Santogold “Santogold” Review

An album loosely seeded in countless stages of pop music from the past thirty years, Santogold is a determined effort that shamelessly caters to trend while also defying its own predictability. Here are four reactions, four impressions, four takes on Santogold’s Santogold.

While genre-blending has long been a pop music clichè—pretty much everyone does it these days in some form or another; few have been able to pull it off as seamlessly or as effectively as Santogold however. You could listen to this album as a funky trip hop album, a dark 1980′s pop throwback, a new-wave-dub-punk experiment, or whatever else. Santi White inhabits the same weird, alternative pop universe as Gnarls Barkley, N.E.R.D. and M.I.A., though her closest musical analogue is probably the criminally slept-on Res. Indeed, White had a large hand in constructing Res’ 2001 masterpiece How I Do, and she builds upon that very solid foundation for her transcendent debut solo album as Santogold. Armed with a biting wit, a hypnotic, sharp-edged voice and a knack for pop songwriting reminiscent of Gwen Stefani, White makes music that feels simultaneously new and exciting yet eminently approachable—it’s not revolutionary music, but in today’s musical landscape, it kind of sounds like it is. The album’s consistency and cohesiveness make it my favorite release so far this year. [Kyle "Guante" Myhre]

The album cover for Santogold’s self titled release has a picture of her vomiting out gold dust, and while every track she is throwing out there might not be pure gold, most of them come together to form a pretty respectable solo debut. The strength of singer Santi White’s album is its diversity, the album’s influences ranging from new wave to punk to electro to dancehall. The dub step baseline to “Shove It” could have easily been lifted from King Tubby’s closet while “Lights Out” acts as White’s ode to Kim Deal. Despite the musical collage, White manages to leave her mark with every song, mostly due to the strength of her personality coming through in such fiercely uncompromising lyrics as “I’ve got to be unstoppable.” We’ll find out just how unstoppable Santogold is when the current 1980s dance music craze runs out of steam (it has to at some point, right?), I for one will be looking forward to seeing where she goes from there. [Jon Behm]

The initial draw of Santogold’s eponymous debut is heavily based on that of the album’s lead single, “L.E.S. Artistes,” a song that has enough widespread appeal to own up to the title of being this year’s “Crazy.” Having said that, the appeal of the remainder of the album comes from its ability to inflate various abstract pieces that are slowly beginning to epitomize modern popular music. I continually fall back to a thought that was raised by Soul Sides‘ Oliver Wang when he was evaluating last year’s Kala for NPR, relating the sounds of the album to a vastly more important trend, “At a time when globalization is both dissolving and reinforcing national identities, M.I.A.’s music speaks from a blurry borderland through a lingua franca of agitated, propulsive pop.” Maybe it is no coincidence then that M.I.A.’s friend Santi White has created something so closely related last year’s blockbuster. Santogold doesn’t have the genuine edginess of its equally hyped contemporary but it may serve as an urbanized equivalent to M.I.A.’s guerrilla manifesto. Equal parts reinvention and innovation Santogold is an album that is too easy to avoid yet too creative to ignore. [Chris DeLine]

Over the past week, Santogold’s debut has become one of my favorite releases of the year so far—even despite the fact that its scope is a bit off the wall and the track flow might not necessarily be very cohesive. But as Santi White and her crew’s styles are so across the board, the success of this record is definitely based on its many influences of indie rock, blippy 80′s nostalgia and its flashes of reggae, hip-hop and electronica. I get all kinds of comparisons out of this: “L.E.S. Artistes” could easily be a Tegan and Sara song; the only thing separating the two is the additional inflection. “Creator” has been getting M.I.A. comparisons from the get-go, but I would say that I like it just as much, if not a little more than (most of) the tracks off Kala last year. That aforementioned 80′s nostalgia comes through with me especially on “Lights Out”—as if it could be lost Missing Persons track as her voice has a very pleasantly sweet combination of Dale Bozzio or even a Kate Bush. Occasionally, when White sings in her lower vocal range I get a hint of Madonna, but in a way more refreshing way than anything Mrs. Ritchie is doing right now. “Starstruck” resides in a dreamy, trance-like place with as it fades in and out with a charm that really sets it apart from anything I have heard all year—just like the album itself. I will just have to sit back and wait with much anticipation for what Santi White will do next. No matter what, it promises to be exciting. [Review by guest contributor Jen Paulson]

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Also: Santogold on Later…with Jools Holland