Inner Circle Fan

This album is more rap than reggae, no group comes close to inner circle when it comes to reggae. Hopefully this will be their last rap album.

Return of the Pop-Reggae Circle

When I heard such great names as Buju Banton, Stephen Marley and Beenie Man were featured on the upcoming CD by Inner Circle I was excited to say at least. And, after their great previous release 'Big Tings' (VP/2000) I thought Inner Circle had forgotten about poppy sing-along sounds and clever production and moved to a more contemporary R'n'B-fused reggae sound. The single-CD release 'Kool Operator' presented decent, danceable mixes of their upcoming single, so there was nothing to worry about, right?

Wrong. 'Kool Operator' (the album) is nowhere near 'Big Tings'. The theme here is having a good time in the summer and resembles more their European 1998 release "Jamaika Me Crazy". That's all nice and good, but 'Kool Operator' clearly falls short of both those records. The songs are overproduced and filled with too many sound effects leaving the drums, bass line and riddim guitar somewhere in the distant background rendering all but a few tracks non-danceable. There are too many sugary love songs that deliver nothing, and Skatta's rapping/toasting needs a Jamaican accent to work with the island sounds, like in the otherwise decent 'Reggae Mon' where Kris Bently sometimes even sounds like Jacob Miller, the man who should have influenced this record much more.

What about the guests then? Banton toasts nicely on the remix of 'Kool Operator', but the production is otherwise flat, nothing like on the single-CD release. Beenie Man's appearance on 'Jump Right In (Remix)' is reused from 'You Got Da', a track released on 'Big Tings' in 2000.

The true gem of the album is 'Smoke Gets In My Eyes' with Stephen Marley, but mostly due to this great singer/producer, not the band. Hopefully the band will work with Stephen more closely to learn how to produce good songs right.

As a big fan this record really disappointed me. Without doubt this record was supposed to do to Inner Circle what 'Hotshot' did for Shaggy, but perhaps the band is getting too old. Being together since the late 60's (minus the 6 years in the 80's) is admirable and there are many, many good songs and albums they have put out during the years. Maybe it's that I personally have grown tired of pop-reggae, but even that can be done well like Circle did in the early 90's. Those songs still make me jam, these don't.

Nuff said. 3 stars mainly because of the nifty guest appearances, a couple of jamming tunes and some clever production ideas.

What Happened?

After being swept off my feet by 'Big Tings' I was excited to grab this album. Boy, was I dissapointed. Much respect to Inner Circle but this album has problems. The title track is pretty good but that's it. Listening and reading the lyrics (which should not have been included) I could not help feeling that this album was made for 13 yr old girls. Conscious lyrics were completely tossed aside. From a serious reggae standpoint, I hope Inner Circle finds a different focus for new material. What were they thinking?