Citizen Cope

Drawing on diverse influences such as blues, hip-hop, country and rock, Citizen Cope (real name Clarence Greenwood, the former keyboardist and DJ for the now defunct Basehead) presents his debut album. The music is all performed and produced by Greenwood, and the songs are uniformly tuneful and are driven by Greenwood's vocals. The album has a distinctly American pop feel, although hip-hop, blues and sampling sporadically worm their way into both the vocals and the music. Some of the standouts include the straight-ahead love song "If There's Love," the lamenting ballad "Salvation" and the blues-rock of "Coming Back." These are also the tracks that stick to tried and true pop formulas and the ones that attempt to incorporate other genres tend to not quite reach GYBE! territory.