Benny Benassi's newest artist album‚ Electroman‚ is the fifth artist album to be released by the Grammy award winning Italian electro house producer. He has kept his signature sound with with a few really catchy tunes and a few that I would rather forget. Collaborations with different artist yielded some great club tracks, while he also created some some instrumental that can definitely stand on their own..
If you enjoy electro house, you will be happy with this serving of tasty songs
Launching the album with a strong bassline, "Good Girl," feels like classic Benassi with a monotone voice repeating a loop of different dog commands. The two singles, "Cinema" and "Beautiful People," really stand out. "Cinema" features vocals from edgy British singer and is a well written dance song with clever word plays like "you are a cinema, I could watch you forever." The bouncing basslines and auto melodies of Chris Brown make "Beautiful People" is another massive clubhit, especially with the sick mixes by Skrillex and Lenny B.
Sometimes Less brings more Satisfaction
Instrumental tracks really caught my attention because they seemed to have even more energy. "House Music," with the simplistic title as the sole vocal refrain, ends up focussing on getting the energy levels through the roof. PLaying this track in a club definitely gets the crowd jumping up and down (and will do wonders for an aerobics class as well.) Similar in style, "Automatic" has great buildips and breakdowns while Benny attacks your ears with stabbing synths and funky beats.
Other times big names don't equal big songs
It seems as though Benny decided to follow the trend of featuring rap/hip hop artists even through it's clearly apparent that more traditional vocalists seem better collaboration choices. The title track Electroman featuring T-Pain stands out as one of the weaker tracks on the album. The lyrical flow feels cluttered and goes down right cheesy. It seems obvious that the track was chosen for the album solely for crossover potential due to T-pain's popularity. "Spaceship" also seems to suffer from the rapping of Black Eyed Pea's apl.de.ap even though the song has a great chorus sung by Kelis. Every time I hear "Jump on the Spaceship, Take off," I really just want to change the song. Yes, I understand that dance music often has cheesy lyrics, but it seems to be more laziness of the topline writers lyrics than anything else. In "My House‚" the chorus brings the song together, however there are a few lines that are made to sound like ranting which just feels like it's off beat and uneven.
Conclusion
In this day and age to write an entire album that appeals to everyone is very difficult. While others may enjoy the songs that I did not, they may skip the tracks that I might play over a few times. Overall this is a solid electro house album at its core. With some big room songs as well as some that would get the night started out right, it is what it is. Fans of "Satisfaction" and Benny Bennassi's other past productions definitely need to check out Electroman. If he is a new name to you, go back and listen to "Satisfaction" and then explore the new cd with an open mind and hopefully you find some tracks that connect with your taste in music.