Musings From the Back 9: VH1 Reality Albums Edition

Earlier this summer, MTV had two of its reality stars release albums in the same week (see Jamie Kennedy and Cheyenne Kimball) and now MTV for old people, VH1 tries to outdo it with the release of three albums by its reality stars in a two week period. And let’s face it, Vh1 shows some of the guiltiest of the guilty pleasures. The channel started its reality empire when it fleeced The Surreal Life from the now defunct WB in its third season. That was the season that brought us the very first reality show for the greatest hype man in the business, Flavor Flav, who would later go on to star in two spin-offs, Strange Love and Flavor of Love, whose two finales garnered VH1 its two highest ratings in the channel’s history.

And I was one of the seven million that say New York get rejected not once, but twice. The main reason why I sat there week in and week out was because I am a long time fan of Public Enemy and will support the group no matter how trashy the venue is. Okay so the main reason I watched Flavor of Love was I find woman degrading themselves just to get on television entertaining and will stoop so low to hook up with a midget, crack-head on the wrong side of forty just to get screen time. But anyways.

To coincide with the finale of his show, the former William Drayton has released his first solo album that has been in the works for a while. The problem though with a Flavor Flav solo album is that he as his best as the hype man and not the center of attention and just making an occasional comment to Chuck D’s political words. Yeah 911 Is a Joke is a classic, but do you really want to hear a whole album full of those types of song? Listening to Flavor Flav answers that question with a no. The bright spot on the album is the production which Flav does most of as well as play most of the instrumentation himself (young Drayton was a trained classical pianist). But really the only song of any interest would be for those that have wanted to get the Flavor of Love theme song that shows up on the album as Flavor-Man.

New to the reality game is Ice-T who has been biding his time in recent years on the set of one of the Law & Order shows. But he got recruited by VH1 to turn eight middle schoolers at a prep school into a rap group. The show is surprisingly heartfelt and okay for the whole family with the Iceman actually doing a good job teaching the kids. But don’t bring the kids to listen to his latest album Gangsta Rap that definitely lives up to the title. The album is the first by Ice-T in seven years and still sounds like vintage Ice which is not necessarily a good thing. I’m sure if I was still a youngster who memorized every gangsta rap album I could get my hands on, this album would be right up my album. Unfortunately I have matured in my old age so nothing really strikes me on the album. And Ice replaces he usual tracks about various women with one about his wife Coco (whose appearance on the cover has gotten the album banned in a few stores) which show a softer side of the man that we haven’t hear on an album yet. But for any of you that love the watered down rap that finds its way to the radio, you may want to check out the album to here what real gangsta rap sounds like.

Then in a completely different musical direct there is the debut album from Brooke Hogan better known as Hulk’s daughter. The Hulkster has been quite open about the reason he signed up for a reality show and that was to advance his daughter’s music career using the VH1 connection to get tickets to various award shows. It eventually paid off when Brooke was the first artist signed to producer Scott Storch’s record label. Storch was also responsible for the production on Hogan’d debut Undiscovered. The album is filled with your token R&B songs over rap beats that oversaturated the market two years ago. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the voice that appears on this album sounds suspiciously like the one that appears on Paris Hilton’s album considering Storch was involved in both projects. This begs the question who’s voice is it, Brooke’s or Paris’, or could it be a third singer all, together? Either way, I smell something fishy and that fish looks strikingly like Milli Vanilli.

Flavor Flav gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

Gangsta Rap gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

Undiscovered gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.