Take Them Beats, Leave Them Lyrics

When the fourth track of the Beatnuts' new album, "Take It or Squeeze It," comes onto the speakers, most listeners will realize that they have a dilemma on their hands. The intro and two previous tracks have established that the Beatnuts rhyme endlessly and not terribly effectively about how well they party, how well they rap and produce, and how every woman they meet is voluptuous, drunk or stoned, and eager to give it up. To that point, the beats have been solid, but without the eclectic production alchemy that made their last album, "A Musical Massacre," such an amazing listen despite the abovementioned lyrical inanity.

But then "Contact" comes on the speakers, and you've got the dilemma: This tribute to getting high and getting laid has a truly infectious beat, based on a distorted sample of some chick singing a mock-tropical series of "la la la"s, ornamented by subtle but effective guitar and a perfectly judged drum loop. It almost doesn't matter that the song contains such amazingly banal rhymes as "Smoke, smoke/When you done I'm'a poke, poke/And I ain't gonna stop till your lower back broke, broke," from Psycho Les, or "Catch me chillin on 8th Street, pullin' bitches that only want a platter of hot sex/We can get high, or you can pop Ex," from Juju. (At least they listen to Tribe.)

To restate the dilemma: It's all well and good to have top-shelf beats and rhymes on one album. But oftentimes, modern rap fans have to figure out whether or not to listen to gifted MCs with less-than-flattering production, or head-nodding beats graced by mediocre-to-awful lyrics.

We obviously have an instance of the second case here. Juju and Psycho Les have what could be charitably termed a limited worldview: these lyrics are spectacularly misogynistic, unrepentantly juvenile, egotistically thuggish, and at times flat-out incoherent. Apart from an occasional and welcome dose of humor, like "My break beats/Make you cut wind like baked beans" (okay, that's still juvenile, but the soundplay makes it funny), neither man proves an especially gifted wordsmith, either. One can enjoy the stream-of-consciousness babblings of (say) Ghostface Killah on a purely lexical level, but no such luck here. The guests aren't as good as those on "A Musical Massacre," whose cameos from MCs like Common, dead prez and Biz Markie did much to break up the lyrical monotony. All our boys have going for them is a nice, assured flow.

And, of course, some of the best production in the business. This is more of a keyboard-and-decks album than "A Musical Massacre," but never have keyboards and decks been used with more subtlety and precision. When they open up the toolbox, the results are amazing: the abovementioned "Contact," the first single "No Escapin' This" with its bouncy vocal chorus and flute embroidery, the alternating jazz organ and harpsichord of "Hammer Time," or the sinuous flute melody of "Mayonnaise," which sounds much like, say, ganja smoke dissipating into the atmosphere. But to name individual songs is to dismiss the others, and the fact is that everything here has something outstanding in the production to recommend it. And not much in the lyrics.

So how to resolve the dilemma? We must work on a case-by-case basis. Production this amazing can overcome any words Juju, Psycho Les and assorted guests can saddle it with. Ultimately, you simply have to yield to this music, even if you don't feel especially good about doing so. Turn up the bass and lay low on the treble, then, and nod your head hard enough that you're not thinking too much.

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