FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Fugees – The Score
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I am surprised that I have not…
included this album in Vinyl Corner before! I was aware of the Fugees when they released their debut, Blunted on Reality, in 1994, and it as an album that did pretty well and got some great reviews. It is a tragedy to think that their breakthrough second album, The Score of 1996, was their last! This is an album that was a big part of my early life, and I recall hearing songs from the album in 1996 and being blown away! I would urge people to buy The Score on vinyl, as it is an essential purchase for anyone who loves great music. Not only is The Score and album that transformed Hip-Hop in the 1990s, but it is a varied and busy album that contains some great samples. We all know the big hits like Ready or Not, Fu-Gee-La, Killing Me Softly with His Song, and No Woman, No Cry (the latter two are covers), but I think every track from the album is a winner! There are a great mix of samples, but I especially love the fact Ready or Not contains samples of Boadicea by Enya, God Made Me Funky by The Headhunters, and an interpolation of Ready or Not, Here I Come (Can't Hide from Love) by The Delfonics! It is such a deep, detailed and inspiring album that, I think, showcased the M.C. skills of Lauryn Hill best.
She, Pras Michel, and Wyclef Jean would go on to have successful solo careers but, like the Fugees themselves, Hill’s solo career has been so brief! Her only solo album to date, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill of 1998, is, debatably, more important and influential than The Score - and one wonders when she will follow it up (if ever). Even though the Fugees only recorded two albums and disbanded by 2007, it was clear that the three members were bonded through The Score. It is reported that Hill was crying when delivering her lines to Ready or Not. The emotion of the song and the issues she and the other members were going through was clearly having an impact! One can feel real emotion and strength through the album. There are a variety of producers on The Score, and I think they each bring something to the plate and helped shape its eclectic nature and confidence. The blend of sampled melodies and live instruments makes the album so rich and interesting, and it is no surprise that The Score is considered one of the greatest Hip-Hop albums ever. I will bring in a couple of reviews but, through the years, journalists have explained the impact and legacy of The Score. In 2013, NME detailed why The Score is such a staggering and original record:
“At the time, Fugees (formerly Tranzlator Crew) were in their 20s – Lauryn Hill was just 21. They’ve described the recording process in interviews as relaxed and organic; you can’t hear the tension between Wyclef Jean and Hill that would lead to the band’s break up a year later. That’s not to say it’s all cupcakes and unicorns: ‘The Score’ contains grisly portraits of life in the ghetto. It’s a theatre of pandemonium, pain and pride shot with colour, dialogue, sound effects and some of the finest lyrics commited to tape. Hill herself saw it as:
“An audio film. It’s like how radio was back in the 1940s. It tells a story, and there are cuts and breaks in the music. It’s almost like a hip-hop version of ‘Tommy’, like what The Who did for rock music”.
Their approach to gender roles was revolutionary
The most potent difference about ‘The Score’? Gender. There are very few mixed sex hip-hop groups, and there are even fewer groups in which the female is centre stage. Exceptions – Digable Planets, Arrested Development and Juice Crew – didn’t break through the mainstream in the same way. The Black Eyed Peas are excluded for their disgraceful recent output. It’s refreshing to hear an album completely without sexism or misogyny. As a female hip-hop fan I often cringe at mentions of porno lyrics casting females as “pussies”, bitches, and nothing more. There’s no danger of that here. Hill’s narrative as a woman and her emotions are given space to breathe, most significantly in ‘Manifest’, a song about a guy who “stole the heart beating from my chest”, and ‘The Mask’, in which she takes on a guy trying it on in a nightclub. And, simply speaking, I like male voices, I like female voices – I want to hear them both at the same time.
The album also marked a departure from the commercial success of gangsta rap; it was alternative hip-hop, if you like, that challenged the perceived ideology of the genre. Pras makes it implicit in ‘The Mask’: “Well did you shoot him? Naw kid I didn’t have the balls, That’s when I realized I’m bumpin’ too much Biggie Smalls”.
Their references were colourful and weird
Obscure references punctuate ‘The Score’, setting it firmly in the 90s as a piece of historical art. From politicians (Clef compares Bill Clinton to Batman, for example) to Biblical references, scientific mentions to strange animals, and the miscellaneous mentions of Dick Van Dyke, Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and Zsa Zsa Gabor, it’s a vibrant mix.
‘The Score’ is one of the finest albums ever made. There’s a poignancy to it as well; it was Fugees final record after a nasty break up. Afterwards, Hill made the extraordinary ‘Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’, Pras did ‘Ghetto Superstar’ and Jean’s recorded with The Rock and went for the Haiti president job. A 2005 tour received mixed reviews. The end of the Fugees embalms ‘The Score’ in 1996, protecting its legacy and integrity. It is, without doubt, one of the greatest albums ever made”.
There are interesting articles out there that provide story and background, and I would especially recommend an article from Pitchfork published in 2016. We get a retrospective view from those who worked on the album twenty years after its release - and it makes for very interesting and insightful reading. I will just bring in the one review, I think, for The Score, but it is one that sort of says it all. This is what AllMusic wrote when they reviewed the album:
“A breath of fresh air in the gangsta-dominated mid-'90s, the Fugees' breakthrough album, The Score, marked the beginning of a resurgence in alternative hip-hop. Its left-field, multi-platinum success proved there was a substantial untapped audience with an appreciation for rap music but little interest in thug life. The Score's eclecticism, social consciousness, and pop smarts drew millions of latent hip-hop listeners back into the fold, showing just how much the music had grown up.
It not only catapulted the Fugees into stardom, but also launched the productive solo careers of Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill, the latter of whom already ranks as one of the top female MCs of all time based on her work here. Not just a collection of individual talents, the Fugees' three MCs all share a crackling chemistry and a wide-ranging taste in music. Their strong fondness for smooth soul and reggae is underscored by the two hit covers given slight hip-hop makeovers (Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly With His Song" and Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry"). Even when they're not relying on easily recognizable tunes, their original material is powered by a raft of indelible hooks, especially the great "Fu-Gee-La"; there are also touches of blues and gospel, and the recognizable samples range from doo wop to Enya. Their protest tracks are often biting, yet tempered with pathos and humanity, whether they're attacking racial profiling among police ("The Beast"), the insecurity behind violent posturing ("Cowboys"), or the inability of many black people in the Western Hemisphere to trace their familial roots ("Family Business"). Yeah, the Chinese restaurant skit is a little dicey, but on the whole, The Score balances intelligence and accessibility with an easy assurance, and ranks as one of the most distinctive hip-hop albums of its era”.
The Score remains this staggering album that took Hip-Hop in a new direction and was so different to a lot of the harder-edged and far less intriguing music that was being made. It is amazing to think what the Fugees could have achieved if they recorded a third album, but one sort of got a glimpse listening to each of the members’ first solo albums. I think Lauryn Hill especially was really finding her voice and, on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, she confirmed her place as one of the finest artists of her generation. Nearly twenty-five years after its release and The Score remains this wonderful, hugely significant album that I think everyone should buy on vinyl and…
REALLY treat themselves to!