America's greatest export since crack cocaine is touring the UK—and apparently not all resident critics of the world's whitest, drizzliest, gayest clump of islands are ready for her. There was a glowing, properly
amazed review of Erykah Badu's latest album, New Amerykah, and live show in the
Financial Times, but as the quality of the papers slipped, so did the criticism. (Imagine that.) The
Evening Standard went with
"fantastically entertaining" but also sometimes "tiresome" and "tedious." There was a
lackluster semi-appreciation in the
Times (UK), in which she is compared to
James Brown. There is an unreadable bit of maundering
in the Independent from some boy who can neither think nor write. And then some child at the dying paper
Metro claimed she was off-pitch, which has never happened. To misunderstand Badu is to misunderstand America and so we should bomb them with nuclear weapons.
By
Choire Sicha
07/03/08 9:30 AM
Related:
England, Erykah Badu, Music, Pop, Sound and Fury