LA Times: Asher Roth’s–”Asleep in the Bread Aisle”
Next week, we’ll tackle more pressing questions like keeping Atlantis off the map, making Steve Gutenberg a star, and keeping the metric system down. But for the duration of this one, consider Passion of the Weiss, official anti-stone mason headquarters.
On Thursday and Friday, Sach and Jonathan Bradley will battle the bulge of Roth publicist e-mails that bloat my inbox. After all, only hours ago, Roth’s fleet flackses informed me that Asleep debuted at number one on iTunes, with “major retailers underestimating Asher Roth’s grass roots support from blogs and magazines in the hip-hop and indie community and are scrambling to get more copies in-stores!” I’m not surprised. The marketing muscle thrown behind our new rap philosopher-king is astonishing, as Dart artfully explains here.
My review at the Times is too short for true justice, but thankfully Ian Cohen went in “Winter Warz”-style at Pitchfork, gravity-bonging it with an appropriate, 2.4. How is anyone supposed to respect a rapper who lets the waddling late-period Larry Holmes that is Busta Bus, look like the Easton Assassin of ‘82, who floored original Great White Hype, Gerry Cooney? Has an “event album” ever been as un-eventful as this one? Is it safe to conclude that Steve Rifkind is the Reverend Fred Sultan?
LA Times: Asher Roth–Asleep in the Bread Aisle Review
Download:
MP3: Asher Roth ft. Busta Rhymes-”Lion’s Roar”
MP3: Ghostface Killah-”Who’s the Champion”
Stumble It!
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:19 am
Utterly fascinating what a polarizing figure this guy has become.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:23 am
Great review! I couldn’t agree more, especially the part about his “attempt to repudiate Eminem comparisons (”Way I Em,”) made futile by an eerie emulation of Eminem’s singular timbre and rhyme schemes.” If you look vaguely like Eminem, and sound vaguely like Eminem, and don’t really seem to be trying hard not to have a different flow than Eminem, it’s hardly fair to complain about being called “derivative.”
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:29 am
Considering this is a pop album, the hooks are atrocious.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 pm
As always, great review. Homeboy Asher is playing a record release party tonight at World Cafe Live here in Philly, in the same building where the radio station WXPN I work at is. I’ll be at the show, to see this crazy thing live. My peeps in Philly are indeed split by the Asher Roth phenom, me? I don’t have a position yet, but I’m always curious about the “experience.” Number one on iTunes don’t mean shit to me, either, thankyou. As a blogger or even as a radio guy. Jus sayin’ - Bruce
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Abe- Well sorta, but I missed where people were saying he was great. “Not that bad” or “decent for what it is” is as high as the proponents that I’ve read get.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Did Asher Roth win some kind of contest that I didn’t hear about? I absolutely do not understand why anyone likes this garbage. Why couldn’t Em have have dressed up like Asher in “we made you” and…oh nevermind.
Glad you and pitchfork are on the same page Weiss. And thanks for getting the Stonecutters song stuck in my head.