"Meatwad get the money, see?"
If these words mean anything to you, there's a respectable chance that the name MC Chris does, too. There are few casual fans of the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim mainstays, little middle ground between geeked-out obsessiveness and indifference, so the hardcore should recognize Chris's name as a regular contributor to shows like Sealab 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He voiced the character Hesh on the former and the oft-reincarnated MC Pee Pants on the latter, and he's a regular behind-the-scenes presence on several shows. As if working the ultimate dork dream job weren't fulfilling enough, MC (real name Chris Ward) is able to nurture his fantasies of hip-hop stardom through self-released albums like this, his third. Along with friend and producer John Fewell, Chris makes "geekhop" that's funny and exciting due to its bald honesty and unpretentious near-virtuosity.
Setting out simply to make a "really good dorm room album", Chris and Fewell have in fact made a really good anywhere album -- one that crudely and hilariously cries (or screeches) out to the desperate, sex-starved youths of the internet generation. In Chris's world, long distance web relationships and chatroom shorthand ("OMG!", checking her "LJ") have usurped physical intimacy and English. It's telling that "boysdon'tcry", about overseas email romance ("I'm jonesing harder than Gollum / please God say that's London calling") plays so much more affecting and heartfelt than "yachtbirds", about actual physical interaction. There's even a whole song about a Robot Dog, some sort of electronic sidekick or "tech pet" that ends up having a vampirical effect on Chris's game-spitting and general well-being.
A late-in-the-review warning: the annoyance potential of Chris's voice is near-astronomical. If you're easily put off by vocalists who sound perpetually heavily congested, or like a rapping version of Ween from "Push th' Little Daisies", you won't make it past verse one, but his bratty, Mountain Dew-fueled delivery serves the material's coarse naivete. Chris rattles his lines off at a rapid clip, but like all good fast-rappers, he never sounds like he's crowbarring them in. Genius bits like "weak MCs decompose 'cause they know I can flow like Wessel comma Zam through coruscant corridors" blow past without giving you time to wince at the obscurity of their Star Wars references.
Eating's Not Cheating would be possible to write off as a prankish, disposable novelty good for only a few laughs between IM chats if it weren't for Fewell's sophisticated, intensely blendered production and Chris's compelling openness. On "ratz", over a bells and bass-led beat, Chris bemoans the life of a "dot com curmudgeon who's love life is sufferin' / it's the rope or the oven or the hope I find love in the end". You feel the moment poignantly, and that's saying something for a guy with a voice like a six year-old who, not four tracks ago, spent a whole dis track on a Robot Dog.
