Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Consumer Guide Album

Panjabi MC: Beware [Sequence, 2003]
It's 1967, you just ripped the cellophane off an Elmore James album, and for a while there you hardly know what hit you. Not until track three or four do you begin wondering whether the material is all aces, the singing everything you'd hoped. Only then, wham, up pops "Dust My Broom" or one of its cousins again. That's how it is with the best bhangra album ever to come my way. Not that the filler's just filler. Rajinder Rai knows there are more hooks and vocal flavors where "Mundian To Bach Ke" came from, and if none of them spells follow-up in God Bless Xenophobia, they'll keep interested parties going. Nevertheless, this album begins where it ends because a genre has found its signature riff. I love Rajinder Rai's version. I love Jay-Z's version. When Linkin Park does a version I'll dig that too. A-