Review: Citizen Cope - "Every Waking Moment"

Citizen Cope - "Every Waking Moment"
(Arista, 2006)

When he's at his best, Citizen Cope (otherwise known to the world as Clarence Greenwood) is a hip-hop folk troubadour, using his unique raspy sing-song delivery to hit a listener hard where it hurts with his lyrics. When he's at his worst, on songs like "Every Waking Moment" off the album of the same title, Greenwood lulls listeners into a stupor with songs that could be great but which settle for Jack Johnson-esque mediocrity. And a lack of attention to good album structure leaves the middle of this effort a bland wasteland which is likely to turn off all but his biggest fans before most get the chance to hear the best material.

"Back Together," Every Waking Moment's opening track, sparkles with the musical and lyrical depth that makes Cope a personal favorite, and the song is a must-download. But the album sputters from there. "Friendly Fire," a song with lyrical depth -- telling the story of an innocent man gunned down -- drowns in a musical cacophony that leaves the song nearly indecipherable. "More Than It Seems" clears out much of that unnecessary background noise, stripping the song down to Greenwood's bare scratchy vocals and a spare acoustic melody. But it flounders as well due to the man's inability to craft an earcatching chorus. The song does a good job of drawing the listener in, but what we're supposed to take from the experience, that's left up in the air.

That's a recurring problem on Every Waking Moment, because as Citizen Cope, Greenwood seems to have forgotten what made songs like "Bullet and a Target," "Son's Gonna Rise," and "Salvation" so earcatching. There are great songs on the album -- "Brother Lee" has the same earnest depth of any of Citizen Cope's biggest indie-radio hits, and is sure to gather a strong audience for the album. And "Back Together" already is doing just that. And "All Dressed Up" comes late on the album, drawing comparisons to "Contact" or "Appetite (For Liquid Dynamite)" off of Citizen Cope.

That song may come too late for many listeners, however, who have already tuned out because most of these songs feature similar vocal and instrumental structures. By the end of the album one has to question whether the message is able to get through the excess noise and the generally blas� arrangements. And when a great instrumental, in "Awe," comes along, it's easy to wonder why it was saved for the end of the album when it could have provided balance to the middle of the album.

Clarence Greenwood's a talented songwriter who deserves to be commended for continually attempting to blend hip hop lyricism with folk and pop construction. But this album's for die-hard fans only. The casual listener would be better served by purchasing Citizen Cope and The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, which provide a more "user-friendly" approach to his genre-bending exercises.