Blacc Is Back ...

Aloe Blacc hasn't done all that much since his smash-hit, I Need A Dollar, came to the forefront of the industry a few years ago. His work with Avicii saw him receive plenty of praise once again, but he has not regained his position near the top. To get it back, now, he has gone for a much more commercialised single in, The Man, and we wonder how the world will be taking it.
One of the first things you'll notice, is that Elton John's 'Your Song' is sampled ... but not quite in the way we expect he would have ever imagined. We hate to be the ones to put doubt on the talents of a young man like Aloe, someone whom we admired for quite some time, but to make a song so commercially aware, and with such a lack of meaning other than to boost the ego of ones self, is not what we thought would be his intentions, and has left us with a little bit of a hole in our stomachs.
The thing is, when you listen to the whole chorus, you'll hear the words "And you can tell everybody, and you can tell everybody, and you can tell everybody" ... as the famous Elton John song goes, finished with "... I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man!" Now, we suspect this wasn't meant to be done in an arrogant way, and we sincerely hope not, but it comes across that way on its very first listen, and from then on you'll find that you're just not capable of being completely sure on it, despite it's particularly catchy nature.
We assume this was written in order to pick up everyone and anyone whom has ever felt down, low, or depressed about themselves; the way in which Christina Aguilera so famously did with her track 'Beautiful' ... and the end result, if you look at it in that light, is quite different, and quite brilliant.
To look at it from that perspective, we'd say that this is a fun little single that is more than capable of brighting up your doubts, your day, and those little things that seem masisvely significant to your existence and your pain ... but for us, to get over that little niggle at the beginning, has been quite some feat.
There's no doubt that Aloe is back, and he is trying very hard to crack the industry once again, but we're just not too sure this time round because of the ambiguity of it all - here's to wishing him well.
Paul.