This album was officially released all the way back in 1995 on Interscope Records, and…..personally I never knew anything about it, or the artist himself, until exactly ten years after it was released. The first time it ever came to my attention, was while I was just casually browsing through my local thrift store (that sounds kind of sad doesn’t it? Unfortunately this was indeed the case) and I remember I picked up the CD, turned up my nose at the artwork & thought…..”Zavier?! Who the hell is that?!” I couldn’t even pronounce this fella’s name properly at that point.
Several months later I was lurking on an Australian R&B forum on the Internet, where I discovered that this same man, Xavier (for the unenlightened, that’s pronounced “Igg-zay-vee-urr,“) had released a brand new album completely on his own terms under the alias “Chocolate Butterfly.” The message was posted by the owner of a certain Sydney based record store. Needless to say, not too long after that, I found myself in this very same record store being “formally” introduced to this album if you will, by the same guy who posted that message on the forum. I still remember him telling me that it was a “full on Prince” sounding record, and that his follow up was more of the same. Personally I could never see what he was going on about for quite a while, because to my ears, this album sounded absolutely nothing like Prince at all! More on that later.
Even though I could’ve very well purchased both albums off of him on that day, I only walked away with the “Chocolate Butterfly” disc & felt somewhat content with my purchase. A couple of hours later – if that – I just so happened to run into yet another copy of “X Factor” in a totally different record store all together. I immediately grabbed it off the shelf & paid for it. This is what I had to say about this album about two years after buying it:
Without You: I’ve never heard the original version of this song…..but from what I’ve gathered just by listening to Xavier’s independent stuff is that it probably featured him rapping in his ordinary voice at the beginning of the song & then singing the chorus in “Prince-styled” harmonies. The record label didn’t like that though, so they made him change the lead vocals to make it sound more “ragga” influenced. Other than that this song is still musically funky…it’s just a shame that the lead vocals are now so frustrating to listen to because of what the label forced him to do.
Purely Sexual: On the back of the CD, the word “sexual” is, perhaps intentionally misspelt as “sexuel,” and just like the previous track, it’s funky as hell musically but almost completely ruined vocally. Now that I’ve heard what Xavier’s music sounds like when it’s not being manipulated by a bunch of clueless rec execs I just think he sounds incredibly unnatural doing the whole reggae thing. Which is exactly why I didn’t think he sounded anything like Prince when I first heard this disc. I was like, “Prince?! Nah. This guy sounds more influenced by ragga & Michael Jackson.” Mind you, the guy at the record store who I bought “Chocolate Butterfly” off was telling me all about X’s situation with his label as he was dealing with X directly. Anyways, “Purely Sexual” was most probably the first single to be lifted from the album. It was also featured on the soundtrack to the movie “Showgirls.” Whether or not the song was actually in the movie is something I’ll probably never know because a) I was still underage when it first got released and b) even though I’m now an adult, I just can’t be bothered going to the video store & renting it out. Oh well, as long as youtube still has clips from the movie it’s all good. Anyways I’m getting all sidetracked here – next track.
Gentle Screamer: This may have been one of the many songs on the album that the record label didn’t get in the way of, and if that’s the case then I’m glad they didn’t force him to change it around. I’m very glad actually. Why? Because it sounds exactly like an eighties Prince tune. “Gentle Screamer” is definitely one of those tracks that I keep going back to….I love the funky bass line & the overall freaky beat….can’t forget that moan at the end either. Nasty as hell, but in a good way. That’s obviously something that X ripped straight out of Prince & Marvin Gaye’s books….okay maybe not in those words, but I think you can see where I’m coming from – he was obivously very heavily influenced by that “Prince” sound on this cut. Or that “Marvin Gaye” sound if you like.
Angel Of Mercy: The lead vocals on this track remind me a lot of Michael Jackson….I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but that’s definitely my reaction whenever I hear this cut. Prince is also another name that crosses my mind, only because there’s that heavy soul sound going on….actually it’s probably more of a gospel sounding thing….but it’s great stuff anyway. With a solo from Masa Kohama, it really doesn’t get any better than this.
Rainy Weather: I skipped over this track quite a lot when I first bought this CD. I think the reason for that was mostly because of the really drawn out introduction featuring sound effects of falling rain. OK, fair enough, he’s an artist & he may wish to do such things occasionally in order to really get his point across or be creative or whatever the case is, but these things also annoy me. I’m just being honest. As far as the song itself is concerned, it’s a nice little midtempo track, which I think seems to be more about how, during the hard times you’ve just got to be strong, but most of all you need to keep your faith in God alive & pray to Him as often as you can. That’s at least one of the lyrics anyway. Speaking of lyrics, they do appear in the booklet – in the form of pictures of hand written-lyrics which are incredibly difficult to read. You practically need a microscope to read them. I don’t know what exactly happened there.
Saturday Song: He sounds pretty upset on the intro to this song: “What about….fuckin’ lies…spreading?! You don’t think you’re guilty!!!” I don’t know why he sounded the way he did right there, but lyrically this song seems to be all about the problems in the world… or at least, some of the bad things that were going on in America when this album was released. Once again there’s a bit of a Prince influence with the harmonies, and as a matter of fact there’s even a Prince reference…or rather, a re-written lyric from The Time’s “The Bird.” “America have you heard? I’ve got a brand new dance it’s called the bird” has now become “America have you heard? Every city has a ghetto bird.” Coming from an entirely different country all together, for a while there I had absolutely no idea what the hell a “ghetto bird” was. However, while writing this review I did a Google search for it, and I discovered that it’s a police helicopter that swooped around the black neighbourhoods in the ’90s in order to try & catch criminals unawares. Even Ice Cube’s song hollering, “Muthafuck you & your punkass ghetto bird” confused me. I think I understand what they were referring to now.
Cinnamon Girl: Yet another somber song from “Mr X.” This time around it’s just a song about some woman that he’s broken up with….pretty self explanatory. He’s still trying to come to terms with the fact that his woman is now gone for good & that he’s having great difficulty coping with the situation. He keeps crying whenever he wakes up in the morning & he can still smell her perfume in the living room….on top of all of that he’s still addicted to her. This particular version begins as a Rhodes-based piano ballad before picking up the pace somewhat around the 2:25 mark of the song. Then it fades back into the piano ballad before fading out for good. Ten years later this song was re-written and included on X’s “Waiting For The Miracle” album which was of course released under the monkier “Me & This Japanese Guy” on his website blackballuniverse.com. Personally I think that the more updated version is a lot sadder than this one….but each to their own. His singing voice has also matured a lot since then, which is to be expected.
Sunshine: Sounds kinda like he was influenced by the Jackson Five on this track…there’s definitely that old school ’70s funk vibe going on here. I think he may have even sampled James Brown’s “Funky Drummer,” which he mentions at the beginning of the song….but it may have just been an overall comment on the beat itself. It’s a very tight song though. Real tight!! Incredibly funky.
Lucky 7: Somebody else out there told me that Xavier’s brother passed away at a very young age. Most probably due to some violence that was going on in his ‘hood. The interesting thing about this song is that X outright mentions the fact that “someone killed my brother yesterday.” When you take that into account & have a real good listen to the song as a whole, you kind of get the impression that X was really supposed to say “I’ll meet you in heaven,” but decided to say “lucky seven” instead. Vocally he sounds mostly like Michael Jackson to my ears, but there’s also a certain point where his harmonies are somewhat Princey. It’s a great track though.
Freak Beat: I think the title of this song pretty much speaks for itself, it’s just sexy kinda beat that he’s thrown onto the record for good measure….not a bad little interlude. He’s saying something in the background, but…it’s really hard to make out what it is.
The Good Kiss Of Love: Have you ever heard that Rufus & Chaka Khan song “Sweet Thing”? Or any other of Chaka’s ballads when she was with Rufus? Well…imagine if Prince basically sampled one of those songs & then did his trademark sexy thing all over the song….just without as many feminine screeches or falsetto lead vocals or anything like that….that’s the best way I can describe this track. In other words – it’s awesome!!! Very seductive.
Slow Boogie: On this track he’s just doing the whole “I wanna do sumthin’ freaky to you” thing…but, once again this was obviously not the way it was originally intended to sound. This time around, the label completely forced him to do the whole reggae, or “ragga” thing throughout the entire song, as opposed to “just” the lead vocals….that’s definitely not a good thing. Actually no…..the intro isn’t “raggafied” at all….so I guess I’m only half right in that respect. “I am nothing but a tall black hooker.” Ummm….okay. Whatever works for you X. This song also features a fella called Inspector Boogie on keyboards. Gee I wonder what happened to that guy? OK, moving right along then…
The Gaslight Experience: This is just a short interlude that sounds a lot like it was recorded on an old tape deck….probably on one of those oversized boom boxes that folks would carry around back in the day. Xavier is just talkin’ a whole lotta nonsense basically. “They’re all smoking cigarettes….I’m afraid….there’s a girl standing next to me….she looks like Pocahontas….and I’m afraid.” Of what?? Actually, the better question is: “What exactly was the point in that?” I dunno either. Hmmm….actually the more I listen to this interlude, the more it reminds me of the really wild & crazy antics that he gets up to on that “Blood Sugar” DVD he released.
Life In Da City, Part I: I don’t know where “Life In Da City Part 2″ is or even if it exists, but one thing I can definitely verify is that this song is certainly a timeless piece of work. It’s just Xavier on lead vocals & acoustic guitar. “That Japanese Guy” also throws his acoustic two cents into this track. “Life” was later re-recorded as a duet between X & a singer called Tracey Amos whom he produced an entire album for. Both versions are excellent…I’d be hard pressed to say which one I liked better.
Purely Sexual II: Basically just a remix of Track 2 on this album….so, not really a sequel as such. One thing I didn’t point out about the original version of this song is that its intro features X slowing down his vocals a’la Prince & George Clinton….so, yeah I guess that coulda been interpreted as a big Prince influence as well. He does the same on this here remix. I can just picture him in the studio laying down his forced ragga lead vocals & rolling his eyes in anger as he’s doing it: “Muthafuckas! This is not who I am!!!” Of course I can’t read his mind, so who knows what he was really thinking? Anyways, that’s the end of the album.
Verdict: Even though the record label kinda messed around with this album, you could still see this guy’s true artistic persona on a few of the tracks, and those are the ones that still stand on their own ten odd years after they’ve been released. That can only be a good thing though cuz most of the album is still pretty strong. If you can look beyond the whole reggae thang & God knows whatever else the record label did to this record, then you’re left with a relatively enjoyable listen.
