Album by Living Colour
Their debut, Vivid, established Living Colour as a band that could make ambitious music without losing the power of a great rock song. Time’s Up feels like what happens when that band gets a bigger platform and decides to show you everything they can do with it.
This is hard rock, metal, funk, R&B, hip-hop, blues, psychedelia, African music and all kinds of other sounds, sometimes within the same stretch of an album. But calling it eclectic almost undersells what’s happening. These aren’t musicians jumping from genre to genre because they can’t settle on one. They understand all of these musical languages, and they can pull pieces from them without losing the identity of Living Colour.
“Time’s Up” starts the album with anxiety. Clocks ring and pile up, creating the feeling that you’re already surrounded by them, like you’ve run out of time before the song even starts.
Then the band hits with this frenetic, almost hardcore-heavy-metal attack, and the whole thing charges forward. The lyrics turn that urgency toward environmental destruction, with everything stacking up and the feeling that we’re getting too late to do something about it.
It’s existential dread and firepower from start to finish.
“History Lesson” is a complete change of pace. It’s a short piece built around spoken voices and African musical influences. It feels less like a conventional song than a little glimpse of the kind of lessons this album is prepared to give its listener.
“Pride” comes roaring in after it.
The guitar is so distinct and unforgettable. The bass is pumping, the drums keep everything moving, and Corey Glover’s vocals sound enormous. Everyone in the band gets a chance to shine. The song feels like it’s trying to wake people up, challenging the version of American history we’re taught and demanding that you look at what has been left out.
It’s a perfect song.
One of the most fun songs on the album, “Love Rears Its Ugly Head” has this bluesy, slinking groove and a tongue-in-cheek view of love and marriage. Love is treated almost like a horror movie. It’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You’re changing. You can’t escape.
“New Jack Theme” is frenetic, heavy and almost electronic, with a nervous energy that never lets up. It’s Blade Runner, except instead of cyberpunk, we’re seeing this world from the perspective of a drug dealer.
The music plays like the nervous system of someone doing something dangerous on the edge — frantic, wired and constantly on guard. The guitars even start sounding like police sirens.
“Someone Like You” pulls things back into a more traditional rock structure, but the guitar remains jagged and restless. This song feels like the grandchild of Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” and “You Haven’t Done Nothin’,” combining street-level social commentary with frustration at politicians and their empty gestures.
Corey Glover sounds practically mournful here, singing about drugs, police brutality, teen pregnancy and all the other things making life harder, and asking how we actually get ourselves out of this.
“Elvis Is Dead” takes aim at the mythology surrounding Elvis — the idea that he was crowned the King of Rock ’n’ Roll while the Black artists who helped create the music were pushed to the side.
The song stirred up controversy when it came out, which almost feels like part of the point. It was challenging a version of music history that many people were very comfortable with, and some of the reaction to it showed just how uncomfortable that challenge could be.
Musically, the song is completely insane. Muzz Skillings’ bass is all over the place, the drums are constantly moving, a saxophone cuts through everything, and Corey Glover goes from singing to spoken word to Elvis impersonation.
And then Little Richard shows up and takes the whole thing to another level.
“Type” is another left turn. I couldn’t tell you exactly what the song is about. There are all these phrases and images flying around — art, culture, identity, all kinds of ideas. But I love it.
The song keeps changing shape, moving through rock sections, slowing down and speeding up. The guitars shift around underneath it, and the whole thing feels completely unique.
“Information Overload” might be the purest example of what Living Colour can do. It chugs along on a classic rock groove before heavier guitar sections kick in. Will Calhoun’s drumming is sublime. Once your ear catches what he’s doing here, you can’t let it go.
Vernon Reid and Calhoun have a section that almost becomes a duet between guitar and drums, while Corey Glover sounds like five different vocalists at the same time, and at one point he hits almost Judas Priest-level highs.
And the lyrics are pure dread. So much information coming at you that you can’t shut your brain off. Everything happening in the world piles into your head until you feel like you’re going to explode.
“Under Cover of Darkness” changes the mood again. Corey Glover is in full seduction mode here, but the bass is really doing the work. The drums are softer, the song gets dreamy and reflective, and Vernon Reid’s guitar takes on an almost jazzy quality.
Queen Latifah turns the whole thing into a conversation between potential sexual partners. Glover is coming from the perspective of wanting to go for it, while Latifah brings in the other side of the conversation, taking control of the situation and bringing safe sex into the picture.
“Ology” is essentially what a room full of bass players would sound like. One bass part is bouncing against another, and another, until you’ve got this whole bass orchestra going.
And around the edges, “Fight the Fight” starts to emerge.
The opening is epic. Vernon Reid sounds like he’s creating a brand-new national anthem.
So much of Time’s Up has been about what’s broken: racism, education, drugs, crime, ineffective politicians, police brutality. And suddenly this intro sounds like a call to action.
Corey Glover gives one of his most earnest vocals on the album through the chorus, and you can’t help but feel inspired to act when everything folds together. But the song acknowledges the world is still divided by race, class and power.
After the huge, dizzying instrumental section, Glover comes back and the song starts to sound bleak. And then Vernon Reid’s guitar figure from the opening comes back, and suddenly that anthem is there again. The lyrics shift back to aspiration. Just a wonderful, gorgeous moment.
“Tag Team Partners” feels like a palate cleanser after that exhilarating ride. It’s playful and almost childlike, giving the album a chance to breathe before the finale.
“Solace of You” might be the prettiest song on the entire album. Maybe the most beautiful Living Colour song I’ve ever heard.
It’s gorgeous, with African musical influences and a gentle, rolling rhythm. Corey Glover gives one of his most tender vocal performances, completely restrained compared with what he’s capable of. There are beautiful background vocals around him, adding another layer to the song.
“This Is the Life” is such a big switch again. It opens with Middle Eastern-influenced sounds and a hazy, trippy crescendo.
Corey Glover’s vocal is completely different from anything else he’s done on Time’s Up. He keeps shifting his delivery as the song moves from that dreamy opening into a grimier guitar section.
The lyrics spend so much time imagining all the other perfect lives you could have lived. But eventually the possibilities turn darker. The focus then shifts to the life you have and how to meet it with grace, heart and clear eyes.
Time’s Up is more than an eclectic album. It’s a complex album made by musicians who understand an enormous range of music. It’s an album that recognizes all that is wrong with the world, and yet it ends with an interlude of childlike joy, a song about love, and a message of hope.
Living Colour has always felt like one of the all-time great rock bands to me. Maybe they arrived a little too early to get folded into the early-’90s revival, and a little too late to be grouped with the classic rock bands they could stand beside.
But listening to Time’s Up now, I don’t really care where it fits in the history of rock music. All I know is that it’s amazing, and it continues to reveal new things with every repeated listen.
This is one of those albums that everyone should own. Everyone should hear it.
Verdict: Masterpiece
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