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Freeplay: Fairmount Fair
By Cassie Hood
hoodc@mscd.edu

It’s hard to imagine hip-hop without first picturing tricked-out rides with heavy-hitting stereos bumping raps about big-booty women and getting crunked up. However, for Fairmount Fair, butts and crunks rarely enter the picture.

The focus of their songs on I Can’t Hear You When I’m Dancing: Redux varies from Otter Pops to fishing, microphones to rapping. They embrace the silliness that most rap or hip-hop lacks.

Fairmount Fair is vocally similar to The Beastie Boys, but their lyrics aren’t nearly as fast, and their voices aren’t quite as high-pitched. Fairmount set themselves apart from other rap groups by mixing in a plethora of sounds and instruments.

“Redux” starts out with basic drumbeats and scratching electronic sounds. At one point an electric violin starts playing, and then mixes in what sounds like stomping. Toward the end, a straining guitar plays with a kazoo. Much like their instrumentation, the vocals on the track are anything but serious, with lyrics such as, “let’s do the dirty hobbit now,” or, “do the leprechaun.”

Keyboards are the main focus on “Otter Pops ARE AWESOME!” The song starts with two guys talking about eating Otter Pops, then breaks into a rap about which flavor is the best. While they do venture into other topics, they continue to go back to the different colors of the frozen pops, making this song the perfect jingle for an Otter Pops commercial.

“The Brian Crews Show” is a track that gets a tad annoying. Featuring beat boxing and a single drumbeat, the main lyrics “My name is Brian and I like fishing,” wear the nerves down, but luckily this track is an anomaly on the album.

Their raps aren’t intense or serious; however, I Can’t Hear You When I’m Dancing: Redux offers fun, light and airy songs, making it the perfect summer soundtrack for driving with the windows down on a 90-degree day.