Album Review: Harn Solo – Shooting Star
Shooting Blanks?
A long time ago, Evidence of Dilated Peoples quipped MCs without a voice should write a book. Well, while Harn Solo‘s voice might not be horrible, it’s his lack of understanding as to how to properly use it that makes this record just a bit of a tough listen. It also doesn’t help that Joie De Vivre just put their new record up for listening on Alternative Press today and I’ve been listening to that. I think it’s an awesome record and I mostly listen to ignorant ass rap music. They’re awesome guys and it is a kickass record.
The production on Shooting Star is pretty well composed. Pro Prospek does a damn fine job providing multilayered beats that have a pretty kickass vibe. However, it’s Harn’s over emphasis of his lyrics that make the music less than what it could be. He’s teetering right there on the border of Slick Rick’s smoother than polished granite delivery and the overly nasal vocal tone that almost every white rapper inherently has. Some lines he’s the embodiment of Slick Ricky, on other lines he’s not so easy to listen to.
Harn mixes in some pretty dope pop culture references. This is most evident on Marvelous, where he lets his nerdy side show amidst tons of comic book references. He does say at one point that he’s … an X-man who has Ray-Ban vision/ I’m the leader of the clan, when I stand they listen. No white guy should ever call themselves the leader of a clan. Also, he made a song called Say Bruh, which from the title alone sounds like an anthem for Keystone swilling frat kids with popped collars. The actual song is an ode to his hometown of New Orleans but there are much more awesome traits of that city to make the focus of a song than a cliched perversion of the already cliched like a motherfucker term of endearment, Bro.
Overall, the record comes off as trying a bit too hard to make music that hipster-hoppers will relate to. I mean come on, the tags on his Bandcamp page include hip hop hipster & hipster. Not to mention, he leads the record off with an ode to Nike shoes. The whole shoe collecting fad stopped being cool about 3-4 years ago. I should know. I at one point had 40 pairs of sneakers that were so brightly colored, they could have competed with the Houston Astro’s jerseys from the 90′s for brightest piece of clothing ever. At a certain point when you wake up and have to spend ten plus minutes deciding which shoes to wear, you begin to question the masculinity of such a hobby as shoe collecting. No insult intended, but my mom and my sister own 40 pairs of shoes. Most men I know do not.
If you can stomach some tryhard references and a Harn’s voice at certain points, this is worth a listen for the production alone. Maybe a couple albums down the line he’ll be more listenable, especially stops trying to specifically pander to hipsters.
Check it out and download it for free below.
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