Track Listing

1. Ferris Wheel
2. Soul Power
3. Aquarius
4. Electric Wire Hustle Flower
5. The Hustle
6. Come Close To Me
7. New Wave
8. Star * 69 (PS With Love)
9. I Got A Right Ta
10. Between Me, You & Liberation
11. I Am Music
12. Jimi Was A Rock Star
13. Heaven Somewhere
14. The Light

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28867 in Music
• Released on: 2002-12-23
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Running time: 76 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Rock & roll has grabbed Common by the neck and given him a good shake. With its heavy, multi-layered sound, Electric Circus is steeped in the Chicago-born and Brooklyn-based rapper's newfound love for Pink Floyd, Traffic and, above all, Jimi Hendrix. But, like many new converts to anything, Common goes a little off the deep end. His ambitious quest to expand the boundaries of hip-hop is crammed to the gills with a thousand motifs and is a little too busy to be a complete success. Perhaps not surprisingly, Common's rhymes (sample lyric: "my mind screams like Al Green to stay together!") take a distant second place to the complex musical landscape he's fashioned. In addition, a sidereal array of vocalists (including Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier, Mary J Blige, Jill Scott, Cee-lo, Bilal and Common's main squeeze, Erykah Badu) and musicians (Prince, Bobbi Humphrey, Nicholas Payton) add to the sonic density. All in all, Electric Circus mightn't strike the universal chord that Common sought, but it's a bold, elaborate project that's definitely worth a listen. --Rebecca Levine

CD Description
'Electric Circus' is the fifth album from the Chicago basedrapper, Common. Recorded in Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios, the album is a mix of hip hop and R&B and was produced by the Neptunes, and the Roots' Questlove. The album also features guest appearances from Prince, Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu, and Stereolab's Laetitra Sadier, to name but a few.

Customer Reviews

It does make sense...
Being a big fan of his previous work i was expecting a CD in a very similar vain. Reading the comments from other users it did seem as if this album would be slightly different - but i figured it would inevitably just be slightly funkier.

Upon looking at the CC it becomes immediately apparent that he has collaborated with pretty much anyone of note on the album - Erykah Badu, Mary J Blige, Omar and Bilal just to name a few. And its pretty much every track.

First listen of the album and the reaction was 'what the hell?' I pretty much hated it. One or 2 tracks did stand out (most notable track 10) but apart from that it just sounded over produced with far too much going on in each song and definitely a huge step away from his previous efforts of chilled out beats and stunning lyrics. I was very disappointed and put it to one side.

But i felt it deserved another airing last week and threw it in the car .. once again i didnt like it much .. but rather then skipping forward to the next track i persevered with each track in turn. It was then i discovered how amazing the album is.

To put such an album together with such a variety of sounds, collaborators and tunes really takes a special person - COmmon is that person. The album is still a mix of style - but thats good. We have become conditioned to listening to one type of album .. to throw it all out fo the window and try several different styles on one album is really brave - but it works ... and works well.

So in short buy the album and listen to it a few times .. and as always with Common - its all about the lyrics.

An unCommon album
Okay, this is a fantastic hip-hop album. But that's what it is - a hip-hop album. While Amazon, as well as others, have characterized Electric Circus as some sort of genre-bending novelty, it is not. It is what hip-hop should be.

It's original, yes. It's got some guitar chords thrown in there and it gets a little spacey at times (not in a boring way), but at its core it is a hip-hop album. Thumping beats, Common's impeccable rhymes and, like I said, the fact that it doesn't sound like everything else out there earn it an easy five stars.

Along with The Roots' Phrenology, Hi-Tek's Hiteknology, Talib Kweli's High Quality and Slum Village's Trinity albums (guess there's an odd theme of albums ending in "y"), this ranks in the top five hip-hop albums of 2002. I just bought it a couple of days ago, so right now I'd put it number one, but I get euphoric about these things.

One of the most original masterpieces in Hip Hop
For the followup to 'Like Water For Chocolate' Common has teamed up with The Soulquarians again and they prove to be a winning team again.
'Electric Circus' sounds nothing like LWFC. It still has the same soul in it but Common & Co. added a lot of psycedelic influences in it. The result is an eclectic album that is inspired by a lot of old music but still sounds modern and inovative at the same time.
The biggest surprise of the album is 'Electric Wire Hustler Flower' wich features members from the NuMetal-unit P.O.D.: somehow this unusual and, lets just face it, discouraging combination proves to be one of the best tracks on the album.
This may not be everyone's cup of tea but 'Electric Circus' is one of those albums that shows how much unexplored teritory there still is in Hip Hop.