Summary
Don't Mess with the Dragon is the fourth studio album by American rock band Ozomatli. It was released on March 27, 2007 through Concord Records. Production was handled by the band themselves together with KC Porter. The album peaked at number 154 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in the United States.
| Don't Mess with the Dragon | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | March 27, 2007 | |||
| Length | 42:24 | |||
| Label | Concord | |||
| Producer | ||||
| Ozomatli chronology | ||||
| ||||
Critical reception edit
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 74/100[1] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [2] |
| Glide | 4/5[3] |
| Los Angeles Times | [4] |
| PopMatters | 8/10[5] |
| Spin | [6] |
| Sputnikmusic | 4/5[7] |
Don't Mess with the Dragon was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on eight reviews.[1]
Lana Cooper of PopMatters wrote: "nearly everything about Don't Mess With the Dragon is as fluid and serpentine as the album's namesake".[5] Natalie Nichols of Los Angeles Times found that the band "makes its kitchen-sink musical fusion feel seamless in any given number... Still, "Dragon" can be dizzying in its sheer variety".[4] In her mixed review for AllMusic, Marisa Brown wrote: "it's not that any of these tracks are bad: Ozomatli is comprised of talented enough musicians, and have been doing it for long enough now, that they're able to pretty much successfully pull off anything they try, but these songs move so far from the sociopolitical salsa on which they created themselves that it's almost hard to recognize them as from the same band".[2] Writing for Spin, Mikael Wood stated: "[They] downplay the hip-hop boom-bap... in favor of busy pop jams that mirror the overstimulation of 21st-century life".[6]
Track listing edit
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Can't Stop" | 2:56 |
| 2. | "City of Angels" | 3:16 |
| 3. | "After Party" | 3:45 |
| 4. | "Don't Mess with the Dragon" | 3:23 |
| 5. | "La Gallina" | 3:05 |
| 6. | "Magnolia Soul" | 3:21 |
| 7. | "Here We Go" | 2:38 |
| 8. | "La Temperatura" | 3:03 |
| 9. | "Violeta" | 3:53 |
| 10. | "Creo" | 3:15 |
| 11. | "When I Close My Eyes" | 3:46 |
| 12. | "La Segunda Mano" | 6:03 |
| Total length: | 42:24 | |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 13. | "Casas De Carton" | 3:58 |
| 14. | "La Gallina (Remix)" | 3:30 |
Charts edit
| Chart (2007) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| US Billboard 200[8] | 154 |
References edit
- ^ a b "Critic Reviews for Don't Mess With The Dragon - Metacritic". Metacritic. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
- ^ a b Brown, Marisa. "Ozomatli - Don't Mess with the Dragon Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
- ^ Newby, Tim (July 23, 2007). "Ozomatli: Don't Mess With the Dragon". Glide Magazine. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
- ^ a b Nichols, Natalie (April 1, 2007). "Rivera gives crazy a good name". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
- ^ a b Cooper, Lana (March 29, 2007). "Ozomatli: Dont Mess With the Dragon, PopMatters". PopMatters. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
- ^ a b Wood, Mikael (April 2007). "Reviews". SPIN. Vol. 23, no. 4. SPIN Media LLC. p. 93. ISSN 0886-3032.
- ^ "Ozomatli - Don't Mess With the Dragon (album review) | Sputnikmusic". Sputnikmusic. October 8, 2007. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
- ^ "Ozomatli Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
External links edit
- Don't Mess With The Dragon at Discogs (list of releases)