The Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files: The Clock Runs Out On ‘Freetime’

noah | October 11, 2006 12:22 pm
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It’s a rare day that we find ourselves in agreeance with Limp Bizkit frontman/dude-prototype Fred Durst, but the Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files sometimes turn up strange bedfellows.

Artist: Kenna Song: “Freetime” Album: New Sacred Cow, 2003 What happened: Durst, The Neptunes, and a slew of pop stars all went crazy for Kenna after he released the single “Hell Bent” in 2001. But the release date of his debut album, the Chad Hugo-produced New Sacred Cow, was moved back again and again thanks to delays and label shakeups; it finally came out in the summer of ’03, with the push for “Freetime” happening shortly after. Why it should have been a hit: Driven by a crunchy synth and Kenna’s wail, “Freetime” was like Gary Numan with a pinch of soul, and it was packaged with a witty bad-day-in-the-life video. But its amalgamation of styles, while thrilling on record, resulted in it not really finding a place in the callout-researched pop world; the clip was spun on MTV2’s Subterranean a few times, but it didn’t gain traction beyond the late-night hours. Kenna’s MySpace page has some new songs that are just as biting and catchy as “Freetime,” but the attached blog is full of not-very-veiled references to more label woes.

Kenna – Freetime [MP3, link expired] Kenna [MySpace]

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