Vanilla Ice: ‘Platinum Underground’
THE CD: “Platinum Underground” (Ultrax)
PERFORMER: Vanilla Ice
Okay, stop snickering and listen. Yes, Ice is back with a brand new album. The erstwhile superstar claims to be reinventing himself as an independent musician on “Platinum Underground.” Yet the cultural references in Ice’s lyrics and the album’s blending of hip-hop and heavy metal seem about a half-decade behind.
Ice wants us to know this album is about his love of music and is not about recapturing the since-curdled glory of 1990s “To the Extreme.” Yet he insists on reminding us of his past fame. He seems bitter. At one point he claims to have paved the way for Eminem and that — much like Dre — everyone forgot about the Ice Man. (To compare the two is like comparing Yanni to Mozart.)
Songs like “Survivor” and “Dunn Natt” show that Mr. Ice really wants us to know — and care — about his rise and fall, including a suicide attempt in 1994. More importantly, he says, he has completely rejected his 1990s image, which he blames for his despair, so he’s safe to like, now.
To drive home the “reinvention” theme, VI not only revisits “Ice Ice Baby,” but deigns to do a follow-up of 1991’s “Ninja Rap” from the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie. How fantastically crap. But for the most part, a blind sampling of “”Platinum Underground would have one mistake it for a mix of Ja Rule, Everlast, White Zombie, Limp Bizkit and a host of contemporary artists Ice emulates.
Ice is stuck in the ’90s, as shown by his references to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the Hale-Bopp cometsuicides and Billy Ray Cyrus, who was popular around the same time as Ice yet has had the decency to fade away.
– By Morgan Kelly
