The Negro Problem: Welcome Black : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

If The Negro Problem had chosen a different name, they would probably be more famous now -- although the fact that their leader is a large forty-one-year-old black man with odd facial hair named Stew means they were unlikely to become TRL favorites under any guise. This Los Angeles band performs excellent psychedelic pop songs in the tradition of Robyn Hitchcock and XTC; its third record, Welcome Black, is wry and lovely and sad, often in the same song. There isn't as much overt comedy as usual, but many of the best songs marry tunes worthy of Burt Bacharach to amusingly self-conscious lyrics ("I'm Sebastian Cabot in your dreams/I'm Sebastian Cabot - what's that mean?"). So it shouldn't be any surprise to learn the title of the record's catchiest song, the one with the glossiest production: "Is This the Single?"

GAVIN EDWARDS
(RS 908 - October 31, 2002)