Product Description

On their second album, the Fugees utilise a couple of the mid-'90s trends in hip-hop--cinematic construct and references to Asian fighting techniques. But THE SCORE transcends much of the genre's recent output, because it's as much about musicality as it is about beats. In fact, deep beats often take a back seat to tense, noir grooves. More importantly, allthree rappers--Haitian males, Wyclef and Pras, and New Jerseyite female, Lauryn Hill--swing hard, syncopating around the beats like jazz instrumentalists, making THE SCORE a complex and challenging listen.
THE SCORE also boasts some of the most intelligent, non-exclusionary rhymes in recent memory. Wyclef claims to "run through Crown Heights/Screaming out Mazel Tov" and Hill draws parallels between herself and both Nina Simone and Elliot Ness. Too politically astute and musically talented to fall into the ruts of rap cliches and dependence on overused samples, the Fugees are placing a significant, personalised stamp on the direction of hip-hop.

Track Listing

1. Red Intro
2. How Many Mics
3. Ready Or Not
4. Zealots
5. Beast
6. Fu Gee La
7. Family Business
8. Killing Me Softly
9. Score
10. Mask
11. Cowboys
12. No Woman No Cry
13. Manifesto/Outro
14. Fu Gee La
15. Fu Gee La
16. Mista Mista
17. Fu Gee La

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5681 in Music
• Released on: 1996-02-13
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Their remake of "Killing Me Softly" was the hit, but that's only the beginning of the story. A hip-hop trio whose talents reach out into the world of the pop song (Wyclef Jean is a fine guitar player, and Lauryn Hill's a heck of a singer), the Fugees are also all distinctive, inventive rappers--you find yourself waiting for each of them to take the next verse in turn. The beats are the familiar crossed-armed boom-bip, but the group's understated grooves and subtle effects lie low in the mix. Aside from two kicky covers of classics (the other is Marley's "No Woman, No Cry"), The Score's focus is on the stars' rhyming with the free-form grace of performance poets and showing that they have thought deeply about the issues they raise. --Douglas Wolk

From Amazon.com
Their remake of "Killing Me Softly" was the hit, but that's only the beginning of the story. A hip-hop trio whose talents reach out into the world of the pop song (Wyclef Jean is a fine guitar player, and Lauryn Hill's a heck of a singer), the Fugees are also all distinctive, inventive rappers--you find yourself waiting for each of them to take the next verse in turn. The beats are the familiar crossed-armed boom-bip, but the group's understated grooves and subtle effects lie low in the mix. Aside from two kicky covers of classics (the other is Marley's "No Woman, No Cry"), The Score's focus is on the stars' rhyming with the free-form grace of performance poets and showing that they've thought deeply about the issues they raise. --Douglas Wolk

Customer Reviews

This is what Hip Hop is about
The Fugees created a genius album. The Score, for me is what Hip Hop music should be about. The lyrics are clever, the beats are amazing, and I look at so called Hip Hop nowadays and it dosent even come close to this. Amazing album. Brings back memories.

Great singles, the album tracks? Hmmmm....
Don't get me wrong, the singles from this are fantastic (Killing me softly, Ready or not, etc), so buying it on the strength of those seemed like a bit of a no-brainer. How wrong I was. Apart from The Mask, the rest of the tracks are pretty poor and the talky bits between them only suceed in annoying the listener.

I'm all for a bit of swearing when it's appropriate, but it just seemed to be for the sake of it. As for the track Mista Mista, couldn't quite figure out if it was serious or not. I'll leave that decision to someone else. I paid 1p for the CD second hand, so I guess it was worth it for the singles!

Handful of great tracks, but overall average
I originally purchased this CD off the back of songs such as "Fu-Gee-La" and "Ready or Not" which I had heard many times on the radio and enjoyed. Sadly, it is clear why these songs received the airplay the others did not.

While not particular bad, most of the album is fairly average with a few high points such as the two tracks mentioned above.

The best part of this album is the 2nd CD which is full of remixes and live versions of tracks from the first CD including a live recording of "Killing Me Softly" from Brixton Academy and "No Woman, No Cry" with Steve Marley.

The most annoying part of the album for me is the meaningless talk that takes over at the end of many tracks, which I find irritating enough to make me skip to the next track.

On the whole this is not a bad album, but not great either.