MUSIC REVIEW - Lord T & Eloise

Lord T & Eloise – Chairman of the Bored

The promotional material for Chairman of the Bored included the following description:

“... the world's first purveyors of 'aristocrunk', combining
the traditional crunk Memphis sound with elements of
baroque to create a new and unique sound…”

This is the second album by the duo, and was produced and features some guest rapping from MysterE. Overall the album strays somewhat from its ‘baroque’ trappings and becomes party and crunk rap. There are notable exceptions – “Coup d’Etat” and “High Horse” are catchy and unusual rap songs featuring at least samples of orchestral music, if not the structure. Lord T also shows a great amount of virtuosity in his rhymes, and his style (imitating? an old-school northeastern snob) blends well with the music. The music itself is well mixed and has a fair amount of variety, even within one song. However, while the music and rhymes are relatively innovative, the themes are not unique at all – the entire album can be summarized by ‘we’re rich’.

Some other highlights: “Dance Move” – a good party song; “The Yacht” – play immediately before “I’m On A Boat”; “Chemicals” – purposefully jarring song about, um, chemicals; “Le Connoisseur” – sampling a slow jazz piece, I like it.

There are also some notable low points – “Palm Beach” and “Kinky” are repetitive and not very catchy at all. But, the majority of the 20 songs on the album are decent or good rap. While there are more original artists out there, Lord T & Eloise are definitely a welcome duo, mainly for their attempts to expand the genre.

Will I play it on my show? Probably. RIYL - A pop lock and dropping aristocracy.

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