Perry Farrell: Song Yet To Be Sung : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Perry Farrell's first solo album might be titled Song Yet to Be Sung, but for the most part, the song remains the same. The trance-y big beats behind "Did You Forget" and the unsatisfying drum-and-bass powering "Happy Birthday Jubilee" are, like, so 1997. Farrell's new explorations into electronica rock are satisfying as neither electronica nor rock. The title track, with its faux ethnotechno production and slick harmonies, sounds like Enrique Iglesias on Vicodin. Farrell also digs his own hole when it comes to lyrics: Lines like "Come on, I'll hold you tight/Sing and dance all night/We're all so happy/We're happy for you" (from "Happy Birthday Jubilee") won't have Lionel Richie worrying about his day job; "Shekina" is so hippie-dippy ("Shake your mother hips for me/Outside heaven drizzles/Grow us up a field of apples"), it might embarrass even Robert Plant. Farrell's attempts to make us all one nation under the global groove are admirably smiley-faced, and his enthusiasm for flipping genres is sweetly blithe. But Song makes you miss the dissolute griot of Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros. Farrell wants to explore the rave new world, but Song fails the acid test.

MATT DIEHL
(RS 872 - July 5, 2001)