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The album finds the two taking on the identities of Nathaniel
Merriweather (Nakamura) and Chest Rockwell (Prince Paul),
recruiting some friends, and delivering an eclectic mix of
experimental hip-hop disguised as a self-help manual on how to
become handsome. Nakamura had grown up listening to Paul's work on
seminal hip-hop albums like Stetsasonic's In Full Gear and
De La Soul's Three Feet High and Rising, and as his own
profile began to rise, he found himself running in the same circles
as the rap pioneer. They met and soon after the idea for the
Handsome Boy Modeling School -- whose name was inspired by an
episode of the Chris Elliott sitcom, Get A Life -- was
born.
"We would often travel the world and see all these people and be
like, 'That person would be really handsome, except...,' and it
would bum us out," Nakamura explains, stifling a laugh. "We'd be
feeling bad because they were only one step removed from being
really handsome. So we decided we should open up the Handsome Boy
Modeling School to help these people. We figured we would take the
knowledge we acquired through our years of international travel and
playboyism and make it into a course that would teach people how to
be handsome.
"When we started putting the idea together," he continues, "CEOs of
companiesand all these people wanted to hire us to be motivational
speakers. They wanted to pay us tons of money, but that priced it
out of the market of the everyday person. That wasn't fair. We
wanted to bring handsomeness to the masses."
Hence, the album. After programming some preliminary tracks at
Nakamura'sGlue Factory studio in San Francisco and Paul's Coffee
Shop studio in New York, they began thinking about which of their
handsome friends they should invite to join them in their noble
task and tailored the tracks accordingly. Then, the guests were
brought in to polish the tracks and lay down their parts.
The result is a diverse and vibrant album that remains cohesive in
spite of its multitude of cameos. The Beastie Boys' Mike D and Cibo
Matto's Miho Hatori duet on "Metaphysical," a haunting
organ-drenched quasi-science lesson that wouldn't have sounded out
of place on Nakamura's Dr. Octagon project with rapper Kool Keith.
Brand Nubian's Grand Puba and Sadat X trade rhymes on the equally
spooky soul cut-up, "Once Again," while Moloko's Roisin Murphy
lends her velvety pipes to the sultry trip-hop turn, "The Truth,"
and DJ Shadow and DJ Quest Scratch up "Holy Calamity," an ecstatic
turntable workout. Other guests include Del tha Funkee Homosapien,
Sean Lennon, Biz Markie and former Saturday Night Live
staple Father Guido Sarducci. According to Nakamura, the only
guests they wanted but couldn't wrangle were Radiohead, who'd
agreed in principle, but got tied up building their own studio and
were unable to complete their track.
"We call the record 'the soundtrack to better living' because it's
essentially the background music to being handsome," Nakamura says.
"Y'know the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever? John
Travolta's just a clerk in a paint store -- but you see him walking
down the street and he's not just walking, he's strutting. You know
he's cool, he's confident and he's handsome. In the background,
'Stayin' Alive' by the Bee Gees is playing. That's his theme music.
We created 'the soundtrack for better living' to give other people
theme music to go through their lives with."
The multi-faceted nature of the project makes touring behind it a
logistical impossibility, but Nakamura's already concocting other
ideas for getting the word out to the masses.
"We're working on making our course into a video program, kind of
like 'Buns of Steel.' That way we can reach people anywhere," he
says. "It's not about exclusivity to be handsome; it's about
reaching everyone to make the world a more handsome place."
DAVID PEISNER
(October 14, 1999)
- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.
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