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Yes, it's as good as the last one, maybe better.
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The album misses the addictive funk of 'Red Alert', the off beat quirks of 'Yo Yo' and the engulfing production depth of 'Same Old Show'. But it's a powerful package and a proof that the Basement Jaxx have the confidence and vision to pursue their own path.
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Basement Jaxx create real songs around their chugging house beats.
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No catchier collection of jingles has come to my attention since Steve Miller made his mint off jet airliners.
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At a time when Fatboy Slim has gone chill-out, Orbital have gone noodly, and Underworld, nd Prodigy seem to have just gone somewhere else, Basement Jaxx are, happily, on hand with another brilliantly messy blueprint for UK dance music - and dance music that you can actually dance to, at that.
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The nerve of it all is breathtaking. Turbo-beats poke up a gospel-jazz revivalist meeting, a mariachi band wanders into the hazy disco sashay of 'Broken Dreams', a Gary Numan sample gets bludgeoned to credibility in the Van Helden-esque pogo of 'Where's Your Head At?'.
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On Rooty, Basement Jaxx refines the ambitious but untidy sprawl of its debut into a carnivalesque mix of two-step, house, funk, and disco with a modern take on George Clinton's late-seventies mission of "rescuing dance music from the blahs."
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Oh, there are moments of pure wonder, to be sure, but they're sandwiched between tracks that either retread old ideas or execute less impressive new ones.
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Rooty revels in exploiting rhythmic combinations that shouldn't work--but definitely do.
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SpinDespite Rooty's many delights, it feels like Basement Jaxx didn't really know how to top Remedy. [Aug 2001, p.127]
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In pursuing the anarchic, joyous mash-up of their debut Remedy to its twisted conclusion, Basement Jaxx find themselves in androgynous, genre-bending territory that is Prince-ly in spirit even when it isn’t in sound.
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BlenderRooty boasts a raw, bustling edge and compulsive experimentalism closer in spirit to the hypersyncopated, R&B-flavored two-step garage currently ruling London clubland. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.104]
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It's no different from the formula that made Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Bores such big hits, but something's different this time around: Basement Jaxx have soul.
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But sound for sound's sake isn't what makes the disc work; it's the recurring female singers, who add forlorn soul to the rhythms.
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Alternative PressEschewing the DJ-friendly club format they perfected on 1999's Remedy, the Jaxx are now writing R&B-flavored pop songs... But their success is hit-and-miss... [Jul 2001, p.60]
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'Rooty' isn't going to change your world - 'Remedy' did that - but it is another indispensable, truly, properly, madly inventive and utterly enjoyable album of the sort that, at the moment, only Basement Jaxx make.
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Basement Jaxx traffics in some of the most shamelessly insistent and inventive beats around.
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Like Remedy, Rooty is either a brilliantly innovative record, or an unlistenable mess, depending on your point of view. To my ear it's somewhere in between, the work of two very talented house producers and songwriters with a taste for old-school sounds that's sometimes entertaining, but often unfortunate.
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Teeters on '80s synth cheese every now and again.
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A few fatal flaws eclipse all of Rooty's abundant qualities. Basement Jaxx have taken kitsch a few steps too far.
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With Rooty they fine-tune their classy thump into a pop-house hybrid that owes something to a little guy named Prince.
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Basement Jaxx do this so much better than anyone else, including Daft Punk, that you root for their mad programed sounds and unknown cast of determined singers. It's totally daft disco, sexy and sweaty, stupid and stupendous. This is pop.
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Rooty is the second straight triumph from a pair of producer/DJs who look set to carry the torch for dancefloor electronica in the years to come.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 20
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Mixed: 0 out of 20
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Negative: 2 out of 20
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JasonB.Jul 30, 2001Very fun to listen to and makes you want to dance in your car.
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Oct 8, 2018Really, who knew dance music can be amazingly sophisticated? Really, who would know?
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BillyBoyMay 18, 2006Where's your head at is a timeless classic. I could listen to that song alone over and over. But the rest of the album is great as well.