love You When They're Playing)", which only has a nice hip-hop beat. Other than that the song is worthless.

Where the band itself stands can be attributed to song titles such as "Only When I'm Drunk" and a ridiculous outro called "www.crazytown.com". Even with all that ranting, the most laughable attribute of Crazy Town is that they THINK they are a talented, original band. Simply listen to the hidden track after the outro to hear one of the singers discuss how Crazy Town is "so huge they don't even know it" and how they're going to "kick a new market wide... open". Sorry guys, but Limp Bizkit already revolutionized horrendous rock music that requires nothing more than a DJ and a lack of rapping skill.