Smooth music devoid of flash but rich in vintage hip-hop and soul dominates the accompaniment to this urban love story. Mary J. Blige's "Never Been" pulses like a gentle lullaby ode to desire, and Jill Scott's "Easy Conver... more »sation" flutters with her sultry, airy voice and mellow strumming. Angie Stone's "Bring Your Heart" pulses with lazy piano countermelody and honey-sweet vocals, while Cassandra Wilson's take on Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" is understated and folkish. Mos Def provides an edge to several tracks--"Breakdown," featuring fadeaway horns, and the "fine," fiercely rhymed version of "Brown Sugar." On a similarly uptempo bent, the Roots add in funky echoes and stutters to "Act Too (Love of My Life)," Black Star's "raw" version of "Brown Sugar" is sharp-tongued, and Eric B. & Rakim's sample-happy "Paid in Full" is a sprawling trip down old-school hip-hop's memory lane. Yet for all of its nods to the past, Brown Sugar sounds distinctly modern. Instead of just rehashing the past, its artists celebrate the spirit of bygone days with warm affection and loving care, which envelops the soundtrack in a cohesive and comforting glow. --Annie Zaleski« less
Smooth music devoid of flash but rich in vintage hip-hop and soul dominates the accompaniment to this urban love story. Mary J. Blige's "Never Been" pulses like a gentle lullaby ode to desire, and Jill Scott's "Easy Conversation" flutters with her sultry, airy voice and mellow strumming. Angie Stone's "Bring Your Heart" pulses with lazy piano countermelody and honey-sweet vocals, while Cassandra Wilson's take on Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" is understated and folkish. Mos Def provides an edge to several tracks--"Breakdown," featuring fadeaway horns, and the "fine," fiercely rhymed version of "Brown Sugar." On a similarly uptempo bent, the Roots add in funky echoes and stutters to "Act Too (Love of My Life)," Black Star's "raw" version of "Brown Sugar" is sharp-tongued, and Eric B. & Rakim's sample-happy "Paid in Full" is a sprawling trip down old-school hip-hop's memory lane. Yet for all of its nods to the past, Brown Sugar sounds distinctly modern. Instead of just rehashing the past, its artists celebrate the spirit of bygone days with warm affection and loving care, which envelops the soundtrack in a cohesive and comforting glow. --Annie Zaleski
"I knew I wouldn't be able to copy selected songs to my PDA for my own private use when I purchased this CD so I have no complaints about that aspect of the copy-protection. I didn't expect to have a hard time playing it on a computer, however. The 'player' that's supposed to launch when you insert the CD into your drive is adequate *when* it plays. It took awhile to get the player and CD to do their thing the first time but it did eventually play. I had to restart my computer in order to use my standard player for other CDs and no CD is worth that much trouble. When I tried a second time the CD just plain wasn't recognized so I tried it on another computer and that CD drive completely disappeared from 'My Computer', the CD never loaded and now I'm wondering what kind of re-configuring I have to do there. And, guess what - it also proves occasionally problematic on my new CD player which supports mp3s. I'm not a computer newbie and it's not a matter of my not understanding. This is way beyond a minor inconvenience.The copy protection has so soured me on this soundtrack I kinda loathe it and shy away from attempting to play it. From what I've heard, it's pretty good, maybe worth a 3."
Copy protected CD
ctakim | Pennsylvania, USA | 09/09/2005
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Amazon is selling a copy protected CD that cannot be transferred to an iPod for personal use. Don't be bullied and do not buy this CD!"
Warning! Copy Protected CD May Not Work In Your Player
jah-rasta | US | 10/30/2003
(1 out of 5 stars)
"I loved the movie and had to have the soundtrack. Unfortunatly, when I got it home, I could not get it to play in my stereo's CD player! Won't work on my computer either! Stay away from these copy protected CDs! There's a good chance, you will not be able to listen to it!"
Can Seriously Damage Your Computer/DANGEROUS/Do NOT Buy
Michael Weber | Atlanta | 11/08/2005
(1 out of 5 stars)
"*Probably* this disc won't cause problems on non-computer players (or on Macs, apparently), but it can *seriously* damage your Windows-based computer even now, and probably destroy future versions of the operating system.
While there are numerous Bad Possibilities inherent in using this disc's proprietary player software on any existing Windows 95/98/NT/2K/ME/XP system which result in annoyances and problems that can be worked around, i read recently that F-Secure tested it on Windows Longhorn/Vista and discovered that it completely destroyed that operating system.
As reported at http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html (which has been cited in other reviews of copy-protected CDs), this CD requires you to use its proprietary player software to listen to it on your computer, in order t prevent you from making more than three copies of the music.
This player installs dangerous (and very poorly written, making it more dangerous) malware called a "rootkit", which is undetectable and almost unremovable, even by the top virus/spyware protection products, on your system without your knowledge or permission.
The installed malware is unstable, resulting in the possibility of system crashes or data corruption, and removing it is likely to render your computer's CD or DVD discs completely unuseable.
And, beyond that, because of how poorly written this thing is, it provides a handy back door for any malicious person to install undectable worms or other malware on your computer.
Don't buy this disc or any other from SONY/BMG until they stop packaging them with this dangerous malware.
(Actual star rating is about Negative 1000, but Amazon's system won't allow that.)"