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CD Review: Custom Puts Out Decent Album
By: Chris Moore - U-WIRE
April 6th 2002 12:58am
(U-WIRE) MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Custom's debut album, "Fast," has received loads of media attention for his scandalous first video, "Hey Mister." MTV banned it for having too much sexual content, proving once again that the network doesn't give a damn about anything but image. It's decent music, though. Custom's lyrics are original, controversial and sometimes even intelligent -- something that's lacking in most mainstream music. "Hey Mister," is a catchy little ditty about banging some guy's daughter. At first it seems like a shallow, sexually motivated song, but it's nothing like that. He wrote it after, "watching my sisters get picked up while I was picking up and realizing we are all pigs." If anything, it's funny. The last line of the song, "I hope I never have a daughter," says it all. The rest of the album is a mix of "introspective soft pop" and hard rock, an interesting combination that sometimes doesn't work well. While all of the songs have great lyrics, the harder songs seem out of place with the rest of the album. "Streets" is the story of an assassin falling in love with his hit. A neat idea, but the two styles come together in it, making for a bad end product. Most of the album is good, though. "Beat Me" is far better than "Hey Mister," and probably would have been the first single if he weren't looking to make some waves. The words Custom speaks are true, never coming off as too cool -- just real. In all, it's an emotionally motivated and sexually charged record -- at the very least better than *NSYNC or Jay-Z.
(C) 2002 The Daily Athenaeum via U-WIRE
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