Description
Jive Electro digs through the vaults again for New School vs Old Scho ol Vol. 2, on which Pimp Juice, Freq Nasty, Propellerheads, Rabbitin the Moon, Groove Amada, Utah Saints and more take on classics from A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One, The Stone Roses and basketball star Shaquille O’Neal. Though not inspired, there are some fine cuts here: Justin Robertson’s spacey, tropical take on the Stone Roses’ “Waterfall” is a welcome take on the song; the Propellerheads are funky and fresh with their take on ATCQ’s “Electric Relaxation”, as are Sir Piers & Si Ashton in their reworking of “Bonita Applebaum”. The Utah Saints do a nice job on the She Rockers’ “On Stage”–if it was around, this version might have been a club hit in the mid-1990s; while Rennie Pilgren does the nigh impossible and makes Will Smith sound gangsta on “Boom Shake the Room”. Unfortunately, much of the remaining tracks here suffer from poor source material (the Fu-shnickens, with or without Shaq) or uninspired re-mixes (Rabbit in the Moon’s take on the Stone Roses’ “I Wanna be Adored”)–or, in some cases both. –Randy Silver