philip sherburne

Huge props to Matthew Perpetua at FluxBlog for posting an MP3 of Ce'Cile's "Rude Bwoy Thug Life", if only for the personal vindication it gives me. I discovered the "Cure" riddim on the Germaican label a year or more ago, and proudly played it out several versions of it at my Sunday night weekly at Dalva, in the Mission -- only to have a hardcore dancehall head scoff and roll his eyes at me. I don't know what he found so illegitimate about it -- the fact that it was German, or the fact that the riddim was based upon The Cure's "Close to Me," and thus way too close to electro-pop nostalgia to avoid suspicion. But that experience was perhaps the first time I experienced the poptimist's humiliation at the hands of a Keeper of Realness. Well come on, all you front-and-fessimists, it's Ce'Cile, for crying out loud -- how much more "real" can you get?

Granted, it's not my favorite Ce'Cile track, and I think that Seeed's jubilant "Release" makes far more effective use of the track's heart-tugging potential. But I do like the way she harmonizes against the track, dragging the refrain of "Man it's so nice" into a minor key while the tune sails on in a blissful major. Actually, the whole tune she sounds like she's swimming upstream, resisting the song's happy drift, determined to reach an altogether different shore. Poptimism = 1, haters = 0!