The love of hot, hip DJ’s is growing around town, so I decided to check out the new Peanut Butter Wolf album. I don’t know much about this DJ thing, so you might be able to imagine my surprise when I discovered that the album was just one, long, 49-and-a-half-minute song. Maybe music writers should not admit to gaps in their knowledge, but my only real experiences with DJ’s (house music, what are we calling it these days, anyway?) is some party in Houston and the five minutes of a Brooklyn, waterfront GirlTalk concert I was able to take in before the law carted me away. (Tried to sneak in over the Port-a-Potties like everyone else who came late.)

Anyway, the verdict is: It’s not okay. How does one listen to this music? Maybe if I had a converted muscle car, I might listen to it while I drove around. If I had a half-pipe and a skateboard, I might listen to it while I practiced my moves. I could put it on, throw and party and pretend that I’m mixing these sounds together myself, which is not a bad idea, but it couldn’t be a true dance party. The repetitive beats with little accompanying melody and the over-emphasized rhyming couplets don’t inspire any kind of booty shaking other than what one might find in renditions of “the robot.” Which brings to mind another possible use for this album: a “dance the robot” competition. It would be perfect for that.

This mix is all old school hip-hop, but it’s not put together in a way that makes a person remember the sounds affectionately. PB Wolf seems to have an affinity for the more jarring, frenetic elements of the past, some of which is okay, but not if it’s meshed together for nearly an hour’s worth of listening.

If you already bought this album, my advice is to forward it to 4:20 (no pun intended, but a conveniently easy to remember number). The last four minutes or so are a repeated broken chord over some drum-kit-emulating beats. The sounds mixed in this portion have something that I wish that the 45 minutes had - sparse yet catchy, danceable sounds, with shout-outs to all the coolest boroughs and a dig on Queens - sorry you guys up there. Other than that, I fear, PB Wolf’s release is just a waste of time.

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