Pitchfork

I'm confused about this one. Or, as my good pal Jerry Seinfeld might say: "What's the deal with Negativland?"

Dispepsi is the zillionth record by everybody's favorite sonic subversives. These guys have made some awesome records: Escape from Noise, Helter Stupid, Free, and their most famous, the outlawed and long out-of-print U2. Dispepsi is not a great Negativland record. The problem is not in the basic premise of "Advertising has bled into everyday living and gosh does that suck." That's child's play for Negativland. They fuck it up by hammering away on this Pepsi and Coca-Cola schtick. Great basis for one or two tracks, maybe even an EP a la U2. But a whole album? Worse yet, when Negativland gets around to doing something more "song oriented", their usually sharp hooks are nowhere to be found. Maybe they were out catching a movie. Out of the four tunes, only "Aluminum and Glass: The Memo" succeeds with its fake commercial jingle augmented by a market researcher's inbetween verse commentary on how the ad should look.

Yes, there's still plenty of great cutting and pasting on this album. Shining moments: the repetitive Michael J. Fox bite, "Hi, I'm me. I'm using this to sell you this," and the best use of a Michael Jackson sample this side of the Residents. But this album is exactly like a can of Pepsi: if you let it go on out in the open for too long, it'll lose its fizz. Hey, what's the deal with that?