After a decade and a half plus career Common has managed to see his status soar to space heights off the strength of his last two releases. Both Be and Finding Forever have been well received both commercially and critically. His latest effort Universal Mind Control finds him substituting his wining formula with the Neptune sound. The Virginia based producers end up handling seventy percent of the board work on Common’s latest effort. The question everybody wants to know is will this be another sloppy Electric Circus like release or will this make the Chicago artist a three-peat champ.  

Common fans of Common will be fairly surprised as the album starts with the electro tinged opening titled track. The Neptunes production laid beneath Common’s bizarre lyrics will be something pretty hard to swallow after his last two efforts. Kanye comes through on the sexually provocative “Drunk Punch Love.” The Neptunes lend their production prowess on the modern but old school funk filled offering. By the time the Cee-Lo assisted “Make My Day” rolls around its apparent that Common made this album just to get some hard feelings off his chest. The next track, “Sex 4 Suga” will leave an even raunchier taste in your mouth thanks to Common’s overzealous sexual rants.

Listeners will find atonement in the Pharell assisted “Announcement” where Common puts down the condoms and lubricant for a mic and manages to get back on some hip hop shit. If it weren’t for The Neptunes’ rambunctious ass backing “Gladiator” might have actually been a favorable effort but the over worked backdrop ruins just about everything. When Common gets back to being his original self on the like of “Change” and “Inhale” he seems much more natural is spitting about shit that actually matters outside of the bedroom. Common shuts the album down with a rather tantalizing techno offering in the Mr. DJ produced and Martina Topley-Bird assisted “Everywhere.”

Though Universal Mind Control isn’t all the way horrible, it will definitely not go down as one of the better Common releases. Truthfully it just sounds as though Common made a bunch of tracks on lonely nights when he was in a particular mood but no one was available for him. Don’t get me wrong; some, if not most of the material is worthy. There just happens to be a seemingly over abundance of non-Common like material on Universal Mind Control. Maybe new age listeners will buy in; adversely seasoned listeners will be non-the-less disappointed with a bulk of the album’s material.

VERDICT – 12 / 20
LYRICS: 4
PRODUCTION: 3
DELIVERY: 2
CONSISTENCY: 3