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Common's here to have a good time, no strings attached, with uneven results.
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As was the case with John Legend, who beamed into the club on his latest, the initial effect is jarring, even in its star's capable hands. But it also settles in nicely.
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The MC turns largely to the Neptunes for music, and their lithe, bombastic space-porno sonatas provide a vitality and playfulness he’s still capable of matching. But a string of increasingly awkward and thoroughly ludicrous sex jams finds him slapping asses, and may leave his devotees smacking their foreheads.
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Not many of the Neptunes' beats really challenge Common, and his rhymes seem uncharacteristically empty.
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His flow remains arguably one of the greatest out there; it would just be nice for him to have a bit more faith in his own mind, rather than those of our uber-producers.
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Universal Mind Control seems to move Common backward instead of forward, which for a lyricist of his caliber is truly disappointing.
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Universal Mind Control gets stuck in the same rut as so many other booty-jam records do: It's not all that memorable.
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MojoThe first side's carnal workouts are muscular of beat, but let down by Common's awkward dirty-talk....The more 'conscious' ssecond half plays better. [Feb 2009, p.106]
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So there’s no shortage of sick beats, but Common’s decision to dumb down his rhymes to a rude and rudimentary level comes off horribly crass at best and at worst downright embarrassing.
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Common’s inability to sound sincere about a man he spent two years championing is the most telling part of this consciously shallow caricature of hip-hop’s dregs.
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We're approaching the dead of winter and are in the middle of a recession, and Universal Mind Control isn't helping.
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[comon] managed to record a whole ten scenes, I mean tracks, over the course of the year, and at least three of them are listenable.
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Huh? A Common album without a soul-jazz opener? Well, rap's deep thinker wanted to make club bangers. So he got the Neptunes to shape this sexed-up set.
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Although Universal Mind Control represents a serious step backward from the successes of his recent projects with Kanye, it would be remiss to say the album is the death knell for Common's career or that he has fallen off in any significant way.
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On his eighth solo album, Common stops trying to save the world and uplift the human spirit, and gets in touch with his inner freak, with results that are often more bewildering than sexy.
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It’s a blatant mismatch, Mr. Williams’s blunt-force id with Common’s casual gravity. The Neptunes, who produce seven of the 10 songs here, treat Common as an obstacle to be worked around, which, in fairness, he is.
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Under The RadarHe is a mimic of fine abilities, but he has always sounded like whatever group he’s glommed onto.
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In fact, the flair that is championed on most Common albums is absent, leaving a vapid display of good ideas with unenthused delivery. This nonchalance has placed Universal Mind Control’s release, regardless of its intentions, in poor form, doing little for progressing Common’s ability.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 32
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Mixed: 13 out of 32
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Negative: 6 out of 32
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May 17, 2021
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Jun 3, 2011
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PeterFJul 10, 2009