Send "Buck 65 " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 Don't get too fooled by the J-Kwon-esque stomp of album opener "Superstars Don't Love" - this is Buck's folkiest album yet, and arguably his most introspective, with Regina Spektor being as important an influence as any other rap act. Wait, haven't we heard this before? Yes, we have, in reviews for 2005's muted Secret House Against the World; and for the most part, 20 Odd Years feels like an attempt to right the wrongs of that album. Fair enough, Secret House wasn't a bad album at all, but it lacked a little energy, seemed a little directionless, and didn't have any real standouts to match tracks like "The Centaur", "463", and "Wicked & Weird". These weren't fatal flaws, but they were flaws all the same, and 20 Odd Years sees Buck determined to fix them. Impressively, it also sees him succeeding. The 1-2 punch on the album, that shows most clearly why this is so much better than Secret House is "Stop" and "Zombie Delight". "Stop", which features vocals from Juno nominee Hannah Georgas, is probably Buck's most radio-friendly song ever, with a chorus not a million miles from the last two Killers album, yet it crashes suddenly into an electric blues riff that underpins an all-too literal song about a zombie invasion that is a hair's breadth away from using the old 'she only wanted me for my brains' joke. This track is typical Buck, funny and witty and weird, and having it right after the track most likely to alienate his fans makes a huge difference to the way the album flows. Even more importantly, it's one of several touches that means that Buck's own personality always shines through regardless of the material or the mood. That's the best feature of 20 Odd Years. Tracks like "Gee Whiz" and "Paper Airplane" could easily have been dirges, but the lyrics are still smart enough to be amusing, or at least interesting - and there's always room for an old school scratch-fest in "Lights Out" or a track like the stylish, sleek, genre-defying "Cold Steel Drum". Then again, sometimes it's hard not just to say that the songs are straight-up better - observe "Who By Fire", which could easily have made it onto the first Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell album, or "She Said Yes", a sequel of sorts to Talkin' Honky Blues' "Tired Out". It's always exciting to hear an artist that sounds like they'd succeed no matter what they turned their mind to, and that seems to know it too, and 20 Odd Years falls into that category as squarely and as surely as Talkin' Honky Blues did. It's not as good as that album, but that it captures the same thrill is enough. At 39 years of age, 19 years after he debuted, Buck is still on top of his game....full text |
| Popmatters |
| Canada, it cannot be denied, can be a funny place. As a country, it produces hockey players, Hollywood comedians, suburban teen-pop heartthrobs and various other figures of lesser or greater note. It (or a maritime portion of it called Nova Scotia) has also produced a musical artist like Buck 65 (real, unassuming name: Richard Terfry), a furious intermingler of rural sensibilities, urban indie culture, rock attitude, deadpan humor and old-school hip-hop who has creatively finagled his way to national recognition and international acclaim. Not only has Canada birthed a white MC from a strongly Celtic local musical culture who rhymes about baseball, beat-up trucks, and well-endowed centaurs, but it has also granted him a position as a radio DJ on its government-funded media lynchpin, the CBC. One hates to generalize, but Canada, like Buck 65, is wicked and weird. But then Terfry’s mix of subcultural influences is Canada’s, too—a dizzying, post-modern, multicultural stew, the ingredients of which you wouldn’t want to have enumerated for you even if it was possible to do so. That strange brew aside, there is something to be said for the persuasive power of longevity, and Terfry has certainly achieved longevity. Hence the title of his latest release, 20 Odd Years, is a characteristically punning reference to his two decades as a working musician. Compiled from four digital/vinyl EPs released at one-month intervals through last summer, 20 Odd Years bears out the mantra Buck 65 spits out to complete the title of the album-opening stomper “Superstars Don’t Love”: “they play”. This album shows Buck not only at play, but also reconciling himself to the concept of his own (admittedly limited) superstardom. “Superstars Don’t Love” tackles these ideas directly in between Buck’s trademarked geeky collage of word-images, contrasting the overwhelming and destructive fame of Michael Jackson with his own ironic mirror-image of capitalism’s celebrity feedback loop: “livin’ life just like in the commercial.”...full text |
| Chartattack |
| 20 Odd Years represents an interesting mile marker for a man who's spent the last two decades restlessly trying to define his relationship with both hip-hop and music in general. Buck 65 has always seemed intent on positioning himself as the rapping lineal descendent of folk singers and storytellers; a sophisticate Stompin' Tom Connors more interested in songs about Edgar Allen Poe than potatoes. Weighed against a discography highlighted by concept albums about the year 1957 (Situation), sonic adventures with Tortoise (Secret House Against The World) and a brief period where Buck supposedly wasn't going to make proper albums anymore (Strongarm mixtape, Dirtbike series), 20 Years just might be Buck 65's most conventional pop record, well, ever. It was composed in part from a series of four EPs released over the last eight months, and eschews the purposefully arty bent of Buck's past work in favour of big name guest stars (The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie, Islands' Nick Thornburn) and a whole cast of angel-voiced singers on the hooks (Jenn Grant, Hannah Georgas, France's Olivia Ruiz, Montreal's Marie-Pierre Arthur). Cheeky anthem "Zombie Delight" might be good enough to challenge Boris Pickett's "Monster Mash" on an all-time Halloween super-song list. Meanwhile, "Whispers Of The Waves," the track with Downie, plays out like the equally riveting companion piece to "The Drowning Machine" from the Hip-ster's most recent solo album. The two songs are amongst the best things the man born Richard Terfry has ever done. From there, 20 Odd Years becomes The Jenn Grant Show, with Buck basically setting her up to get otherworldly on three separate compelling tracks. These songs, more than any of Buck's past work, stand the best chance of resonating with his recently cultivated CBC Radio 2 following. So, does this all mean Buck 65 is finally mainstreaming? Not likely — there's a song on here with John Southworth, and if history has taught us anything, it's that whatever he touches will never be normal. What Buck 65 music will sound like in the next 20 years, however, is something that can't be answered so readily....full text |
Buck 65 lyrics Music videoclips
|
| ||||||||||
