Street Sweeper Social Club “Street Sweeper Social Club” Review

In theory, Street Sweeper Social Club should be the album of the year. Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello is one of the best riff-constructors in recent memory, both a virtuoso guitarist and a solid pop song arranger, and the Coup’s Boots Riley is one of the wittiest, most politically astute, most talented rappers in the country.

Instead, however, SSSC is a textbook example of how supergroups so often equal less than the sum of their parts. It’s a solid album, but nowhere near as engaging as Rage Against the Machine or the Coup. At best, it sounds exactly like the side-project that it is; at worst, it sounds like an amateur mash-up.

The main problem really boils down to pure sonics. Riley’s voice is tailor made for drifting over funky, west-coast hip hop production. His Bay-area twang and laid-back delivery share a lot more with Snoop Dogg, Too Short and E-40 than with the likes of Rage’s Zach de la Rocha. And Morello’s guitar-driven rock/hip hop needs a vocalist with a little edge and grittiness to his voice, like de la Rocha. SSSC succeeds when Morello dials it back a notch and lets Riley’s voice take center stage, but those moments are fleeting.

Boots Riley himself isn’t exactly in top form as a lyricist here either. While his ability to tell stories, realize concept songs and tackle complex issues through hip hop is virtually unmatched, he’s reduced here to a sloganeer. On past Coup songs like “Heven Tonite,” “Me and Jesus the Pimp in a ’79 Granada Last Night” and “Wear Clean Draws,” Riley demonstrated an uncanny ability to not just talk about the problems that face the world, but really humanize them, to put faces (sometimes his own) on political issues and make them come to life. With SSSC however, he’s pretty much just saying “fuck the police” over some loud guitars. There’s value in that, but he can do so much more as a writer.

It doesn’t help that the songs feel like they were written specifically for the live show, with hooks that might be fun when chanted in front of a thousand people yet fall embarrassingly flat on the album (“Megablast! It’s a Megablast!”). Sometimes Riley gets overly caught up in his own rhyme schemes too, a trait that’s easier to ignore when it’s over classic Coup production yet sticks out over the slower, sometimes plodding rock/rap of SSSC.

All that being said however, this album is mostly just a disappointment because of the “what could have been” factor. It’s still solid, and much better than most politically-oriented music out there (not that there’s much to choose from these days). Riley still has rock-solid politics (you never have to worry about him ruining a song by adding a random homophobic or sexist remark in the midst of all the radical progressivism) and gets off a few killer one-liners, and Morello’s riffs are as catchy as ever. “100 Little Curses,” “The Squeeze” and “Somewhere in the World it’s Midnight” are all notable tracks.

But unfortunately when you’ve heard one of them, you’ve pretty much heard the whole album. I wanted to love the Street Sweeper Social Club, and I still encourage everyone to check out Rage’s and especially the Coup’s respective back-catalogs. This album, however, will likely go down as a minor footnote in two long and brilliant careers.

Purchase | Official | MySpace | Wikipedia

Also: Street Sweeper Social Club on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon