I Don't Want You Back

Eamon essentially came out of nowhere in late 2003, when the Staten Island singer's Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back) caught fire on national radio. Еhere was a visceral directness in Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back) that listeners responded to. With its spare melody and stripped-down production – not to mention its profanity-laced dismissal of a two-timing lover – the song stood out immediately, and blew up request lines nationwide. Jive jumped on the fervor, slating a full-length LP for January '04. The disc is a largely unimaginative hip-hop-lite collection, but enough hot beats, danceable grooves and catchy choruses guarantee at least a couple of moments of minor elation.

I Don't Want You Back includes the uncut audio version of the first single. Helming principals Milk Dee and Mark Passy have also followed through with a handful of songs that retain Fuck It's stuttering, streetwise production. Get Off My Dick! situates snippets of drum'n'bass beats around a simple organ loop as Eamon lays down another kiss-off; it's reminiscent of The Streets' Original Pirate Material in both its sound and conversational tone. I Love Them Ho's (Ho-Wop) isn't as imaginative, copping The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes for You for its heavy-handed celebration of groupie love, but My Baby's Lost and I'd Rather Fuck With You are better combinations of conventional genre bravado and interestingly off-kilter style of Eamon and his crew. Hit picks include the sharp Girl Act Right, funky Lo Rida (featuring N.O.R.E.) and singable On & On.

Eamon is getting a lot of attention and acclaim for his debut album I Don’t Want You Back. It has been positive and negative. The hip-hop and street R&B circles like it and those who are against expletives are against it, or maybe just disappointed. It seems strange that such a well-trained and obviously talented singer would portray his image with a certain vulgarity and rudeness. Maybe it’s a different angle, or maybe it’s shock tactics. The album is raw, soulful and quite promising, especially with such a statement-making single. Eamon has a strong, gritty, soulful voice that will definitely appeal to the ladies and the rude boys. His content is degrading to women and shows certain bitterness but he’s young, American and can get away with it. His lyrics do however provide a good basis for sing-alongs. The music is well orchestrated, catchy and has in some parts a very distinctive old style American college ball sound, yet has all the funk, groove and nu-street soul to make it progressive, easily palatable to urban audiences and popular to the masses. I Don't Want You Back sounds charmingly low-budget, but you wonder if this modestly gifted kid has something special inside him that perhaps Kanye West or R. Kelly could coax out.