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crazy itch radio basement jaxx

Basement Jaxx: Crazy Itch Radio

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by daniel saunders

It’s been said before and replicated as the forethought of every review since the release of their second album, but Basement Jaxx, at this very point in their career, are the epitome of stagnate content. Keeping a lock on those unhelpful boundry pushing ambitions, this is fodder for the fans churned out by an extraordinarily efficient machine. Crazy Itch Radio is all programmed beats, obnoxious vocals and MIDI instrumentals – frankly, it’s pure Basement Jaxx. Meaning, was what Basement Jaxx were something you enjoyed and wished to continue?

The album begins with new single ‘Hush Boy’ and it’s the typical 'Jaxx tune that is replicated throughout: two hooks that drive a steel wedge between your ears and good reasoning accompanied by moment after moment of impossibly trite composition. If it weren’t for talk of fajitas and an awful rap, its chorus could be tolerable.

And it’s that frustrating 'can’t live with it, could manage without it' feeling that denies Crazy Itch Radio any kind of longevity or facet that can be adored. The ragga dancehall number ‘Run For Cover’ will be a popular staple of live shows, with a tribal rhythm begging for the main stage at Glastonbury. But lyrics about something “minging” – ironic or not – irritate far beyond the allowance of intolerability made for the 'Jaxx. And don’t even get me started on the colloquial interludes…

There’s one surprise however: a big-beat yodel in the form of ‘Take Me Back To Your House’. Really. No doubt it’ll be the one track worshiping fans will exhibit as an example of the band’s diversity, but it nonetheless represents progression in the same manner as politicians move along: thinly-veiled, fleeting and in six words.

If you boarded the good ship 'Jaxx back in the Nineties, Crazy Itch Radio won’t see you throwing yourself overboard any time soon. If you were waving it away from the shore, though, this won’t see you splashing your way through the sea to catch up. You were very much in the right, actually – is that a metaphorical iceberg I see approaching?

  • Basement Jaxx 6 / 10

if i hear 'where's your head at?'

one more time, i may be forced to throw myself from the highest building i can find, slitting my wrists as i tumble.

this lot are insanely popular. i don't really get their appeal. the obnoxious vocals (as you so aptly describe them) which plague all of their tunes these days, absolutely do my head in. but i do know where my head is at, before you ask.


where's your head at

makes sense as a lyric, and a tune, when you're off your tits and sweaty dancing at 4 in the morning...


Basement Jaxx make me happy

I know each album is 'more of the same', but it's a varied 'more of the same' and I'll be getting this when I get paid...


Urgh...

Basement Jaxx