Everything I first liked about the album became quickly tiring and repetitive. In between almost every song, there is an interlude explaining what coconut is. At first I enjoyed them, feeling they created an interesting genesis to the Señor Coconut personae. By song number 15, every interlude sounded the same and I was only half-listening to them. Ditto for the recurrent sampling, which I liked in the interlude “Coconut AM”, because it reminded me of old school hip-hop scratching, but towards the end of the album I found them to be overplayed, really basic sampling.
The word gimmick keeps coming to mind. The electro is not well integrated into the music. I feel as if I’m in a top 40’s night club, where the DJ sporadically scratches the Latin album.
“Behind the mask” is the only song I appreciated on the album. The dark lyrics offer an interesting contrast to the joyous upbeat music. I also enjoyed the singer’s smooth voice. The song “Mambo Numerique” shows openness to different genres, which could have made this album an interesting listen. Unfortunately, it isn’t. The entire album hovers dangerously close to being elevator music. “Simoon” reaches that point with its’ totally unoriginal song structure. “The Madmen” follows shortly after. The chorus, with the lyrics “I follow”, is efficacious. We do feel compelled to follow the singer into the unknown mysteries that lie ahead. Unfortunately for the listener, what lies ahead is even more generic Latin songs.
I first thought I could qualify this as good backdrop music, but after a few listens, the annoying melodies got stuck in my head. So, when would you ever pull out Yellow Fever!? Well, let’s say you have some aunts and uncles over and you want some background music that they will enjoy and that won’t make you suffer too much. Just make sure the place is animated enough so it mostly gets drowned out by conversations.
