A Year of Music

The Best of Tunnel Vision is basically Wiley spitting a whole lot of confrontational, charmless battle rhymes. Given that even Wiley thinks that MCing isn't his strong suit, I have to wonder who thought putting out a 46-track double CD compilation of London E3 road chat, freestyles and remixes was a good idea. I've made it through the whole thing twice and it's been a long haul each time. Mixtapes (grime, hip-hop, techno, what-have-you) work best if they are grounded in an immediate context (a radio show, a lazy afternoon at the studio with a bunch of MCs, some kind of conceptual hook). JME can crank out new mixtapes for Boy Better Know forever, as far as I'm concerned, and they'll all be engaging and fresh – even when he cranks out 45 minutes of halfassed funky house, at least it's all his and it isn't hard on the ears. But the condensed, dismembered, "best-of" approach on display here isn't working. Mostly it makes me want to listen to the backing tracks (including Various Production's excellent "Hater" and a whole buttload of Wiley's own, classic productions) on their own.