Steve 'Flash' JuonThe name of The Backyard Rangers immediately turned me into teenager. I couldn’t help but wonder whose “backyard” this rap group was “ranging” in and what they hoped to find by doing so. Perhaps titling their album “Head for the Hills!!!” was a warning that you’d want to steer clear if they were ranging your way. Now that I’ve got that immaturity out of my system, I’ve got another reason you’d want to avoid these Rangers, and it’s not because any of them do martial arts (RIP Jason David Frank a/k/a Tommy).
I don’t say this lightly — rapper Simon Sez has the MOST annoying voice of any rapper who released an album in the 1990’s — and possibly ever. His partner A-Wall has a perfectly normal gruff delivery, but Sez locked himself in a depressurization tank and inhaled nothing but helium for three days. He’s not just high pitched, he’s using it as a gimmick. He LEANS INTO IT. He lets his already falsetto vocals swing up and down from grating to ear piercing, showing an inhuman range that no man or woman could ever possibly reach. Even those rumors that Mariah Carey had her voice surgically altered to be able to hit those high C’s pale in comparison to what Simon Sez on songs like “Sonuvagun.”
Production isn’t the problem here. According to Discogs the duo did everything themselves and they operate at a level on par with their peers in 1994. I can picture any underground rapper of the 90’s flowing to the instrumental of “Smiles Never Come My Way.” It’s not pushing boundaries but it’s got a perfectly acceptable amount of piano, drum and scratching. It even reminds me of Jeru’s “One Day.” This is all well and good until any point in the track features Simon spitting verses, at which point you will run to the hills faster than Iron Maiden.
“You gotta watch your ass in the one-nine-nine-four!” – (so he) Sez
I can’t overstate how obnoxious Simon Sez is. It’s like he’s experiencing puberty with every single word, over and over again. I may have felt like an immature pre-teen writing the opening paragraph, but for Simon it’s a reality of his everyday life. He gets a flood of testosterone, his voice tries to drop, his body rejects it and he shoots straight back up into the stratosphere. I can’t recall the last time an entire album was ruined by just one rapper to this degree. If The Backyard Rangers were just A-Wall rapping and Simon Sez on production it could have worked, but songs like “Freaky Flow” will make your question the health of your ears. The funny part for me (God damn, something about this should be) is that I already referenced Jeru and this is built on the Damaja sample you’d expect. For 105 seconds the song is great and then Simon’s obnoxious delivery COMPLETELY ruins it. He’s not just freaky, he’s inhuman.
The group attempted a comeback in the 2000’s as The Earthquake Institute, by which point it seems Simon’s voice had settled down a little bit, but he tries to distance himself from his 1994 debut by renaming himself Simon Styles. If I can find a full copy of anything from their second shot I may revisit their career, but I think I may need ten years just to recover from “Head for the Hills!!!” The only way I could recommend this album would be either as an instrumental or digitally altered to remove Simon from the proceedings altogether.