Living Colour-Time's Up (1990)

Artist: Living Colour

Title: Time's Up

Label: Epic

Format: CD

Cat: EK 46202

Year of Release: 1990

Country and Year of Edition: US 1990

Sell Price: $2.99 VG+/VG+ 7/11/24

Discogs Last Sold: 5/26/24 NM/NM $3.24

Low: $0.79

Median: $2.29

Average: $2.94

High: $9.99

Current low price: $0.75

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 78

Have/Want: 1521/52

Where Sold: Swanton, VT

Time it took to sell: 11 years

Where and When Purchased: used online .75 early aughts

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B

Sad To See It Go: No

When I first heard Time's Up's title track around the time it came out, I appreciated that they seemed to toughen up their sound in a Bad Brains manner after what I thought was a super-slick hit "Cult of Personality."  That mindset kind of evaporated for me 34 years on listening to the whole record.   Living Colour always seemed better on paper to me than the actual listening of the music and that is still the case with this album although I grew to like it more after giving it some time.

Don't get me wrong, there is music genius here and this ain't no ordinary funk metal band.  The Jazz chops and lineage are there with the Zig Zag band good enough to be on stage at Jack DeJohnette's 80th in Fort Greene Park, which I got to witness a couple years back.  Brooklyn is truly in the house when they are on the stage and worthy Guitar God Vernon Reid is more than the face of this band.

With the bona fide hit of "Cult...," Living Colour were free to have Little Richard, Mick Jagger, Don Cherry, Maceo Parker, Queen Latifah, Doug E. Fresh and Don Byron on their record.  Vivid still had enough platinum legs for this to go Gold in the US a couple months after 1990 release.  Vivid actually sold beyond this hitting double Platinum in 1994 after hitting the initial million in 1989.

So why is this record such a hard start to finish listen?  When Chuck D said "Elvis Was A Hero To Most But He Never Meant Shit To Me Straight Up Racist The Sucker Was Simple And Plain" there was a depth to the lyric that connected universally, even if, like me, you still liked Elvis records.  "Elvis Is Dead" at first seemed just a soft, tired even dated critique that feels played out even if you got Little Richard on it and Mick Jagger in the choir.  But I changed my mind on the outro rephrasing Paul Simon's "Graceland" where they will not be received after all.    "Pride" lays out the defense plain as day "When I Speak Out Loud You Say I'm Crazy/When I'm Feeling Proud/You Say I'm Lazy/I Look Around And See The True Reality."  All I'm asking is when "reality" is REALITY or merely just another point of view from the land of concrete and steel?  

This was the first record as a proven commercial entity where Living Colour had room to move before their mass appeal faded.  Maybe that's why they called the album Time's Up.  Narratives are powerful, repetition devine.  Much of the best of popular song relies on repetition to hammer home a song.  One attempt at a single, "Love Rears It's Ugly Head" tried to break out of that with a Nat King Cole sample, but it's just kinda there.

These are guys that can play the intellectual side of the lane musically but there were  three for me that I thought were standouts.    "Information Overload" was a concern in 1990, 34 years later we've only just begun.  The single, "Solace of You" didn't chart with an Afropop feel, so they weren't expanding for the masses.  Where they nail everything is the song "Type" and it's chorus.

"Everything that goes around comes around."