Cornershop - "When I Was Born For The 7th Time"

Cornershop - When I Was Born For the 7th Time, 1997 - Warner Brothers

How do you define an album that so succinctly defies any such consolidation? Do you call it Bollywood? Pop? Funk? World Music? Hip-Hop, even? No matter how you define it, "When I Was Born For The 7th Time" brings all those things together in a richly satisfying musical stew.

But what's in the mix? Strings from Ravi Shankar, beats from Big Beat, the theme from "Leave It To Beaver", a guest spot rapper, a Beatles cover (in Hindi, no less), a soulful country ballad (featuring another awesome guest spot), a tribute to the "funkee" days, a spoken word song about growing up and two straightforward pop songs, plus many many other ingredients stirred together by the magical Mr. Talvin Singh

The album's big single, and Cornershop's only big hit "Brimful of Asha" came from this record and is part of a two-song pair that starts things off. One could be mislead into thinking that this tune, with its catchy chorus of "Everybody needs a busom for a pillow" and the somber song that precedes it, "Sleep On The Left Side" are an indication of how the rest of the record will be. They would be wrong.

The pop period lasts only so long before the unbelievably funk-filled "Butter The Soul" drops into your earholes, featuring the theme song to "Leave It To Beaver" being demolished on a turntable right before the sitar comes in.

"Chocolat" could be the soundtrack to some secret Bollywood porno, while "We're In Your Corner" starts like a straight Indian pop tune, until Talvin starts name-dropping American products like IBM and "motherfucking Coca Cola."

Funk tribute "Funky Days Are Back Again" with its casiotone production and repetitive lyrical scheme seems like a throw away track, but in this heady mixture of genres and themes it's a welcome reprieve.

"What is Happening?" recalls Public Enemy's Bomb Squad with its cut up samples and righteous indignation, only with a touch more Indian flair.

Spoken word gem "When The Light Appears Boy" has a build-up/come-down that can't really be expressed.

The turntables get another workout in "Coming Up" which precedes another jangly pop song called, appropriately enough, "Good Shit."

A country-tinged love song ("Good To Be On The Road Back Home Again") is followed by a slow morphine drip of an instrumental ("It's Indian Tobacco, My Friend").

The remaining tracks showcase a funky beat with a funky rhyme ("Candyman") and a Beatles cover ("Norwegian Wood") where, even though they're singing in Punjab, you still get the message.

Overall, a genre-bending pop album that is all about the joy of music - wherever it's from and whatever form it takes. That is why Cornershop's "When I Was Born For the 7th Time" is a Desert Island Record.