the roots / albums

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Phrenology (Parental Advisory),The Roots

- Phrenology (Parental Advisory)
- - 695,801 plays
  - 398 favs
  - 116 shares
The Roots
Released 2002

[Untitled Track]
07:59
7,045 plays

[Untitled Track]
00:20
4,540 plays

!!!!!!!
00:24
42,935 plays

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songs

- 1
- Phrentrow
- 00:20
- 13,799 plays

- 2
- Rock You
- 03:12
- 31,528 plays

- 3
- !!!!!!!
- 00:24
- 42,935 plays

- 4
- Sacrifice
- 04:44
- 34,384 plays

- 5
- Rolling With Heat
- 03:42
- 36,938 plays

- 6
- WAOK (ay) Rollcall
- 01:00
- 17,395 plays

- 7
- Thought @ Work
- 04:58
- 21,232 plays

- 8
- The Seed (2.0)
- 04:27
- 226,682 plays

- 9
- Break You Off
- 07:27
- 128,994 plays

- 10
- Water
- 10:24
- 18,729 plays

- 11
- Quills
- 03:46
- 26,733 plays

- 12
- Pussy Galore
- 04:29
- 25,886 plays

- 13
- Complexity
- 04:47
- 33,279 plays

- 14
- Something In The Way Of Things (In Town)
- 06:45
- 19,250 plays

- 15
- [Untitled Track]
- 00:20
- 3,763 plays

- 16
- [Untitled Track]
- 00:20
- 4,540 plays

- 17
- [Untitled Track]
- 07:59
- 7,045 plays

- 18
- [Untitled Track]
- 00:07
- 1,943 plays

album review

The easy-flowing Things Fall Apart made the Roots one of the most popular artists of alternative rap's second wave. Anticipated nearly as much as it was delayed, the proper studio follow-up, Phrenology, finally appeared in late 2002, after much perfectionist tinkering by the band -- so much that the liner notes include recording dates (covering a span of two years) and, sometimes, histories for the individual tracks. Coffeehouse music programmers beware: Phrenology is not Things Fall Apart redux; it's a challenging, hugely ambitious opus that's by turns brilliant and bewildering, as it strains to push the very sound of hip-hop into the future. Despite a few gentler tracks (like the Nelly Furtado and Jill Scott guest spots), Phrenology is the hardest-hitting Roots album to date, partly because it's their most successful attempt to re-create their concert punch in the studio. ?uestlove's drums positively boom out of the speakers on the Talib Kweli duet "Rolling With Heat"; the fantastic, lean guitar groover "The Seed (2.0)" (with neo-soul auteur Cody ChesnuTT); and the opening section of "Water." The ten-minute "Water" is the album's centerpiece, a powerful look at former Roots MC Malik B.'s drug problems that morphs into a downright avant-garde sound collage. Similarly, lead single "Break You Off," a neo-soul duet with Musiq, winds up in a melange of drum'n'bass programming and live strings. If moves like those, or the speed-blur Bad Brains punk of "!!!!!!!," or the drum'n'bass backdrop of poet Amiri Baraka's "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)" can seem self-consciously eclectic, it's also true that Phrenology is one of those albums where the indulgences and far-out experiments make it that much more fascinating, whether they work or not. Plus, slamming grooves like "Rock You," "Thought @ Work," and the aforementioned "The Seed (2.0)" keep things exciting and vital. If this really is the future of hip-hop, then the sky is the limit. [The two hidden bonus tracks are "Rhymes and Ammo," the Talib Kweli collaboration that appeared on Soundbombing, Vol. 3, and "Something to See," another techno-inflected jam.] ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide