Rolling R&B Thread 2007

The new Musiq single "Buddy" is AWESOME.

It doesn't do anything for me. The "Heartbeat" bassline deserves better.

Recently made a list of anticipated albums, and nearly all of the above-mentioned are on it -- Moses, Amerie, and Hilson are at/near the top. I'm hoping Hilson's album doesn't have more than a couple guest appearances.

(She's also releasing a Spanish album or something like that...)

Well, there were like 8 months between the two Rihanna albums. Anyway I haven't heard anything about a new Beyonce album this year, as far as I know she's just re-releasing B'Day with some bonus tracks (a Shakira duet and some of the annoying outtakes I've been hearing on the radio lately like "Lost Yo Mind" and "Creole). But yeah, the Shareefa album is pretty good.

I'm kind of ready to hate Chrisette Michele just based on how annoying the choruses to "Lost One" and "Can't Forget About You" are.

i really like 'lost yo mind' and 'creole', no idea why these were left off b'day to start with.

anyone know anything about this r&b singer called mashonda? i've got this amazing track with snoop dogg called 'blackout', galloping club beats and awesome vocals (she does the same thing as nicole pussycat dolls does on the "i want a boy who can make MEEE!" line on 'buttonz'). wikipedia says she's swizz beatz's wife! and that 'blackout' is quite old and was a flop.

I like the Shareefa songs I've heard, better check the album

need to get around to hearing the Ciara as well

had no idea that Hilson did "Icebox," that was easily the best track on the Omarion album. Omarion's shit was pretty good, some of the production seemed a little too generically soul looped.

Just got the new John Legend and I'm looking forward to hearing it.

But really I spent all weekend listening to Marvin's I Want You

One of my absolute favorite, bury-me-with-a-copy albums of all-time.

Straight off of the hills of her career defining sophmore effort B-day, the inspiring Dreamgirl Beyonce, plans to release yet another album mid to late 2007. The multi Platinum, 9 time Grammy-award winning superstar announced during an interview with Reuters that she plans to create yet another banner year for 2007. After currently being nominated for 2 Golden Globe nominations, and preparing for a Summer world tour, the diva shows no signs of slowing."I've never been the type of person to not work" she explained. "Many artists release albums then go away for several years until releasing another one. I love to work because this is what I love to do." The newly acclaimed actress who has been hailed critical acclaim for her starring role in the film remake of the broadway musical Dreamgirls, also said that many of the songs on her third album will be leftovers from B-Day. "I'm looking to start writing new songs at the beggining of the year, then hopefully find time to record them in between dates of my world tour in the Spring." She explained. The singer also stated that she had many upcoming movies in the works, including a thriller about a dangerous woman who falls in love with an undercover cop. "I'm so exited." she exclaimed. " I never dreamed I would have so many opportunities to do what I love." The new album is expected to be released in the late Summer of 2007, along with production of her new movie starting later in the year with a release date of February 27, 2008

http://www.beyoncedaily.org/index.php?start_from=14&ucat=&archive=&subaction=&id=&

xp

Promiscuous #3
Maneater #1
All Good Things (Come to an End) #4

US

Promiscuous #1
Maneater #16
Say It Right #5

MEXICO

Promiscuous #8
Maneater #1
No Hay Igual #1

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MIx2u4vBL1Q

I remember reading something about them falling out but I'm not sure... I just assumed so.

xp

will do. what is the swizz album like? obv never released over here

Tweet's "Give It To Ya" is great

Uh, what?! Rihanna is a SHIT vocalist.

also if yr name is natasha please to use surname as well if u want to be a recording artiste

it's def the most richcraftian of darkchild's new look, but in this case that also means it shares in a lot of the predictableness of the doldrums richcraft's been in since amerie innit. i'm really really overexcited about the other stuff he's done in this vein though - 'deja vu' grew into something peerless while everyone wz busy getting sick of 'irreplaceable', and megan rochell's 'heartbreak' is just ridiculously sick, a '1 thing'-level classic in the making. dchild's live basslines on this stuff are killer killer killer

can't stand deja vu? dude, srsly?

(googling supload is an easy way to find stuff btw)

to be blanket statementy for a sec (yes ha ha shut up) a thing i found with icebox and most if not all timberland prods in 06 was how vaccum packed hermetically sealed they came across; what am i supposed to do with robot voice going I'M SO COLD SO COLD BRR over some barren soundscape besides, i dunno, nod sagely? i know that sounds unfair but i know i've given that track more than a fair crack of the whip as more and more people gushed over it. keri hilson gets mentioned at the top as a tim protege, but her only good track by a million miles is noncoincidentally the only one where tim's not involved: 'come clean'. tell me that's not a proper tune!

mind expanding on that? there is something vaguely...constricting about the JT album (and yeah 'ice box' too) but i can't quite put my finger on it, and i don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, and it's not on the furtado album, and it may even be the same thing which gives the album its coherence.

also what has happened to spizzazzz lately? internet is telling me it doesn't exist.

yeah it is a def a very vague feeling, certainly one that's easier to insult than explain with any satisfying accuracy. i mean, it goes without saying there's a billion great bodies of work with a strong, complete vision thruout (maybe every good album ever in actual fact), and 'icebox' aside even omarion's one kinda has a good thing of its own going along the 'entourage'/'electric' axis. (nothing special in the end tho.)

quite why timbaland's ones grate on me so is hard to say, and particularly so since it's not like him and his stable wrote every song on every album he's touched lately. (i'm assuming?) the nature of exec producing vs just producing i guess. but i dunno, i often feel like what i'm hearing, every nuance of the songs, has already been vetted for my consumption, and that what i end up feeling is what i've been told to feel. even something as apparently ambiguous as 'my love' is really all for show, it's incredibly self-aware, to the point where i just can't get into it, make it mine. tunes ought to get a life of their own once they hit the airwaves no matter how tightly auteured they've been, but timbaland's 06 ones never do really. shrug.

it's true that furtado's singles didn't work like that; however, saying that, the album wz a deeply empty experience for the most part. (and u know i ain't saying empty txtbook rockistically, c'mon.) maneater/promiscuous were great but in retrospect anyone could've been singing those songs. anyone! that album is completely faceless, and it's hard not to see it as a cautionary tale now cos we all sold a really great, real artist in exchange for some magic timbabeans, and you know it. who wouldnt rather hear something like a 'powerless' again? everybody now -

paint my face in your magazines / make it look whiter than it seems / paint me over with your dreams / shove away my ethnicity / burn every notion that i may have a flame inside to fight / and say just what is on my mind / without offending your might / cos this life / is too short / to live it just / for you

haha soz

haha i will go with this

I have the opposite reaction to Timbo. With some notable exceptions, most of his late 90's/early-00s R&B productions that everyone here seems to go ape over are really flat and unappealing to me, (though I guess I find R&B of that time period flat and unappealing in general) even when they're trying very hard to be interesting. But I love his new stuff.

to the point where i just can't get into it, make it mine

i...kind of agree with this, yes. it struck me recently that FS/LS really is a very self-absorbed album - it's not about you, it's not for you to identify with in the same way that 'cry me a river' could have been despite its obvious tabloid subtext, because it's all about justin. it's all about him and his auteur/dork/sexmachine persona. (the xtina album ultimately works/doesn't work along the same lines too, apart from 'ain't no other man'.) i guess that means you have to agree with him, and buy into it, to be able to get into it, and for me it succeeds because he convinces me of it. nevertheless "DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT ANYTHING BUT YOURSELF?" rings ever more true.

(i seem to be holding justin more responsible for this than tim! but it is in the production as well. hmm. maybe this is just danjahands' actual style.)

we all sold a really great, real artist in exchange for some magic timbabeans

i think the real furtado is there, still, and even better than before, in 'say it right' and the coldplay ballad, and the awesomely bouncy 80s-madge tune which timba ripped off from that finnish dude.

also there's'unfaithful's forgotten ne-yo cousin - 'gallery' by mario vasquez! "you're just another priceless work of art / in his galleryyyyyyyyyyyyyy"!

hear 'so sick' - fall in luv with this timid sensitive soul

hear the album & 'sexy love' & then 'unfaithful' & 'gallery'- hey u tricked me, ur just telling me what i wanna hear u ugly sex troll!!

hear the album some more - fuck tho u are the supreme world expert at it tho u genius bastard

see leaked phone pics he took of him getting blown by a backing dancer - OH MAN WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND MIRRORS!!! clearly you love love more than ur lover

hear 'irreplaceable' - omg u r tortured casanova reincarnate

currently i believe him to be the best thing since sliced teedra. oh yeah erm i might also have softened to 'unfaithful' a bit after hearing peedi crakk sing along to it on his mixtape :$

"Gallery" is really, really generic...

agree, tho i always wished those drums were 10x louder somehow! but the best rihanna tune outside of singles will always be 'here i go again'.

anyways, 2007: no one's feeling 'heartbreak'??? ;_;

http://www.myspace.com/treysongz

: x

I'm going to stop arguing though cuz i feel like tsk's opinions are more interesting than mine even if they are objectively wrong. :-p

trey wz just ripping off rnb songs tho i think, i wouldnt have minded rap beats.... i thought kev samples wz gonna be good for a laugh (4. T-Pain Is Dead Skit) but he just turned out to be a dick in the end (4. T-Pain Is Dead Skit)

fwiw i agree about the odd masterving on 'deja vu' but it doesn't bother me so much. 'deja vu' is fantastic but pales somewhat next to 'ring the alarm'.

UR HOLDING UP TRAFFIC GREEN MEANS GOOOOOOO

It's what the new Amerie song should've sounded like.

Conversely, "Irreplaceable" gets a big boost by coming on immediately afterwards.

I did hear an amazing gay house remix of "Ring The Alarm" while out last night. It was followed though by a gay house remix of Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" :-(

Re the R&B mixtape thing. Teedra of course did it best. Her freestyle over Lloyd Banks' "On Fire"!!!

Yeah, love "Check On It" as well.

did hear an amazing gay house remix of "Ring The Alarm" while out last night.

DId you hear the house remix of "Listen"? It's also very awesome.

Congratulations, you answered your own question!

I didn't like the singles from Trey Songz' first album, but "Wonder Woman" is pretty damn great.

'heartbreak' is AMAZING, it's so disco-infused! this is reminding me of cherrelle! everything in the richcraft vein has been very taut and teetering-on-tightrope-even-as-you-lose-control poised (which is why it works best on songs about that moment just before you fall in love), but 'heartbreak' is totally uninhibited about abandoning itself to those yummy disco strings. it's fully committed to...what exactly? i must listen to these lyrics more closely, is she full of determination and spirit to save herself from a bad relationship by...getting him back?

another natasha song, 'so sick', with clipse: minimal beat, cooing ghostly verses, i like.

and monica is fucking awesome in this video. love the song, i will never tire of generic crunk'n'b, especially not when it sounds like a hollabackesque marching band.

gr8 sleeve tho

http://i10.tinypic.com/2iapwup.jpg

the new Ne-Yo single "Because Of You" is totally classic

talking of mya why is she boring now?

moving this over:

nelly furtado - say it right (reggae rmx)

i can imagine this working so well. is it a kyaal style rmx?

-- lex pretend

erm, str8er down the line reggae this time; less of the kyaal's cutesy xmas tinsel chintz, and with an, i guess, subtler relationship to its material. obv the reggae lilt instantly adds much needed warmth - cos after all, who ever remembers the "you could mean everything to me" kicker in the og, even tho it's not supposed to be a song of rejection - but the genius of it is the way they stick in a sweetly persuasive singjay bloke and reshape it into a duet: "noo you don't mean nothing at all to me" / "- you don't mean that, girl". so it kinda humanizes the defensiveness of the thing, basically, turns it into a situation, when all you had before was skyscrapers and helicopters and corny guitar solo and timbaland's fat face mouthing the african tribesmen he sampled or whatever. get off the screen you fuck!! sorry, where was i.

(also it kinda proves no one gives a shit about this song when nelly can drop a lyric like "from my mouth i could sing you another brick that i laid" and nobody steps up for the easy zing?)

more than anything tho the chorus just sounds so much sweeter and gently buoyant and stuff on this rmx! and nelly's got good form here cos the reggae mix of 'turn off the lights' wway back when was also v brill.

i fucking love reggae remixes so much.

i love them too. heard the reggae remix of "No Diggity"? the most bad-ass thing ever.

disco remixes of R&B aren't a bad idea either, judging by this

ahh good to see u back dude! i wz gonna fire up the ukg thread again the other day but thought my slav work ethic alone is not enough.

that disco shit is NICE

this no diggity mix yeah? agreed.

yeah that's the one!

anyway, my fave R&B blend of '07 is Thicke's "Lost Without You" vs Lil Scrappy's "Oh Yeah" from some Michael Watts/Paul Wall mixtape (i didn't hear it in its entirety, a friend just alerted me to that tune)

i think it must be the only rnb blend ive heard this year, but the benja styles dancehall mix of beyonce 'upgrade u' is cool, if a lil perfunctory

also, just to reverse the ting - turns out that rollerjam 'clothes off' tune of nina sky's was produced by black chiney?! impressed. so much less awkward than something south rakkas would do.

lol!!!! ... this is not the best rnb blend of 07

uh

what the hell did big boi do to janelle monae

i'm having a brainwave, like, if joi was always clearly kelis' unimpressed mother swept under the carpet, then nu-janelle would be... nah it's gone

your turn

But if early tracks are an indication, Metropolis will outstrip any expectations of Monae's budding career. It is an avant-rock concept album based on Fritz Lang's classic 1927 German expressionist film. Musically, she explores the future as Cindy Mayweather, an Earth girl who finds a dystopian universe full of androids, evil capitalists and oppressed workers... Interestingly, according to Monae, the Atlanta Ballet has agreed to perform her Metropolis in April 2008.

WTF. I need to hear this! It will either be the best thing ever or the worst (i.e. secretly best) thing ever.

Holy Christ... this is either going to be mindblowing or laughably bad.

yes.

more importantly tho dudes, high heels or open toes?

compiling rnb shoe songs at 4am = it is so time i went to bed.

I am even more madly in love with Janelle Monae than before.

Megan Rochelle's "My Mistake" - so pretty.

"My Mistake" is absolutely gorgeous indeed. thanks for the tip!

not liking "High Heels" at all, but "Where Did He Go" was one of my favourite tunes of '06 so i'm still kinda hopeful wrt forthcoming Keri material.

i know this is not quite the thread to bring it up, but ILM in general is not the place to rave about poppy funky electro house anyway so what the hell - i'm enjoying Delio D'cruz's remix of Kelly R's "Like This" a lot at the moment. it's like Bodyrox feat. Kelly Rowland & Eve!

who ever remembers the "you could mean everything to me" kicker in the og

i always do! that's like the song's beating heart. i like the reggae mix but the original really has been soundtracking my life a lot recently.

i choose open toes!

woah janelle monae. i like the songs on her myspazz. her craziness could either go down the grace jones road (good) or the outkast road (bad)...

Member Since 26/12/2005
Band Website janellemonae.com
Influences Google, Apple, Itunes, and YouTube.
Sounds Like A runaway cyborg.

is ciara the best singles artist in R&B of the past 2 years or so? get up is so brilliant. one of my favourite singles this year. i prefer her singles to rihanna or ameries.

i love janelle monae (her song on idlewild was so good) but that song supposedly done with dre3000 is more of a rock song than an R&B one. not that i have a prob with that but id like her to do some great soul/r&b tracks.

has anyone heard of tiombe lockhart? i was never that big a fan of hers but her songs on wajeeds the war lp album are fucking IMMORTAL.

"i know this is not quite the thread to bring it up, but ILM in general is not the place to rave about poppy funky electro house anyway so what the hell - i'm enjoying Delio D'cruz's remix of Kelly R's "Like This" a lot at the moment. it's like Bodyrox feat. Kelly Rowland & Eve!"

I will track this down - ever since Faith Evans' "Mesmerised" it seems R&B mixes have dominated the quality end of poppy funky electro house.

One Chance's "Look At Her" features Bobby Valentino, Trey Songz and Lloyd, which makes it kinda like the pixelcloud-R&B (copyright rtc) equivalent of "All For One" or something. It's got the trademark amorphous puff-clouds of dreamy moondust in the background but it's a lot of ethereal smoothness in search of tune.

Actually, that's the remix, the original "Look At Her" was just One Chance with Fabo from D4L. It's one of those remixes that has barely any relation to the original song besides the title. It is pretty good, though, I didn't realize that those 3 singers have such distinct individual voices that I can listen to them all on a posse cut and tell the difference, and all their verses seem tailored to their strengths.

I'm completely scoffing at the notion that Ciara is "the best singles artist in R&B of the past 2 years or so." I came around to her with "Get Up" and "Promise" but I still think most of her songs are ass. Does anyone (besides The Lex) really want to defend "And I"?

Okay, so Bobby Valentino's "Rearview Ridin" is restoring my faith in pixeldust - painfully slow kicks and swirly fizzy keyboards, and Bobby in his most overwrought pose.

thank god he was able to restore your faith in the genre you just made up an hour ago.

"And I" is alright. Not her best single, but I can't see any reason to dislike it.

"thank god he was able to restore your faith in the genre you just made up an hour ago."

See rtc's post way upthread about "Anonymous".

But actually this genre started with "Slow Down", "Ur Behind" etc. a couple of years back.

And goes back even further if you count prototype examples like Janet's "Empty", Aaliyah's "It's Whatever", Mya's "It's All About Me", Ashanti's "Voodoo", Tweet's "Drunk". The best mix-cd I ever made was a collection of all this stuff.

goodies, get up, promise, 1-2 step... all modern R&B classics.

It's interesting how this hyper-lush sub-genre has become so predominant this year - but the only ones i've really loved from this year prior to "Rearview Ridin" are the Lloyd singles.

where can one hear these remixes you guys are talking about?

i agree that ciara is the greatest popstar of our times obv, and i think picking on her one half-assed ballad (which i didn't even realise was a single until now) is totally lame. i think of 'hotline' as the 4th big cut off goodies in any case, was really expecting that to be a single. the high end! not sure her marketing strategy over here for the evolution is all that though. titchy did you leave out 'promise' on purpose or have you not heard it?

also to hear that one chance remix, google "one chance" site:zshare.net. is d/lding for me as i type.

AAAANYWAY i came here to a) say that i have changed my mind on 'open toes' v 'high heels' - i think 'high heels' is potentially more interesting, it's just a crap mp3. the lyrics i half-heard make it sound like she's a prostitute complaing that her pimp is making her walk around in uncomfortable shoes. 'open toes' is a great song, really fun, and nice post-'promiscuous' production too - don't know anything about katharine mcphee but she doesn't exactly sell it. a/c to wikipedia it's a total bizarro collab anyway - danja handz AND kara dioguardi (of ashlee fame) AND the clutch?

AAAAANYWAY what i ACTUALLY came here to say is OMG LISTEN TO THIS: Tanya - I Know I Love You

probably should go in grime thread but who can be bothered really. the other songs on her profile are a lovely thing on the ever-gorgeous wifey riddim and uh a big evanescence-type goth piano ballad - but omg the big drums! and the twinkling synths! and the "huh-huh" backing vox! so pretty, i adore this.

(and it totally coincidentally fits into the hyper-lush pixeldust genre tim was talking about! meeting of minds &c)

If the question if whether someone is "the best singles artist in R&B of the past 2 years or so," then I think it's more relevent to bring up a dud single than a good album track that you simply imagined was a single. Anyway, I've liked almost everything Ciara's put out since her first album (except for "Lke A Boy" which seems like a surefire hit concept trapped inside a non-hit record), so if she keeps up the consistency maybe I'll be swayed.

I liked McPhee on American Idol but "Open Toes" doesn't seem to suit her at all. I'd kind of assumed it would be some breezy little confection but it's really lumbering and overbearing. Even worse than her single that sounded exactly like JoJo's "Too Little Too Late" with the chorus changed just enough to completely suck and barely function as a chorus.

Who would you say it is, Al? (Note: I don't necessarily think its Ciara and haven't really thought about this much, but she's as good an answer as anyone helse.)

'and i' was never a single in the uk.

it's a bizarre choice, if they wanted a slower single off goodies why not 'next to you'? that was gorgeous.

I dunno, Reverend. As much as I hate to say it, though, maybe Beyonce, if only because her last album had like 8 singles and I liked most of them. Or Ne-Yo? Or someone much less popular who's only had a couple singles in the past 2 years but were both very good, I guess.

al, i think simple statistics fall by the wayside when there's very creative, very individual game-changing (do not pull me up on gamechanging kthnxbye) classics out of the blue like 'goodies', 'oh' and 'promise' in the reckoning. beyonce sure does churn out the hits, but it feels kinda more about the wider rnb machine with her too - the hint of ciara's auteurism is what people are responding to here. *and having favourites is a part of pop music too, after all* ding ding bleh

(ooh see , that last line is almost teenpop-crit level condescension! and since i'm here and all-

Unlike Tim F, I don't think there will be anything "secretly" good about this whatsoever. Cindy Mayweather cannot fail, any more than an adorable android child could go crazy and try to cut mommy's hair while she's sleepi--uh oh. (MyTropolis)

-- dabug, Monday, May 21, 2007 10:01 PM (2 days ago)

SCREW YOU AND YOUR MEALY MOUTHED KOGANEERING DUDE)

(i love a good turfwar!)

anyhoo i don't think i can really endorse this brave new pixelpop genre i'm charged with creating; its curatorial desperation seems reynoldsian at best, frankly, and one finds little evidence to support it. more importantly there's no real cognitive pleasure in using it! cos most of the songs brought up sound to me like only the results of the most gentle and glacially natural of evolutions of various rnb trends spanning the last decade - the tim&bob fad was just the re-lukewarming of vague old timbaland easternisms, surely (proof positive is in the sheer second-rungness of the artists involved, because fake tim is and seemingly always will be the first refuge of the budding rnb scoundrel) - and it seems unremarkable to separate something so well woven in by now. no?

having said that, noting that more and more people expect FX to validate moaning n groaning and zero actual songwriting is fair game. it's pretty much my whole beef with bobby v.

also 'wreck' was cool, how comes that didnt make the cut

lol "koganeering"

kath mcphee has loads of danja beats on her album - 'love story' is the next single i think, and takes the unlikely form of a ronson-soul bosher for some reason. also i might be wrong but keri hilson is or has been part of this clutch lot?

frank fauxgan is also up 4 grabs deej

oh yeah and that meg rochell/r-les really is nice - see now, New Sweet Amateurism on the other hand is something i can get behind!

my decision regarding the raging toes/heels furore is as follows (as if i gave the slightest toss originally, but hey if i must be taken seriously) - OPEN TOES because i am less interested in keri's use of shoe as vector into relationship issues and more taken with kath's delightfully bland ruminations on the day to day of lady life:

I'm lovin' these sling-back shoes
I like the way they stay loose
I could wear them all day
And listen to the click-clack
Shoes like this make me hate flats.

no doubt!

Yeah, point taken about Ciara's auteurism and all (even if it generally translates to = bogging down her album with fucking monologues). My inner pedant is still very tempted to challenge the definition of "Goodies" as a "game-changing classic(s) out of the blue" though, shit sounded exactly like "Freek-A-Leek" which sounded exactly like "Yeah!" I have to give Ciara credit, I did not expect her to become a multi-platinum franchise on the back of Lil Jon's hit parade, and she definitely succeeded (commercially) where, say, Brooke Valentine and Nivea failed with similiar attempts. But that song was gonna happen with or without her. "Promise," on the other hand, yes, classic, and I hate "Oh" but it's unique enough that I'll give it a pass.

no yeah i do forget that i was fairly ambivalent to goodies at the time too (and still am really, cos i dont reckon ive heard it again since tbh) - maddeningly, stiflingly static in the same way as natasha's 'so sick' i guess, lex's manful extolling of which i still like to resist - but the way it totally purified what u rightly pointed to as its incremental forebearers in one fell swoop is kinda the essence of ciara's popstar/singles artist power.

in a way it's like the classic poptimist strategy of waiting for madonnna or whoever to neatly distill whatever trends are in the air in one go - except that largely ciara's trends in her singles are her own invented ones, like 'promise' and 'oh' (which i kinda love you for being nutty enough to hate), or ones she's laid full claim to herself like the '1,2 get up' thing. and there's the dancing too obv, which no one else is doing. so it all creates this clear, decisive brand that intoxicates people so.

blah blah.

so

- who will make a case for chris brown's single

- mario & neyo together again for 'how do i breathe' = am i suckered again, apparently so!

- also kinda love mario's 'kryptonite' w/ rich boy just for literally jacking all of 2007 in one mouthful

- am about to listen to carl thomas' album, i think it will be good! anyone heard tank's?

SCREW YOU AND YOUR MEALY MOUTHED KOGANEERING DUDE

No, Kogan is the Koganeer. I'm more of a Koganette.

Anyway, that wasn't condescending at all! I'm just excited about it and thought if I posted that here someone might tell me to fuck off. Which is what happened. Mostly I just think "Metropolis" is cool! Almost as good as "AI."

(And I know y'all aren't going to let the teenpop thread have that new Rihanna album...even tho it's probably closer to teenpop than R&B.)

(Don't mind me being idiotic...R&B and teenpop != mutually exclusive. Shouldn't really be much of a turf war!)

- mario & neyo together again for 'how do i breathe' = am i suckered again, apparently so!

Actually, apparently it's just Stargate but not Ne-Yo, Mario co-wrote the tune with some other cat I can't remember the name of. Baltimore radio's had the song since like the middle of last year, I guess cause he's from here and all, but it never seemed to take off, and once he started leaking other songs like "Kryptonite" and "Crying Out For Me" I figured he'd moved on from that song. So I was kinda surprised in the past few weeks to see that "How Do I Breathe" was going for adds and getting a video after all and I'm kinda reassessing. Still feels like a weak retread of "Let Me Love Youth" but it has its charms nonetheless. I kinda wish he'd go back to the exciteable uptempo vibe of "C'mon" and "Just A Friend 2002," though.

haha is 'let me love youth' some r kelly b-side i missed

lol

"He didn't really come with anything for me in the direction we were going in. We got that 'How Do I Breathe' song, which is more like the style of writing that you would hear from Ne-Yo," Mario told SOHH exclusively.

this guy doesnt just look retarded huh

ouch!

I went to the Scream Tour when it came here a few months ago, and Mario was billed to perform, but instead he came out at the beginning of the show to announce that he wouldn't be performing. Ever since then I've regarded him as an enigma.

i quite liked his brief artistic struggle trying to decide whether he should become 'mario barrett'!

also hold on, i've got this mario song here called "what is it gonna be" and nonwithstanding the obv stargate beat the opening line is

"i think prince might have said it best / when he said the beautiful ones, they hurt you every time"

and if that isnt neyo's corny-ass handiwork then i will eat every hat i've ever laid eyes on. oh well.

anyway yeah i had thought 'how do i breathe' only sounded familiar cos it's a total rip-off, but if theyve been holding it back then it's probly been timed just right nostalgia-wise. everything else i've heard apart from 'kryptonite' has been rubbish. especially the neptunes one where it seems like pharrell's trying to corrupt him like he did omarion on 'touch'.

"Touch" is the best thing Omarion's done.

Reading todays posts on this thread makes me realize I'm like a month behind everyone else.

Re: "Touch": All middle eight & pillow talk + cool progression = awesome

The fact that "Anonymous" has become a hit and "Wonder Woman" hasn't is fucking criminal.

I don't really think either is much of a hit yet, they both still seem to be climbing the charts. "Anonymous" is higher now but I've heard "Wonder Woman" a lot more, for some reason. I still can't get my head around "Wonder Woman," it seems like kind of a mess.

Agreed on "Touch," though. I despised it at first and then grew to love it.

Fantasia's "When I See U" might've just become my favorite R&B single of the year so far.

"having said that, noting that more and more people expect FX to validate moaning n groaning and zero actual songwriting is fair game. it's pretty much my whole beef with bobby v."

Yeah this is what I meant. What I like about "Rearview (riding)" is that it's the first Bobby song apart from the three big singles on the first album to do fx X songwriting properly.

rtc you're probably right about the desperation involved in championing this stuff. In my defence I've always loved this style even before it was a style as such. It's def. not a radical new thing.

Hmmm. "Anonymous" is getting quite a bit of airplay here, whereas I haven't heard "Wonder Woman" out at all. I think some of the messiness is what I like about it. There's a lot going on.

Anyone else liking T-Pain & Akon's "Bartender"? I'm actually looking forward to the T-Pain album, (which I haven't really heard anything about) amazingly enough.

ahh fantasia's album is another one i kept meaning to get around to - i suspect it's been totally underrated. (dunno what i've based that on tbh)

'touch' worked in reverse 4 me; seduced at first, but it's just a nasty little song really! pharrell at his sleazy worst.

t-pain i think about a lot. it's easy (too easy) to clown an ugly little electro-squealing piggy, and he sure knows it, so it makes for an interesting relationship. can't be bovd to go any deeper than that now. 'bartender' should feel cuter than it does tho, wdnt u say.

http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/515X7zuzq5L._AA240_.jpg

or should i say FANTASIA JAXX

yeah even though I don't really care for his solo singles, I might check out T-Pain's album just on the strength of loving his increasingly weird remix cameos. if his label lets him wild out a little on the deep cuts he could end up with a really interesting album.

did you ever hear his first? i havent revisited for a while, but i liked it a lot. i guess my thing with him is you get the impression he's thinking ok he's ugly, ok his voice is serviceable at best, ok he'll never be anyone's star, but maybe if he makes a leering ass out of himself, ramps up the vocoder and KEEPS THOSE SHADES ON someone will get round to feeling his lovely songcraft and admirable production skills one day. it's almost touching that he ended up finding akon.

yeah, T-Pain totally has an insecure, self-deprecating thing going on, I really felt for the guy when he did that interview with MTV about the song with Bow Wow: "For him to be calling me, he could have called anybody. He could have called Akon! But he called the dude that everybody says looks like the neighborhood weed man. Everybody is dissing me, they don't like my music, they don't like how I look, 'he can't sing,' and Bow called that person? You can't imagine how that feels." poor sad T-Panda :(

haha wow i never imagined he was that depressed!! i dont even make music and i still have to send bow wow to voicemail.

also if you look at the way the singles have dropped - 'in luv with a stripper' pretty much only runs with the same loserish thing 'i'm sprung' had, and now 'bartender' follows 'buy u a drank'. say what u want about canny marketing, but there's so much more to t-pain on that album for him to be reducing himself to a gimmick all the time. like even bloody 'dance floor', the biggest fruitiest one note sell-out track ever (erm i think catchdubs likened it to fatboy slim) and he's trying to say it's an album track? no way was it an album track when he was making it in the studio.

i can't fathom why he hasnt done any outside productions. maybe yeah, no one's asking him :(

this deserved a bit of shine last year too i think

New Keyshia Cole single, samples Mtume, features Missy and Lil Kim:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/196836570fe3a4/

I dunno what I think of it yet...

RTC thank you so much for recommending the Polow Da Don remix of "Get Up" BTW.

thought you might find it handy for wanderlust pt2 innit!

seriously, if it hadntve appeared randomly in january, billed as a remix to a single everyone knew, then people would be going ape. they ought to have been anyway - truly, it is a stupendous thing.

polow-wise kelly r's 'like this' remains beyond brilliant. wake up world! you gotta rep for kelly, always:

http://www.teenhollywood.com/d.asp?r=149842

Singer Kelly Rowland is harbouring a crush on Pirates Of The Caribbean star Orlando Bloom.

The former Destiny's Child singer is a big fan of the blockbuster movie franchise but insists she prefers Bloom over his hunky co-star Johnny Depp.

She says, "I think Orlando Bloom is the most beautiful man in the world! In Pirates Of The Caribbean, with that dirt on his face... that's hot."

the crazy bitch!!

Yeah, the "Get Up" remix really is an amazing track, I still hear it now and again on the late night slow jam radio sets. I think it got overshadowed by the "Promise" remix coming out at almost the exact same time.

oh also check out the random new mix of 'green light' as well, a poor man's 'fallen rmx'! but with young buck on the amen break! i especially like how it seems to ramp up the blatant amerie-baiting of the original just that bit further.

-- r|t|c, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:10 AM

this is still worth bothering to hear, as remixes go.

I think what gives Polow the edge with this stuff is how heavy (almost clunky) his beats are in spite of swaddling them in tearjerking synth cumulus. It makes it all very much more emotional, like, the stakes become really high or something! Who would have thought "Get Up" would sound so wracked and bittersweet (big kudos to Ciara here too, she sounds great)? Distant distant relative of the old Trackmasters remixes I guess, although it's not just the name that makes me think of Paul Poli as well.

(conversely, the precise problem with a lot of the candyfluff timbaland/tim & bob style stuff is that the stakes don't seem high enough, the utopian glint of the music and the vocals (cos they're all perfect loverboy vocals) feels too easily attained and thus not worth much. Sometimes you gotta work hard for it. Interesting then to work out why, of the recent stuff, what does work works - "Rearview (Ridin)" is slow and dark in the vein of "Tell Me", but i have no idea with Lloyd's "You", it's just too too good I guess)

Alright, more thoughts on "Wonder Woman" vs "Anonymous".

I think "Wonder Woman" has what you're talking about, Tim. It's very dark and unhappy-sounding. Forboding, almost, a bit less slick than the other (more popular) recent Timbo+R&B dude singles of late. Trey completely tries to oversell it; there's no reason "Wonder Woman" should be menacing, but he has to bring out this unnecessarily masculine tone (which surprised me. The stuff I'd heard from him before had him sounding very thin) that doesn't really fit the song. But that actually ends up working in his favor, as the voice ends up adding to the general darkness, and thus ups the stakes.

"Anonymous" on the other hand, has Valentino acting like a big, giant puss, and Timbo's production does nothing to toughen him up. Maybe, unlike Trey, Bobby has nothing to react against, no instigator to tell him to be a man, no stakes. Also, no tune, but that's a seperate problem.

Moving along, "Get Up" remix pwns all, we hold these truths to be self-evident, etc.

And WTF is this? Some song that jacks "Stand By Me" and replaces Ben E. King with some Fakon dude, (he even mentions that he went to jail!) who sounds like he's just singing through his nose to sound African or whatever, singing the word "suicidal" over and over. Oh, fuck! You who he sounds like? The "Fuck You, I Don't Want You Back" guy. Disgusting. Anyway, this is easily the worst thing on the radio right now.

You got me suicidal... suicidal... SUICIDALLLLLL

ok so i don't really have anything to say, or rather can be bovd to think anything thru, it's just that all the other threads on this fuckass board make my eyes bleed. someone talk.

eamon! hating on eamon is 4bidden, for "i love them hoes" is an alltime classic. it takes too much effort to hate on sean kingston - this is how you know you love it really, you slags.

(i seriously didnt think the world could manage a more disgusting white dude than scotty storch, but jr rotem take a bow! also at least with storch you feel he could make a good beat if he wanted to)

well done lance bass for making a new career for himself as part of the runners though.

is it just 'so sick' you hate rtc, or 'hey hey hey' as well?

well first of all i should say, people always be taking my hate so literal. there are only three songs i definitely, unquestionably HAAAATE this year and they are: 'give it to me', 'girlfriend', and 'we taking over'. and mainly i say that cos those are songs that people really really like, so an opinion is all too necessary. everything else is not worth the effort to feel strongly about and so therefore are also up 4 grabs for future changing of mind. they also come in handy for poking fun at other people as and when, obv.

sooo anyway let's listen to natasha's oeuvre again. not like i'm gonna hear them on the radio or anything. 'so sick', here we go

beat not bad in itself, but a bit passe these days. needs someone exciti- guhhhh hello the clipse. wack by default. and now AHHH LORD WHAT A HIDEOUS SOUND NATASHA MAKES. chorus is ok tho, and i like the scratches and why-why-why stutters, and the smooth breakdown - maximal nods making the minimal more severe. so it seems to have a certitide that it knows what its doing, yet not enough so that you find out by yrself like kelly r's 'like this'. this is a writer's record, nonexistent without some sort of championing, a revealing. this is what's playing when nails are getting did at the critical salon. harsh right?

'hey hey hey' i've come to ummm not like, but lets say value for its blahzay inconsequential vibe - not many tunes around have this as standard. perhaps this is it being bubblegum, or whatever.

quickly re the pixelcloudz debate above (good work all) - the idea of unconvincing loverboys sounds about right to me, but perhaps also what this is about is a clash of new and old modes of male rnb posturing; the genius of polow's 'get up' mix lies maybe not in the bigness of the beat (pillow the don) but in one simple line: "FREAK ME BABY", instantly transporting you to the 90s, when sexy was just sex and a million 4fuckingreal bad boys in the vein of dru hill, jodeci, blackstreet prowled the earth straining to tell you just that. ie when things were at stake!

so yeah 'wonder woman' does have something of that, though the glower happens everywhere but in the gimmick wonky evil sound bit; it's in the lowslung motorbiker guitar ('if yr girl only knew' steez), and especially in the staccato ice shard chorus, all mean and sharp, morphing soft-serve trey into a new sisqo - this oughtve been his comeback single, or ginuwine's, but really i guess theyre too old and done to seduce like young uns again. who else then is a bad enough dude to save male rnb? ne-yo's too insecure, usher's marrying his mother apparently, timberlake nahhhh, while all these other new dudes are candyfloss. really as great as lloyd's been this year it's still kinda a shame he had to lose that cold gangsta cherub persona along the way, cos even tho he remains a funny looking little bugger he's all i can think of. DEEP ON A CREEP FIFTY SONGS TUCKED UNDER THE um.... somethiiiing

(srsly what is lloyd saying there, chrome, brome? the lyric sites say 'prone' but then again they also say "Stay down for whatever forever hustle with my mystic hoes"!! mystic hoes!!!!!)

My unflattering comparison for Sean Kingston was a horrific amalgam of T-Pain and the guy from Gym Class Heroes, but you're right, Eamon kinda fits too.

No idea what Lloyd's saying on "Forever" but I love that song. 50 songs tucked under the pwn?

Hello, Sean Kingston. I am The Reverend, your mortal enemy. I will not rest until you are lying face down in a pool of your own blood. Be warned.

You make me homicidal, homicidal, homicidal.....

The only possible enjoyment I think I could derive from that song is if someone, urged by the many repetitions of the word "suicidal", actually did commit suicide and Sean Kingston gets sued for every last penny he makes off this bullshit, but that enjoyment would still be weighed down by the knowledge that someone died. Unless, of course, that person was me, which I really wouldn't rule out at all. Worst single of the decade is probably a bit hyperbolic, so I'll just settle for worst of '07.

Mystic Hoes!

My new band name.

rtc, now that you mention it, "Wonder Woman" does sound a lot like a Ginuwine song. I wish they (Ginuwine/Timbaland) would collaborate again, most of these random Omarion/Trey Songz/Valentino one-shots feel like Gin Lumpkin stand-inism.

Natasha is atrocious. If your going to squeak, please at least squeak in multiple notes, kthxbye.

Lloyd... I really like "Get It Shawty", hated "Southside", and don't care about "You" either way. Is it worth my time tracking down more of his stuff?

well whatever he's actually saying i'd always assumed lloyd was basically singing about erm, having 50 songs available to listen to when he's in his car? but now i think about it, 50 songs?! that's only like a 4cd changer dude. oh well.

just remembered this one tune for u&k submittal to pixelcloudz canon; i taped it off rashad morgan's myspace last year - he's signed to ti's label, and is sorta like the rnb variation of him in the same way young dro is the big bouncy miu miu to ti's prada (haha christ) - and it's the epitome of the 90s sly slowjam realness i mightve been trying to talk about. the production almost reminds me of king britt or something! - but in any case at least wait for the totally wicked jerky breakdown at the end. google says it was a minor detroit radio hit before he broke big with the much nastier but also quite hypnotic 'tell em what they wanna hear'. check it:

'just lay'

considering that R. Kelly is the first/only 2007 R&B album I've bought (although I'll get Amerie whenever it drops stateside), I should probably ask what I've been missing. should I be looking into the Lloyd or Bobby V. or Rhianna or Tank or Ne-Yo or Musiq or Sunshine Anderson even if I didn't like the singles from any of those albums?

not the rihanna.

every lloyd song i've heard off street love begins by underwhelming me for approx 2 minutes, and then unexpectedly seducing me by the close - and then i listen to it again and pay more attn from the start, and it's still underwhelming-then-seducing! almost like the real structure is gradual build to a pretty (pixelcloudy!) intensity.

apart from 'get it shawty' which is one of the most amazing things i've heard this year. funny how the missy verse which sounded so rote on 'i'm really hot' works so well on it.

i will still defend natasha, i know she is a brat who is being obnoxiously squeaky just cos she can but it's not a million miles from lil' mama's galumphing one-cadence rap, and i find natasha herself immensely endearing, and her weird weird snaky dancing very riveting.

really feeling keyshia cole's 'let it go'

RTC, is "We Taking Over" even worth hating on, really?

It's kind of funny how Akon is drafted in for such a dread-laden (or "dread-laden") sub-Wyclef chorus. It's like
"You know I'm from Africa, right?"
"Is that one or two islands over from Jamaica?"
"..."

Yeah, he is totally doing the Wyclef howl, there, but the song has grown on me.

My enjoyment of "We Takin' Over" is completely in spite of Akon's presence (I usualy don't mind him, but that chorus really is awful). And it's not even so much anyone's verses that are great as it is what the beat does underneath them, the bells that come in during Rick Ross's verse, the dramatic beat drop and build up from Baby to Wayne, etc. I didn't like a whole lot of the TimbaHandz hits, but based on that song I'm convinced that Danja is brilliant on his own.

Rihanna's album is totally worth it...very little filler and lots of potential singles. I'm excited to pick up a physical copy tomorrow.

Speaking of, t/s: Umbrella with Lil Mama vs. Umbrella with Jay-Z vs. Umbrella - on piano

(ok, the latter doesn't have much of a chance, but it really shows how beautiful the song itself is)

Re "We Taking Over": I do like the choirs in the background. But that's mainly because choirs in the background is one of those never-fail "break glass in case of emergency" kind of tricks. Wayne's verse is good too.

i had no idea 'we taking over' was hated on so.

I don't hate it. It didn't strike me as the kind of track one would have strong feelings about.

The pedant in me wants to point out that W. Jean is Haitian, not Jamaican.

(One island closer.)

Yeah I know, that was kinda my point!

that guy doing umbrella on piano is great... i really like umbrella now. not sure why i didnt like it before. its great. i hope the rest of the album is as good.

not sure whats wrong with me listening to so much R&B again but what is ne-yos album like? im quite into because of you.

It's like the first one, except that the last three songs suck and there aren't any singles on par with "So Sick" or "Sexy Love". It's definitely worth a listen but probably not worth your $15.

'we taking over' is one of the big, critically acclaimed radio hits of 2007. and its beat annoys the living shit out of me, nonwithstanding any uninteresting raps, and like al says the effort thats gone into it. i realise that it's an unremarkable song in the greater scheme of things, and that i'm hardly nipping any brewing rap movements in the bud by registering my disdain, but still. hell yeah it's worth it.

despite him ruining elephant man's first badboy single, i still can't damn wyclef completely however much i wanna, cos that 'you know what it is' of ti's is apparently my favourite rap tune of the year. dont ask me how! all i know is it's just my crack right now, way more than anything off king.

really feeling keyshia cole's 'let it go'

"Juicy Fruit" with just a little "Don't Stop the Music"? Somehow the whole is slightly lesser than the sum of the parts (either that, or I was not in the right mood when I first heard it).

Fuck what I just said.

Keyshia could be Alisa Peoples' daughter.

should I be looking into the Lloyd or Bobby V. or Rhianna or Tank or Ne-Yo or Musiq or Sunshine Anderson even if I didn't like the singles from any of those albums?

Knowing what I know of you? No.

ok, but does that mean you don't like any of those albums or that you'd imagine I wouldn't?

You hate everything, obv.

The "We Taking Over" beat annoyed me at first, too, but I've made peace with it. I still only think the song is alright, though.

The latter, Al.

Actually, if you don't like "Umbrella," I retract my Rihanna statement.

haha i still can't decide if andy's being genuinely helpful or if he's taking a shot. i was looking to WADE IN.

... a lumidee single w/ pitbull on the old bubble up riddim? what year is this again?

Ne-Yo's album got some seriously hyperbolic love on Popmatters today: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/38886/ne-yo-because-of-you/

haha i still can't decide if andy's being genuinely helpful or if he's taking a shot.

No shot taking involved!

I'm trying to wrap my head around the ideas that a) In My Own Words is anything resembling mediocre, and b) that Because of You is an improvement upon it of any sorts, and I'm not having any success at it.

I haven't played Because of You since I reviewed it and am hard-pressed to name a single song beyond the near-genius title track, "Sex With My Ex," and the J-Hud duet.

yeah, serious wtf. I wasn't crazy about In My Own Words but it had solid singles and a couple deep cuts I loved. this new one, I really can't be motivated to check out, "Do You" sounds like a complete dud of a single.

that's exactly how I feel about In My Own Words.

i never noticed before, but ne-yo's middle name is deliciously close to being 'chimera'.

(also his first name is nearly 'schaeffer', like the pen manufacturing company. and no one's surname is really smith. pen illusion everyman? he's playing with us, i call bullshit!)

anyway i was just about to say that soto's review was the one i felt closest to, and there he is. what might also be an issue with its various positive receptions is perhaps, how shall i put this, a desire to make some sort of stand for the basic elements of good songwriting in the face of cheap chart bauble pleasures. so, a lot of fetishizing of things like the album's 'solidity' and stuff. maybe i'm overdetermining. in any case yeah, i still think the first is lighter, fresher, younger, much more of its own thing than this one, which seems so thick with parody; the more he parodies others the more he parodies himself.

I fetishized the first album for those reasons of good songwriting and whatever (and still do), but the material was much better. This one isn't worth fetishizing.

I thought "Do You" was bad but Ne-Yo really sinks to a new low here.

Uh-oh, FAILED SEXY alert.

Really, though. Ne-Yo's not the one who should be embarrassed by that. At least he had good sense to steer clear of the video.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f14/snouts/bearminator.jpg

this bint, joy denelane & black buddafly = ficht nicht mit german rnb canon

so did any of yall make good your resolutions to check out t-pain's album? i don't think it's v good really, but this seems beside the point when 10 minutes into an album of freaky tales and various degrees of tipsy antics you come across t-pain's utterly terrifying "turns out i got hiv so now i'm gonna get drunk and kill myself" giant wailing setpiece LIKE WHAT WERE YOU THINKING MAN?!?!?!

the new adina howard lp private show is good stuff. 40 minutes short, and unfussily all about sex as usual, but with nice nonstop consistently competent 3rd party production throughout; by 3rd party i'm meaning the kind of modern but pleasingly indistinct dancey beats you found on, say, hilary duff's latest album, except adina has this experienced lady control over everything that stops you getting impatient like you do with younger fancies. in fact yeah, it's pretty much a teenpop album for the grown & sexy! i liked it.

really it's a classic example of the kind of generic-ass album i secretly love more than any other - the kind where i couldnt name you one cut from that you should make the effort to check, but when it comes to sticking a cd on for the duration you'll always pick over a demanding, peaks & troughsy major label big name one. this is not an easy skill tho! mariah probly managed it, but otherwise i'd reckon it's usually the preserve of random midrange latino urban stragglers like natalie / baby bash / rob g / frankie j / play n skillz / javier / cynthia lissette / jeannie ortega / paula deanda / happy perez, you name it. i love all those unassuming fuckers.

like, could you fuck with a whole album of stuff like this? hell yeah u could!

javier's one was just a great album full stop. al should check it, i get the feeling he's got a soft spot for this shit too. stuff like 'wassup' and 'is this love' are a way better bet than that new musiq soulchild or whatever.

and the frankie j with mannie fresh from last year, that was good too

lol @ the Amazon customer review titled "'Left Of Center' is Right Of Mediocrity!"

Baby Bash's "Suga Suga" is secretly the best song of the past ten years, but nobody knows this except for me and this one Mexican dude I went to high school with who had it coming out of his headphones for the entirety of senior year.

Oh yeah, and that Frankie J/Mannie Fresh is good, too.

Rob I want that Anita Howard album!

Freaky middle-aged Hillary beats!

I WAS THE ONLY ONE ON HERE REPPIN BABY BASH OR FRANKIE J, everyone laughed at meeeeeee

Okay to be fair I never liked Baby Bash. I mean, just on a visual level or something. Also anonymous R&B is good but I kind of draw the line at anonymous R&B with endless amounts of latin guitar. Next y'all be telling me that I should have bought Dante Thomas's album.

(girls always think "Miss California" is the best thing, it's always pandemonium on the floor)

Baby Bash looks like some kind of weird plush doll, and his album titles (Tha Smokin' Nephew, Super Saucy, Ronnie Ray All Day) make him seem even more surreal. "Suga Suga" was definitely a weirdly under-the-radar hit. It went top 10, but like The Reverend said, I know like one person who actually knew it and was into it. I was never crazy about it, but "That Girl" was one of my favorite R&B singles of last year. Mannie should do more R&B.

Actually "That Girl" by Maxi Priest is also kinda relevant here.

i kind of like boring mid-tempo latin-lite r&b, but only so much

suga suga how you get so flyyyy! badboy tune. and spanish guitar is always good. baby bash is also, on occasion, an excellent proof of the #1 IRON LAW OF MUSIC that even the weakest bone thugs biter >>>>>> yr fave rapper

(and i only heard crucial conflict's 'hay' for the first time last month, what have i been doing with my life? deej?)

tim i oughta admit that adina's probly isnt anywhere near as motorbooty as duff's, but the vibe is the same to me! btw if yr looking for some more randy old madams then syleena johnson's last alb springs vaguely to mind. filth! or maybe that was just the one tune called 'phone sex', i can't remember.

The best shit is when Chingo Bling and Baby Bash get together, that is some true Tejican smoked-out surreality for sure. I am actually counting the days until They Can't Deport Us All drops.

i see the teenpop thread is hamfistedly fumbling its way around paula deanda as well

'doin too much' = super classic realness

yeah see now chingo bling is the line i won't cross

well, Paula is kind of hamfisted and fumbling herself, don't you think? that guy The DEY on "Walk Away" is hilarious, "Sometimes I hug her, wish that it was you that I'm huggin'/ And I realize how much I'm buggin."

well you can stay on your side of the line then r t c but I guarantee it's a lot more fun over here

ha yeah but paula's in love and teenpop 2k7 only wishes it was

also, they will never realize how much they're buggin'.

just going back to the state of male rnb - i guess the one loophole i kinda missed in terms of drab loverboys & the 90s (and also tying into deep neyo-ian genre fetish as well) is... pretty ricky? they are also the silliest group of all time however. (westwood radio freestyle: "i eat that thang with the legs on / something something then i blow it in your bum" :O )

not to mention their effect on the youth.

(hysterics)

Fuck Pretty Ricky. They are getting a DtI thread.

"Suga Suga" sounds way more Texan than any of that Screwston bullsh. Bash sounds like he's about to saddle up a horse and ride off into the sunset on that shit.

be like me and listen to good-sized clipettes of kelly r's album here

so i'm a lil wary of being a serial repper of the (uh oh) generic now, but this... i dunno, i think it's got something. a sort of quiet, deliberate confidence to it. something you could grow to love. there's a good couple moments in those clips ('flashback' particularly, cos it's been like a year since that leaked and i'm still no nearer to finding a resolution on it) where i thought, well now if this was teedra singing, man i'd be feeling this, but then that's just it with kelly innit; the kinda civil sensitivity that keeps its alarm-ringing and dish-breaking indoors. and considering some were already seeming to struggle with 'like this' not smashing them over the head, you wonder if people are gonna be willing to invest enough to get into this. interesting.

after yesterday i guess you could say this is might be the grown n sexy version of cassie's album.

maybe that's going too far.

I haven't heard anything from Kelly R. that convinces me she should be a solo artist, but I haven't tried that hard, either.

Any hangups I had going into the Amerie album were completely misguided. It is yoga fucking flambe.

I'm liking that new Eve single, "Tambourine"

Yeah, I only heard it a couple times but remember it being awesome.

Kelly Clarkson will sell a fucking shitload of copies, but Amerie's record is the one I'm even looking more forward to.

i was on the fence about 'tambourine', but the stefani-esque video tipped me firmly into the LOVE IT side.

yeah, stefani-esque is almost too kind! esp when she goes straight from the 'what you waiting for' garden into 'sweet escape' goldworld.

after the intro sean paul 'get busy'-isms it runs out of steam way fast imo.

b-b-but it's like a slightly caffeinated 'like this'! (which has totally grown on me in the past week)

:[

i'll get back to you on that.

nahhhh sod it. not having it! they have like, vague go-go elements in common i suppose (although i tend to hear more of a elegant bollywood swank in 'like this' - innnnteresting how similar they can sound eh, zzzzzz), and eve duh, but that's all i hear.

my opinion of "Tambourine" has improved slightly since I first heard it (the goofy video helped), but it still feels to me like a very lightweight version of what Swizz did on Remy Ma's "Whuteva."

have u heard ny's mixtape lex? she seems to be the only rng chick to date with any kind of media push, but what i've heard don't seem too special. and yet again the rng defeat of people's most regular rnb sounding stuff being the hits applies re: 'willow', which i was surprised to hear on daytime kiss fm.

it's also produced by ukg geezer duncan powell, so double slap in the face there i guess!

i think the go-go elements are well to the fore on both ‘tambourine’ and ‘like this’! not just y’know the samples and so on, but the way the beats trip over themselves in this delightfully relaxed way, and both kelly and eve are really carefree…the way they handle the tempo changes as well. i do hear a bit of ‘whuteva’ in ‘tambourine’ but it actually took me a couple of listens to even notice those crunk slabs…’whuteva’ itself always seemed to be a rather leaden-footed take on ebony eyez’ ‘in ya face’.

have had ny recommended to me loads, i checked out her myspazz last night and was a bit underwhelmed, it’s a bit…nu-soul? reminded me slightly of that amazing amel larrieux track from last year but not as good, but it might grow on me. tanya is still the r&g girl du jour for me. though has sadie ama done anything since her single stiffed?

x-post

That Chris Brown "Cinderella" remix of/with Rihanna "Umbrella" is all over dc and Baltimore radio. It's just ok.

I don't hear a bit of Go-Go in "Tambourine." It's much too fast, for starters.

Man just when I started to get used to "Umbrella" to the point that I could leave the station on when it came on the radio, they put fucking demon child CHRIS BROWN on it. For a couple days I kept catching that remix at the very end and I was like who the fuck is hooting ad libs over the outro?

havent seen much of sadie. was 'let me take you away' ever a proper single? it certainly feels as established an rng tune as there's been in the last few years.

'willow' is vaguely folksy, yeah. crispy leaves and all that. which amel larrieux track do you mean though? i quite liked 'magic', but it was no stunna or anything - she'll always be a 1 hit wonder to me. she had a dull album of jazz standards this year as well.

that tanya's ok, in a uk charity case kinda way. the rng way! do you like lauren mason? i hear she's blonde.

haha yeah i think the go-goness of 'tambourine' is entirely in some completely wrongheaqded subconscious old soul man vibe you get from the sample. also tambourines, they use tambourines in go-go right? WE DON'T EVEN KNOW

yeah the chorus sample is kind of a Chuck Brown-ish old man voice (where's that sample from, anyway?). I guess tambourines would have to be one of the 80 different percussion instruments every Go-Go band has, but at the moment I'm trying to think of a prominent use of tambourine in a Go-Go song and I'm not really hearing it. D.C radio definitely LOVES the overt Go-Go vibe in "Like This," though.

"Blow Your Whistle" by Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers

says the internet. u were correct.

haha yeah i think the go-goness of 'tambourine' is entirely in some completely wrongheaqded subconscious old soul man vibe you get from the sample.

aguilera to thread, obv - though for all the actual musical parallels 'tambourine' still has a v different feel to something like 'candyman'.

re larrieux - 'gills and tails'! so so sultry - "i feel my skin...growing...scales..." i bought the album off the back of that but nothing else grabbed me, though it was all pleasant enough.

hmm! i'll put that on l8r. 'get up' is the one i remember her for.

since amel larrieux & rng are likely to never darken a convo together ever again, i will relate this shitty story for no one's benefit. so one time we heard cameo play this rng number by IMP BATCH (who were awesome at the time with gype riddim u may recall) (where are they now!) and the beat was totally great and for once, for once it had a proper song to it. impressed! later though it came to light thru nerdery that these milton keynes teens had somehow got ahold of some random larrieux accapella, stuck it on top and tried to get away with it. i guess they must have just typed pella into limewire, but it was fun to imagine them being massive nu-soul herbs. and it was still a good beat.

THAT'S the story. now i can live my life.

btw have you guys heard the new Chuck Brown album? made a dent on the the Billboard R&B chart and Go-Go-dude-turned-Mary J./Faith Evans producer Chucky Thompson did tracks on it, so I'd say it's fair game to discuss here. the single I heard was kind of a goofy thing with programmed drums and a little kid rapping on it, though, so it seems more like a weird misbegotten crossover attempt than the regular old Go-Go I'd rather hear.

that was a good story rtc! it amused me anyway.

x-post

DC stations are playing Chuck Brown's "Chuck baby Don't Give A..." alot. It features Chuck's daughter rapping on it. An unusual beat, but not strickly go-go. It's grown on me. That and Critical Condition Band's "Classy," which features a female vocalist and perfects the current go-go/r'n'b with semi-soulful female vocal approach.

ok so this is meleka's 'you make me feel', off last year's altogether quite good "the voice of grime" rng mixtape. i mention it cos

- i am bang into terror danjah again
- its gorgeously windswept (and strangely inconsequential!)pixelplainz are relevant to this thread, apparently
- i miss the times when grime producers tried a bit harder to establish an timbalandy auteurship over rng starlets rather than just giving away some old beats that arent that fun to rap over like it is now.

did anyone like that rashad song i threw up btw?

critical condition band is like, what, the roots doing crunk? odd. 'chuck baby' is kinda fun but i'll pass.

also bink is in chuck brown's band too it says. now everyone can finally stop asking where he is.

weird! Bink's drums have always had a certain looseness to them, though, so it kinda makes sense.

I'm lost. What do you guys mean by "rng"?

I think they're talking about grime? or garage? I dunno, I decided a while ago that if we're gonna go off-topic we might as well focus on Go-Go.

probably not this, though:

http://www.westcoast2k.net/images/snoop_r&g_album_cover.jpg

I, for some reason, have never gotten around to hearing that, despite loving all the singles. Probably because I have little to no faith in Snoop to make good albums, but that hasn't stopped me from acquiring and enjoying parts of the album before and album after, so I really have no excuse.

probably not, no. can i say tho that that 'crazy' w/ nate dogg is AHHH SO GOOD. in fact "blue carpet treatment" as a whole is way slept on.

rng is "rhythm and grime", aka grime with rnb struggling to make sense on top. ideally we want it to be a baby latin freestyle and not mostly awkward rubbish like it really is. feel free to hate, it might be cool.

oop, 'probly not' not directed at you rev

Critical Condition Band's "Classy" is polished go-go and rhythm, more like Rihanna fronting a go-go band then "Roots doing crunk." Some go-go is now billed as "go-go for grown folks". "Classy" appeals to that over 30 demographic as well as to the under 30 crowd thanks to the poppy hook.

ummm 'roll call'? other tunes with big synth stabs?

maybe that's what go-go sounds like these days, i dunno

I, for some reason, have never gotten around to hearing that, despite loving all the singles

ditto - or hang on, was 'step yo game up' even a single? i think i might even prefer that to 'drop it like it's hot'.

r&g has had its moments! about...five, ever, but still!

RTC speaking of Terra Danjah (wrong thread but whatevs) I saw a mix-tape cd for Aftershock recently (!!! This never happens in Australia but there you go) called Lords of something something. Worth getting do you know?

Hey has Andy K taken over allmusic's editorial policy entirely? There was some big feature on the front page about how "Umbrella" is the jam of the year and Janelle Monae might be the new "Hey Ya"/"Crazy" style crossover-to-indie-types thing this year.

that should be house of lordz vol 1 by the lordz. havent heard it personally, but i think the lordz are like a catch-all group of all the rappers on the label - bruza, and then randoms like triple threat, tinie tempah, royal. (aftershock haven't really mastered rappers, it has to be said.) beatswise, who knows. but i am.... 79% sure that cd will be a dud.

Tim F: NO!

Hmm rtc maybe I'll get the Boy Better Know vols 3/4 double pack instead. Even if it's dud there's the frission derived from one of the discs being a "tropical disc".

Andy is that "NO!" as in:
- "No, but isn't it interesting how pop-friendly allmusic's features have become!"
- "No, and I am bitter twisted about things at amg at the moment!"
- "No, and it upsets me that you would assume I was responsible for that. In fact I despite "Umbrella" and Janelle Monae both!"
- "No, shut up, stop talking about this stuff! (taps nose)"

haha. omg. that was the choice?

'tropical' is s-t-u-n-n-i-n-g. in fact, it's not even about it being the most wonderful thing i heard all last year - i might even go so far as to call it the lost masterpiece of british music. what masks itself as... actually no wait, you go get it first. then we'll talk.

Well I was gonna get that one first anyway. But now I'm excited.

I expect you to bring these things to my attention without my prompting BTW!

maybe that's what go-go sounds like these days, i dunno

-- r|t|c, Friday, June 15, 2007 6:10 PM (2 days ago)

Some go-go sounds like that, but other times they bring a female vocalist forward and it sounds different:

http://profile.imeem.com/tweEW8/music/2aenOJ2Z/ccbclassy_girl_full_version/

tim i think i have that aftershock mixtape! but i can't find it, gah. it's not amazing - there are some v pretty r&g things courtesy of gemma fox, the ama sisters and so on, and some REALLY bad mcing.

re: lauren mason - i wish she was good. even listenable would do.

also everyone please post on kelly rowland thread, i love that album so much.

also hey, rtc, i'm halfway through the ny mixtape and it's pretty good! there have been stretches where it's washed over me, but quite regular omg moments too. she's got a great voice - it's nice to hear an r&g girl who sings with vigour, not just floaty dreamy prettiness (not that ny's that vigorous, but still)

RTC! The Tropical mix is like woah. Sunship meets prime Jammer!

oh so THIS is what robin thicke sounds like.

there was a thread on new answers yesterday about what music patrick bateman would listen to nowadays, that sprung unbidden to mind when listening to the thicke album.

Andy is that "NO!" as in:
- "No, but isn't it interesting how pop-friendly allmusic's features have become!"
- "No, and I am bitter twisted about things at amg at the moment!"
- "No, and it upsets me that you would assume I was responsible for that. In fact I despite "Umbrella" and Janelle Monae both!"
- "No, shut up, stop talking about this stuff! (taps nose)"

I suppose I'm partially to blame. I THINK we were running pop-friendly features at least semi-regularly from the start.

I just realized that Natasha has a lisp. AWESOME!

q - whatever happened to the spizzazz site? i used to love that.

i dont like that thicke album too much. apart from that big single everyone knows now.

Chrisette Michele - Worth investigating?

I need to hear more R&B. I think the only R&B albums I've actually gotten around to hearing this year are Ne-Yo (meh) and Amerie (fiYAH). I guess Omarion, too, but I think that came out at the end of last year, but it's only a few songs deep, anyway.

Probably old news for all of y'all, but I am totally loving the Diddy/Keyshia Cole track. Diddy is curiously, er, absent on the track, given his top billing. The Keyshia parts are almost like some weird Richard X style OMD/Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls bootleg.

despite that valiant stab at RUINING IT, i concur that 'last night' is ageless greatness. i've even managed to transmute diddy ballsing it up with his nonsense at the end into a kind of, i dunno, smug endorsement of the track's fidelity to genre rather than its song. anyone gonna buy that idea? it's going cheap.

i love diddy for releasing the mario winans one as the next single too! that album is GOLD.

Yeah it's an awful idea isn't it, sorry for sharing! Keyshia is amazing on it though, she totally loses it.

I agree WTF is Diddy saying at the end.

Diddy that shit isn't even funny for R Kels all the time.

speaking of ballsed endings, the sean kingston people are such pussies for leaving out the "SUICIDAL, SUICIDAL, SUICIIIii-rrrwwww" turning off the record metaphor thing at the end of the 'beautiful girls' vid. still so cute tho, i love it. (has the reverend recanted his sins yet? it's so gonna happen, deal with it.)

i'm kinda warming to keyshia cole lately, and i don't know why. don't think it's that new song! maybe it's going out with jeezy and hanging out with missy that's made me kinda, believe her? the AHH REAL SOUL critical reaction to her when she came out seemed so pat and unquestioning. also, the apparently sharing remy ma's stylist thing.

so yawn is it time to talk about NICOLE SCHERZINGER + TI + POLOW yet or shall i come back next month?

it's kinda like 'blindfold me' x 'it's me bitches' x being any good

what's it called?

it's called BLAOW

ha ha nice. I will report back.

If Kells did Diddy's part on "Last Night" (and rewrote the coda, obvs) it would be a contender for song of the year.

don't agree with that. even if someone put a gun to kells head and made him play it straight, it would still be too ott emotive to act as a foil to keyshia the way diddy does. be another camp minidrama.

diddy's never really what's wrong with a track, i find; it's the suspicion of diddy that bugs people. (i guess in the same way you could argue that my own suspicion of kells is infecting how i think the song would come out, but i think my grounds are greater right now.)

like dude said, the paris hilton of rap.

I think I heard the full version of "Last Night" once or twice when the album first dropped and since then only the radio edit, so I couldn't even remember what he says on the outro and had to look it up, jeez that really does kinda change the tenor of the song.

I agree that Diddy's usually more objectionable on principle than in practice, but c'mon, his ridiculous mealymouthed singing on "Last Night" totally bog it down. Not to say the song would be better with R., but maybe a capably anonymous R&B dude would've helped. (xpost)

the music/beats on the diddy album are AMAZING. and the tracks with big boi, ciara and timbaland are excellent. theyre just spoilt by diddy being on them.

i dunno, nonwithstanding that stupid outro i really like the contrast you get with diddy and keyshia, that whole awkward distance between them. i don't have any trouble finding him sincere generally*, but even if he did sound mealymouthed i still think that's more interesting than a proper competent matched duet that runs the risk of the whole song sounding mealymouthed.

* mumble mumble d-dot, mumble mumble litany of ghostwriters; even if he never touched keyboard nor rhymebook in his life, you think a totally distinctive album like press play, diddy's whole career even, comes about by just chucking money around? the guy has a rare curatorial flair that makes him as much of an artist as most people, i'd argue

Oh i totally agree that with or without ghostwriters/producers, Diddy guides the aesthetic of his/Bad Boy's records, especially Press Play. He went full bore for a sound that noone really expected or wanted, least of all from him, and it ended up fitting pretty nicely with what Ciara and Justin put out around the same time (Last Night/Promise/Until The End Of Time is my triumvirate of nu-LinnDrum ecstacy that I inevitably hear some or all of on the drive home every single day).

That line "all cried out, with nothing to say" is like the perfect summation of Keyshia Cole's entire career.

that nicole scherzinger is a motherfucker of a track

in a good way

"diddy's never really what's wrong with a track, i find; it's the suspicion of diddy that bugs people."

This is totally OTM to a factor of 10. Yeah Diddy is like the Paris Hilton of rap but even more so maybe, people will go to extraordinary lengths to dismiss/deny the good stuff he does, even when often his rapping is really tight and interesting (although that doesn't really apply here). The difference maybe is that I think people's hatred of Diddy actually does originally arise from (parts of) his late 90s music - but that was a v. different time in terms of people's attitudes toward pop-rap and Diddy's style.

ha ha remember when ethan and j0hn d fell out over ethan liking diddy?

speaking of ballsed endings, the sean kingston people are such pussies for leaving out the "SUICIDAL, SUICIDAL, SUICIIIii-rrrwwww" turning off the record metaphor thing at the end of the 'beautiful girls' vid. still so cute tho, i love it. (has the reverend recanted his sins yet? it's so gonna happen, deal with it.)

Ah, I'm afraid not. There are other hit songs out there that I dislike like, but this is the first in some time that I simply CAN NOT LISTEN TO. When it comes on while I'm working I run to the radio to switch it as soon as I hear it, whereas with any other song I don't like I just deal with it, cause I know it will be over in a few minutes. I've actually started avoiding stations that play it. I can't imagine myself ever coming around.

Ironically, the opening of "Beautiful Girls" (at least when played out of a shitty old radio with lots of industrial clatter going on all around) sounds exactly like the intro of "Last Nite", thus lulling me into a false sense of security before that fucking voice kills my soul.

...that I dislike like...

Jeez. As much as I ragged on "Bossy" last year, to the where Jaxon had to tell me shut up already about it (I took his advice, this is the first time I've mentioned "Bossy" on ILM since), I'd take it over "Beautiful Girls" by a wide margin.

...to the point where...

I need to stop fucking up my posts/

Chrisette Michele - Worth investigating?

-- The Reverend, Friday, 6 July 2007 05:26 (Yesterday) Link

The album is quite good. A few tracks are kind of corny in that "neo-soul" way, but for the most part it's great. She's is really talented... it's a shame that the project has been so mishandled by DefJam, I think "Good Girl" could've been a big hit.

RE: Scherzinger's new single... um... YAWN. It's "Blindfold Me" minus all of grime, kinkiness and attitude. I bet it'll be a huge hit :| Man, Kelis just can't catch a break... lol.

"Whatever You Like" is better/sexier than "Blindfold Me" because it doesn't sound like it's being sung by Marge Simpson. Unless you're into that kind of thing.

umm on further listens i could make a pretty good devils advocate case against that scherzinger, mainly for its enervating sucky sucky love u long time vibe (also "she hot as a stove! her name is nicole!" haha) (she hot as some coals? she hot as... some fresh rolls? nah i dunno what'd work better either) but quite frankly unfavourably comparing it to kelis only makes me like it more! i don't feel like a big kelis debate but 'blindfold me's "kinkiness and attitude" is beyond risible, and what i called her 'operatic mooing' on the old thread is at its very worst there. the woman's had a zillion breaks already, it's not our fault she's mad unappealing.

xpost!!

(er is nicole saying "something bout that cock" as well? cf xtina 'candyman' WTF WHEN DID THIS BECOME ACCEPTABLE?!)

i'd really like it if someone had a go at arguing why polow isn't the greatest producer around. but not just listing his worst beats and stuff. at his very best his tracks have this singular concept to them where everything that goes on in them makes perfect sense; at his worst (like the rich boy album, perhaps this nicole too) he's vulnerable to cooking up big chunky soups of interesting but kinda awkward stuff, when u imagine he didnt have a big plan so he thought he'd just chuck everything in. sorta like the way dj shadow sounds so ungainly when he produces for rappers, or at a pinch if lenky felt the need to cram all his bespoke variations on a riddim into one song. obv polow is still totally awesome, but DISCUSS

That line "all cried out, with nothing to say" is like the perfect summation of Keyshia Cole's entire career.

haha ATOMIC PWN. keyshia fans better come and make their cases sharpish, or they lost.

while it's true about diddy presaging certain radio things, i think i love press play more for the ridiculous caprices that won't EVER be fashionable. brazen pharoah monche dress-ups, chintzy boogie, the james brown shit, the amazing chamber orchestra interlude w/ avant, the fucking DRUM N BASS HYPERBALLAD w/ brandy! find me another rich guy in music who dared like diddy! kanye could get a fucking professorship by the time he makes an album as ballsy.

"Thought You Said" = excellence incarnate.

I realize nobody but Al is going to back me up on this, but the Rich Boy album is, for the most part, pretty damn good.

well, xuxhk likes the Rich Boy album and cries about how rap thread meanies should like it more at every opportunity. i don't dislike it, but haven't spent much time with it since the first month or so that it was out, so I'm probably due to listen to and re-evaluate it.

keysh / missy vid

so yeah, i'm guessing i briefly just got bored of everyone else's persona and felt like someone all cried out? holla at an empty signifier. this tune still escapes me, but it's not like you'd bother getting uppity about some old slappers singing along to 'juicy' on the bus either, so.

it is not as good as teedra 'be your girl', for instance. anyone heard teedra's new mixtape? live bits and rap beatjacks as per - naturally, it was very enjoyable. like tim said, her voice cuts you through whatever the weather. critically what sticks out again is her taste in rap beats; she continues her crusade to rehabilitate wifebeaten g-unit beats ('amusement park' this time - consider myself cosigned)(and 'many men'!) and otherwise just popular fun stuffs like 'get it shawty', 'money in the bank', 'throw some ds'... keeps her all young and unpreachy for a soul gal.

i wonder who'd make a good first lady of g-unit. olivia was a little hard done by, to be fair. she looked like a boss bitch, but it wasnt enough to keep the boys under control. teedra's maternal enough but would disapprove at their antics. keyshia was rumoured, bit too baby mama perhaps. the possibility of ciara is a bad dream. maggie thatcher, i hear she's free.

there's nothing really wrong with that rich boy alb i guess, but none of it sticks at all. you let it pass by you for an hour until pastor troy shows up, goes AND I LUV YA BABY! MWAAAAH / HUGZ N KISSES / FUCK THEM NIGGAZ / AND FUCK THEM BITCHES and blows the whole rest of it out of the water.

pretty much gone right off that scherzinger now.

gorgeous summer ballad alert!

and then there's gorgeous summery R&B-friendly zouk: check out "Played Out Record" on Chelsy Shantel's myspace.

Wow, zouk from Portugal. That is nice

Teedra's "Love's Gonna Be" is a little bit disappointing :-(

Not bad actually, and theoretically there's nothing wrong with her making a bid for the charts, but this doesn't utilise her voice enough. And it isn't really catchy enough to justify the move anyway, despite sampling "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".

(er is nicole saying "something bout that cock" as well? cf xtina 'candyman' WTF WHEN DID THIS BECOME ACCEPTABLE?!)

cf keri hilson's brilliant 'hands & feet' too, which you prob hate. "where'd you get that from, your daddy?"

trying to figure out whether i love, or merely like and am interested in, j holiday's 'bed'...if 'umbrella' wanted to be 'promise', but didn't quite get there? bits of it sound uncomfortably forced, but then comes a wonderful rolling melody ("gonna rock your body, turn you over") and all is nearly forgiven.

nicole scherzinger rulez. love it.

also "operatic mooing" is kind of perfect to describe kelis on 'blindfold me' but how is this a bad thing?

(I'm popping onto this thread to mention ten days after the discussion that I am shocked and amazed that everything off the Diddy album that's gotten radio play has been great. That's all, fucking off now...)

The album itself is great.

I'm glad Dan used the "everything that's gotten radio play" qualifier instead of just saying "all the singles" or I might've gotten the impression he liked that shitty song with Aguilera.

They played that one to death in the Boston area. I think it's really excellent (but in general Christina has to really try to make me dislike a song she's singing, her first album aside).

I dunno, I think it's the first song where she actually sounds like Britney and has that weird Daffy Duck quality to her voice. I'm glad R&B radio didn't mess with it like they did "Come To Me" and "Last Night" (I guess it did well on pop stations?).

She only really does that on the chorus, though; the pre-chorus hooks are basically Christina singing comfortably in her middle voice without belting. Plus that beat is monstrous.

Eh, vaguely dancey nu-Just Blaze beats just aren't doing it for me, especially compared to the weird hyped up hip house vibe he was flirting with back in 03/04.

xpost: J Holiday's "Bed" is absolutely fantastic. Not quite on the level of "Promise" or "Umbrella" (though, I agree, it sort of sounds like a mixture of the two), but it's so sensual and sumptuous and rich. Amazing.

Some other songs I'm feeling:

Chilli (Of TLC) - Gliding : http://youtube.com/watch?v=xuljAR0g1gU

Candy Hill - Juicy : http://youtube.com/watch?v=yu-9N49qKlw

"Juicy" is totally a throwback to late 90s/ early 00s.. like we were talking about in that Toya thread. It sort of sounds like 3LW.

"Tell Me" is the best single from Press Play so far. It's all about Diddy's unwarrantedly aggro rapping. Really though, there's like five more singles from that album. I have to put in a mention for "Special Feeling", because no one talks about it and it's just about the best thing ever. Diddy should cover "Irresistable Bitch".

the switch remix of 'tell me' is monumental - the a cappella break! makes xtina's chorus sound like the most towering, powerful thing ever! - but i'm always disappointed when i go back to the original.

I'm fucking sick of boring hispanic r&b-lite right now.

Actually, scratch that. It's just Paula DeAnda.

So.. how awful is the new Ashanti song "Switch"? Geesh, 3 years and that's what she comes up with?

I haven't heard it, but that's exactly what I felt about the Lumidee comeback single. I like the last thing Ashanti did w/ Paul Wall & Method Man & the Masta Ace beat.

2007 is shaping up to be a great year R&B-wise, with new albums slated to come out by Teedra Moses, Musiq, Bilal, Erykah Badu (!!!), Faith Evans, Amerie, Tweet, Jill Scott, Lloyd, Beyonce, and a bunch of others.

so where are most of these

Teedra - first single is circulating, samples Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell
Musiq - album has been out for a while now.. it's pretty okay
Bilal - shelved I guess
Badu - album due out later this year
Faith Evans - same as badu
Tweet - same
Jill Scott - First single "Hate On Me" has been out for a few weeks, it's really good.
Beyoncé - I don't know, I sort of doubt that she's going to put an album out this year.

Anyway, I'm totally addicted the new Mya single "Ridin" .. and the new Angie Stone single with Betty Wright (!!!!!) is totally funky and awesome.

Also:

MARY J and CHAKA KHAN "Disrepectful" - produced by Jiimmy Jam & Terri Lewis and sounds like RICH HARRISON. It's a total clusterfuck diva screamfest.

DETROIT (Billboard) - Soul legend Al Green says it's been all love and happiness working on his next album -- a duets project produced by Roots drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson that will feature collaborations with Anthony Hamilton, D'Angelo and possibly Alicia Keys and Joss Stone.
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Green told Billboard.com that he and the Roots already have laid down 15 songs at Electric Lady Studios in New York for the tentatively titled "The Duet Album." Blue Note sources told Billboard.com that they're trying to arrange studio time for Green in August, September and October. They hope the album will be finished by November, with an early 2008 release expected.

"It's turning out to be like fresh cream, man, like fresh milk from the cow's titty, baby," Green gushed. "We wrote these songs right off the (studio) floor and cut 'em right there that same day.

"It's the Roots band playing the music, producing the music, and they let Al sing what he sings and sing with these other people," he said. "I've never heard anything quite like it, 'cause I've never had anybody produce me other than Willie Mitchell. And when you give these young kids a shot at it, it's interesting to see the art they make. It's beautiful."

Green said there's a pronounced hip-hop flavor to the music, but it will contain no rapping. "That's all you need. Don't mess with it, baby," he said.

The album might be something of a departure for Green, but he'll make his familiar sweet soul music this summer as part of the B.B. King Blues Festival 2007, which also features Etta James. Green said the thrill is most definitely not gone in being on the road with King, who, like Green, established his career in Memphis.

"He's the real-deal godfather, if you will, the real-deal person in reference to the blues," Green said of King. "I mean, he played on Beale Street when he was young. And after all these years he's remained true to his calling and is still singing those songs people oughta love -- just like I do."

YES

MARY J and CHAKA KHAN "Disrepectful" - produced by Jiimmy Jam & Terri Lewis and sounds like RICH HARRISON. It's a total clusterfuck diva screamfest.

This will be either the best of worst song of the year.

HOLY SHIT. "Disrespectful" kicks ass! Mostly 'cause of Chaka.

WEHRE DID U FIND THIS?

Where I find the world: Youtube

(hype machine has it, too)

Oh, right.

Can't wait for this. http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news?id=35113http://www.mywebsite.com/mylink.htmlhttp://www.entertainmentwise.com/news?id=35113

Some newer songs I'm loving at the mo

J. Lo - Do It Well [Yet another J.Lo single that uses a classic hip hop break, this time it's Eddie Kendricks "Keep On Truckin'", and like all of the other ones it's AWESOME. Her other single "Hold It Don't Drop It" is great as well.]

Mya - Ridin [THIS SONG IS SO GOOD]

The Dream - Shawty Is A Ten/Shawty Is Da Shit [This dude is the mastermind behind "Umbrella".. this is sort of R. Kelly/T-Pain/Akon/Sean Kingston-lite, but whatever it's way catchy]

Angie Stone & Betty Wright - Baby [SO RAW.. I think this song is about D'Angelo.]

I also really like the "Make Me Better" remix with Lil' Mo (where the hell has she been? lol). Fab & Mo make a nice team. And that new Nicole Scherzinger song.

Also, allegedly Badu's new album is called The Kamah and is coming out mid-October.

dream could stand to slow down with any solo manoeuvring just yet. 'shawty' ain't bad i suppose but it kinda pisses me off on some vague shark-jumping level? i think he also wrote the j.holiday, a factoid i'm trying to forget cos that fucking song is so irresistable, especially when you let it be its own homespun karaoke everyman listening to the radio thing. something, i dunno... protean. like, the bed as a restful thing too! i dunno.

and this is gonna sound strange but i really like the bit in the video where he's driving thru the desert and passes this giant white oil tanker. this big functional thing, going somewhere and back. making glugging noises. just like the song!! haha i think i've turned it into wichita lineman or something.

the polow mix of fantasia's 'when i see u' is really really good too. al was right about it being a great song in the first place, so i was thinking it a fools errand for polow to try and turn it out to the clubs - but no! polow does this brilliant rap on the intro that manages to set up this sorta weird frustration in the song, something almost voyeuristic in fantasia's girly blushing crush so's he can then make it swell with looming pash vibes, until it breaks with this glorious cresting release for the bridge. "that's why i didn't understand, i had a million dollar plan / guess all you really wanted was a man" is a fantastic line, and such a strange angle to come at this particular song with, don't you think?. proper remix.

quite soft on paula campbell's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Spucr7Ia0";>'ain't nobody stupid'</a> also

guh nobody except me obv

(aight whoever's blog this is, come out and say ¡hola!. i know you're reading.)

As much as I like T-Pain and can even occasionally make a case for Akon, the whole army of dudes who are so-so singers autotuning the hell out of their voices (Sean Kingston/J. Holiday/The Dream/Ray-L) are kinda killing R&B radio for me right now.

Paula Campbell's 2004 independent album was really big around Baltimore and a personal favorite of mine (seek out "Take You Home" and "How Does It Feel" if you can), but nothing she's released since signing to Sony has really grabbed me. It's kind of exciting recently that she's hooked up with Ne-Yo and is supposedly having Ciara direct her video, though, maybe she'll get out of label purgatory and drop an album this year.

Also excited that the Amerie album's finally getting a U.S. release. Just when I was about to get fed up and go DL a copy or hit up amazon.co.uk or something, I hear that it's coming out next week.

"As much as I like T-Pain and can even occasionally make a case for Akon, the whole army of dudes who are so-so singers autotuning the hell out of their voices (Sean Kingston/J. Holiday/The Dream/Ray-L) are kinda killing R&B radio for me right now."

I've definitely felt this for a while now. I love the songs, but the non-vocals kinda hurt me. This was exacerbated by listening to this masterful collection this morning:
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Pf1%2BC4c3L._SS500_.jpg

I've also been listening to lots of Steve Arrington (aka the original Keith Sweat) and Slave stuff. Both of these guys had that same nasal-y/flat voice that Akon/T-Pain kinda remind me of, but they weren't auto-tuning (well they couldn't, but still) and it sounded so much better for it. Of course, I suspect these new guys are auto-tuning because they have to, so I don't expect them to leave it behind.

Also excited that the Amerie album's finally getting a U.S. release. Just when I was about to get fed up and go DL a copy or hit up amazon.co.uk or something, I hear that it's coming out next week.

Naturally, I just ordered a copy off import.

quite a good point there, about keith sweat etc. i have to say i don't always notice autotune on songs as much as some people seem to, unless it's a particularly egregious example like yeah, that shitty t-pain b-side calling itself ray lavender. i'd like to think autotune will always transcend its ubiquity if employed at just the right moment of painful robo-vulnerability, but maybe not anymore.

(affecting but also hilarious 2006 loser anthem classic 'lucky you' to thread obv)

that new chris brown with t-pain is a bit of a shocker too. why let yourself be all vocodered chris! is that wise! his new album's gotta be the most desperately mismanaged major label thingy in ages by the looks of it.

having said that, the tune still gets a 10/10 just for chris' lyric

AND MY ANATOMY IS BIRDLIKE

YEAH, YOU HEARD RIGHT

!!

haha yeah the 'birdlike' line really made me do a doubletake the first time I heard it. I am really taking joy in Chris Brown's flailing failure with one single and then desperation to latch onto another R&B star with another, my schadenfreude for him is like how most people feel about 50 Cent right now.

This thread! Thank you so much for "When I See You (Remix)"!!

Fantasia singing "SO SEXY BOY!" = wins the entire universe.

for me it's still "SOMETHING NOW IS TAKING OVER ME" with polow cranking the wind machine up to 10 billion, that bit is just amazing

had to listen again, it really is like an exorcism or something

re chris brown again: haha a part of me kinda suspects t-pain might be fucking with chris deliberately! i'm probably just playing dollshouse again but somewhere inbetween that v funny intro ("what them boys gon do for me?! bah!!!") and ooh, this little thing makes me think t-pain isn't above abusing his position a little now he's on top

Ha ha yes! It kinda upsets me that Fantasia hasn't had a bigger career. She really has the most ridiculously great OTT voice.

yes, i must listen to her album. today in fact.

what did u think of nicole 'whatever you like' in the end btw? the video's um... arresting (until that bit when she's eyedeep in the water and i think "ooh, like pharoahe monche!" THAT'S PROBABLY JUST ME THOUGH) but it still strikes me as a bit all bark hollow bite personally

Yeah I was a bit underwhelmed by it. Sort of a mixture of "Beep" and "Like This", except that it's not really very catchy or well-constructed like "Beep", and certainly not as astonishing as "Like This". Nicole is a bit wasted on understated-vocal tracks (whereas Kelly is perfect sounding like she's carefully measuring each phrase).

oh i'm glad ur into 'like this'! thought it was just me, and maybe al. i did indeed grow to love kelly's album.

btw what is up with that bizarrely millenial insistence on kelly having some sort of shoddy-looking LIVE WEBCAST of the party she's hosting in the 'like this' vid!! so deliciously dated.

Yeah, "Like This" is great, although the album did nothing for me in the couple of listens I got in before temporarily misplacing during a recent move. I think "Love" (the Solange co-write!) was the only other song that really grabbed me, let me know what else I should be listening for if/when I relocate the disc.

"Whatever U Like" could have legs for me but right now it's just kinda...there, and the goofy "hot as a stove" stuff would probably work better if it was someone more like, say, Fergie. She's still a really underrated vocalist and I like most of what she's been on so far, but I kinda have to wonder if there's any reason for a Scherzinger solo album right now, although maybe the rumored relationship w/ Iovine is the only reason she needs to make it happen. But seriously, I'm sure the Pussycat Dolls machine could use a new album to keep the reality show going and all (unless the 'next doll' they search for is one who can actually sing lead to replace Nicole?), and it's not like she's going to do something really stylistically different from the PCD album, or like PCD had any qualms about putting her upfront and singing I/me lyrics instead of us/we lyrics before. Still haven't got my head around "Super Villain" to say anything about it either way.

"btw what is up with that bizarrely millenial insistence on kelly having some sort of shoddy-looking LIVE WEBCAST of the party she's hosting in the 'like this' vid!! so deliciously dated."

That's very early 00s J Lo.

Can anyone else hear the Coldplay influence on "Better without You"?

K. Cole single...not bad.

She really has the most ridiculously great OTT voice.

"Like yo' name is Missy ELLIOTT! My name is FanTASIA BARRINO!"

Not many singers can pull something like this off - Fantasia's album is worth it for this alone

Has there ever been a song as good as Cassie's "Is It You"???

I agree Tim. It feels like lightning could strike twice for her, but I'm not sure she can overcome the "OMG did you see her on 106 and Park though? She can't even sing!!!" ridiculousness. I'm positive that can't keep 'em off the charts Akon and T-Pain are equally vocally horrible (if not as lifeless) live, but they've survived quite well. I fear she'll never recover from this seeming obsession with her vocal shortcomings (or maybe I just read Concrete Loop too much).

Yes, yes, yes...I'm in love with Cassie right now. She needs to stick with Ryan Leslie; they're a magical duo.

I prefer "Sometimes" to "Is it You" to be honest.

I guess I should listen to "Is It You" again, because it didn't stay with me at all the couple times I did.

BOO on Tim for using Rihanna as a go-to example for "one of the most charasmatic and accomplished modern r&b singers" on P*tchf*rk today.

I didn't write anything like that Alex. Is that in the abstract?

You know I would have said Teedra!

Yeah, that phrase is in the front page blurb, which they usually take/paraphrase from the body of the review, so I just assumed it was in there somewhere, but you're right, it isn't. My bad. Boo on whoever said it, anyway!

The more clipped disco-funk of "Take Control" might be closer to "anonymous" r&b (one could just as easily imagine it coming from Nicole Scherzinger

You do know that the original version of "Take Control" was by Tori Alamaze, right? I prefer Amerie's version, though.

Am I the only one who likes "Touch"? I keep seeing it get slagged off everywhere.

yeah, 'is it you' is great. i 4ever love the way cassie can go from supposed siren android auteur vehicle to this sweetly blank (um, blankly sweet?) teen relationship muse.

(or indeed "gloriously inconsequential" like tim said of amerie's cassiest move, that'll do too)

"he said he had fallen so in love with me / and i said ditto, ditto, ditto." is <i>still</i> the line though, the cassie urtext! oh and that delightfully whatever badgirl rock one, haha

also - ryan leslie's ridiculously sweet tooth is yet further proof of him being the patrick bateman of this rnb shit that i always knew he was. i could talk forever about him i think!

btw janelle monae (who would like to be cassie but never can be, come to think of it, kinda like a tinman who can't get rid of his heart), her thing is out now apparently. i'd say the ep format was a crafty idea but hopelessly fatal to her schtick at the end of the day.

http://www.digstation.com/AlbumDetails.aspx?albumID=ALB000009731

see, there's no real reason why wizard of oz refs should be particularly teenpop 2k7ish

so haha why am i feeling the deepest of regrets now

DJ ENVY & RED CAFE is maybe the least promising set of words ones read all day but turns out i got undemanding fondness for this thing

(dj spinna i am too herby to let you go!)

Yeah "Ditto" is fabulous. The Cassie album really grew on me and I liked it a lot to begin with, it sounds like an unacknowledged classic now.

Maybe the difference between "Ditto" and "Is It You" is that I found i had to let my guard down a bit in order to appreciate the former, whereas the latter combines that totally unreflective sweetness (which is actually kind of rare in teenpop, which paradoxically tends to sound more knowing and grown-up when talking about the same thing) with this sort of all-embracing universalist feel, kind of international-language-of-pop.

Though I should note that such tunes are rarely hits, perhaps the public are somehow suspicious of this vibe? "Me & U" and "Long Way 2 Go" are such songs of their era, whereas "Is It You" kind of transcends era, which could hurt it perhaps.

Yet another J.Lo single that uses a classic hip hop break, this time it's Eddie Kendricks "Keep On Truckin'", and like all of the other ones it's AWESOME.

she'd make a great bolltwood singer.

*bollywood

The Lloyd album is so good

Though if you didn't like the singles, don't bother. It's very of a piece.

What if I love one of the singles and think the other one is the blandest thing on earth?

Check out the album and you'll come around on whichever you think is bland.

Fair enough.

keyshia cole drops today, anyone heard it?

I just listened to it briefly. The production was amazing, but none of the tunes really grabbed me. The Jill Scott album is kind of similar but sounds more promising.

yeah I love "Let It Go" but am kind of hot and cold on Keyshia herself, and the 2nd single sounds way too much like other Darkchild productions for Shareefa and Mary J. I might feel generous and pick it up during my trip to the store this week anyway, though.

heh so this so uncool of keke palmer's is really lobbing the teenpop cat amongst the pigeons - proper disney assault on rnb (maybe the first??) featuring yr likes of clutch, darkchild, dream, and rotem. also: it is fkn excellent yo. unnerving steely musical theatre training behind every fluffy "ta da!!" makes it supertight, all these anonymous jazz hards constantly poking you in the ribs. 'rainbow' is a set piece to die 4; the new single 'keep it moving' is a total late summer stunner, the lil sister to j.holiday, CHECK IT NOW but maybe don't watch the video at the same time cos it is way better than all that cutesy nausea might suggest.

special word for 'game song', aka the clutch-penned video game thing andy k mentioned on the other thread; KILLER CHORUS OF DOOM ("THAT'S WHY I, I HATE MADDEN, THAT'S WHY I, I HATE MADDEN") but only if you get past wincing at clutch's smartarse provocative first lines:

i turned 13, i can keep company
he comes over and sits with me
we watch movies, go online
under strict parental guidance

now correct me if i'm wrong but surely rule 0001 of teenpop is never bring the bloody age into it!! these guys are smirking all the way to the bank, i'm telling you, and one dreads to think what else theyre gonna come up with for tiffany evans. but god help me i kinda like em for it still.

<img src="http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VQ0GnPDXL._AA240_.jpg";>

btw sorry but has there ever been an uglier cover ever

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VQ0GnPDXL._AA240_.jpg

cmon bitch

kinda love 'let it go' now too, but then who would ever hate it? so um, i dunno

havent caught the new single yet but i quite liked 'didn't i tell you' ft too short; the runners seriously get more hammer horror everytime i hear them. i think the song is secretly about vampires tbh.

"so now the sun coming up, you wanna chaaange"

Things I was wrong about: "Because of You"; the Robin Thicke album. Both of those are pretty damn great.

that keke palmer vid is AWESOME, thx rtc!

np. everyone else here shd check the brick & lace/kat deluna stuff we got into on the not talking about dancehall 2007 thread btw

there are no incorrect observations whatsoever in andy k's keyshia rvw, yet i cannot back his kindly spun conclusion. the girl is a void in a bad wig.

rtc can you give a rundown of yr take on mary j's career? which albums you dig now, which you were into and have burned out on, or were blah then rediscovered or ... something. what did you think of breakthru? what about that joint w/ method man and diddy? my life vs. whats the 411?

i kind of want to understand if u think keyshia is redundant, or just overly worshipful, or why she doesn't fit in to the whole mary j mythos ... lots of great artists are initially perceived as pale imitations (i.e. the barry white bites isaac hayes! kind of nonsense that no one in their right mind would say today)

(esp cuz they were all biting lou rawls)

yeah, on one listen, the album is just really blank and barely there even by R&B standards. she sings every song the exact same way, the same climactic big note on every song, even the one that could've had a tender/sexy delivery she gives the big blown out heartbreak treatment. if she'd followed the lead of "Last Night"/"Let It Go" for some funky 80's jam aesthetic it could've been cool, but like the review said it's all warmed over 00's Mary J. (which Shareefa's album did better). a shame, because at the Keyshia show I caught over the summer she tore the house down.

and the Anthony Hamilton duet's good but would've been better if he was a co-star and not a 30-second cameo.

so deej did you actually agree or disagree or anything with me on keyshia there or does yr request for 50,000 word mjb guess papers still stand

cos (and this may sound like a cop-out) a big part of me kinda feels the whole thing is secretly predicated on way more superficial lines than str8 compare/contrasting grand narrative arcs - mjb didn't obviously invent anything either, and she's probably played around with the generics in her career as much as keyshia has, but the point is that just her delivery on its own is so uniquely tuned into that kind of necessary burnished realness, and keyshia's kind of isn't really. they could sing the same song at the same time and still mjb would sound like she's had an extra day to reflect on it, for emotions to have sunk in deeper.

on the other hand tho deej you have kinda won (if that wz ur intention) cos i now have to come out and say, yes obv keyshia is not a VOID, because her voice also conveys a different individual persona to an extent; she's way more of a hysterical hothead, she's there right in the moment, watch out dude she's taking a swing at you right now, all of that stuff. it's kinda all over the place. so i'm not sure if the question is whether she doesn't do enough justice to that persona to make it enduring, or whether she does and it's just not as immediately grabby to clamber over some jaded arms-folded first impression. you'd think it should do tho, if she were really that immediate and instinctive. (i've come to like a few of her songs after recently having made myself listen to both albums, but i don't really wanna lose the virtue of my kneejerk reaction either basically. also i often feel like i could grow to love any old tripe if i listen to it long enough, dunno if that's just me.)

even more superficially - the beats! i challenge people to name me great songs sung on terrible beats.

now let's all fucking talk about that alicia keys single. i am real addicted to it! but i'm still not quite sure why!

one is SO SUPER SOLD on it by the time it gets to the wo-oh-oh-oh-ohs but it kinda seems i gotta make the same uphill trudge to get there every time

richjuz is right about that bumptious stevie synth, dunno about the 4/4 house revival though. post-'promise' emocardiograms maybe?

I hated "No One" at first - her voice sounds terribly strained, the lyrics are trite, sub-"Don't Matter", it just sounds so cheap... but that amazing VMA performance changed my mind about it. The bridge is amazing! I see myself getting tired of it quickly, since it gets played like 30 times a day here, but for now it's cool... nowhere near "You Don't Know My Name" or " If I Aint Got You" or "How Come You Don't Call Me? ", but it's good.

"No One" is real wack to me. I want to respect its chunky beat and cheesy synths, but the way she sings it is just so heaving and overdone and the tune goes nowhere. Even Alicia Keys should be able to say more in a chorus than "noone can get in the way of what I'm feeling" over and over and over. She shoulda released the "Freedom '90" cover instead. I miss the sumptuous subtlety of "You Don't Know My Name" and "If I Ain't Got You."

(xpost - maybe I'm just Brainwasher 2 weeks ago here, but I'm kinda hoping I can hold out and keep hating this song)

your criticisms i cannot disprove

but chunky n cheesy is an enticing combo nevertheless

alicia keys feat junior reid - no one (salaam remi rmx)

HO YES

that new cheri dennis / joc / zoe is a jam also

thoughts on 2nd singles:

- the snippet that's out there of Alicia's, "Like You'll Never See Me Again," is really really fucking good, can't wait to hear the whole thing

- warming to Keyshia's after watching the video over and over

- Trey Songz' is damn near unlistenable, dude is officially out of control with the overemoting vibrato

is that trey single 'can't help but wait'? man i feel like such a lame-ass for falling for another cookiecutter stargate job but fuck it, it's a good wallow

haha keysh suddenly looked super cute on the beach for me too but i'm not having it cloud my mind

Yeah, "Can't Help But Wait." I think after that last round of Ne-Yo/Rihanna/Yamin singles Stargate is officially dead to me, but it's mostly that Trey totally overdoes it. It did kind of make me retroactively like "Wonder Woman" by comparison, though.

not sure what i wanna say about this new the dream stuff

it is curious

ughhh that dude. "Just Fine" is the only reason he isn't dead to me too.

reliable!

your keys has arrived btw, not in the mood right now but i'll check it later

anyone heard the angie stone

I really like 'Can't Help But Wait' - the elastic beat and pleasing Rhodes chords changes are what caught my ear.

Beyoncé is planning to switch musical direction on her third solo album.

The singer is reportedly prepared to ditch her usual heavy R'n'B for a more dancefloor-orientated LP.

The former Destiny's Child star has hired Brighton dance act Freemasons to work on some tracks for the record.

Freemasons' James Wiltshire told the Daily Star: "The album is going to be huge.

"It will rival anything the likes of Britney and Rihanna have done recently. Beyoncé and her team can see where mistakes were made on the last album.

"It was very American, very R'n'B and stripped back. They want to go for a more international sound this time."