Ryan Leslie, c/d, s/d

WHY AM I JUST NOW HEARING "DIAMOND GIRL"?

IT IS SO AMAZING.

HOLY SHIT. I MIGHT POST THIS ON CASSIE THREAD, TOO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nRO-M2p6IA

some talk about it in the r&b thread

s:

used 2 be ft fabolous
just right
promise not 2 call
valentine
r u coming back
wanna be good to you
megan rochell - my mistake
donell jones - hands on you
the cassie stuff

his album could be good but there's some really rub stuff too. hopefully he won't botch it.

Addiction is great but like most Leslie stuff, it seems it woudl work better if it was just a solo Cassie type thing. Dude should stay behind the deck

i've been listening to "addiction" for months now but I heard it on a great soundystem the other day and now I can't stop playing it.. it's so MASSIVE and dark and awesome. That big bass stab in crazy.

i hope his album actually comes out this time.. sept 16th. should be a great day, jazmine sullivan AND this.

yeah def looking forward to this

is it coming out in the UK?

Chanel Iman

lol, not sure about this rumor...maybe it's personal? or maybe it's just for a video? he's all obsessed with the black issue of italian vogue.

http://i42.tinypic.com/nganbt.jpg

instant classic amirite?

cant stop wont stop listening to "gibberish"

He reminds me of Bernard Wright.

On one listen, "Quicksand" and "Gibberish" def seem to be the highlights. I still can't get over the feeling dude is a really poor singer, even if it isn't as apparent on most of the album tracks as on the singles.

i like how he seemed to give up on trying to take some kind of magic cover photo that would make him look handsome and just went for the most awkward posture possible

haha yeah its like 'ugh when is this shoot going to be done hang on let me itch my ass' *CLICK* whoops last roll of film 'ILL TAKE IT'

"Gibberish" is good but it's not a highlight imo.. "Out Of The Blue," You're Fly", "I-R-I-N-A," "Valentine", "Diamond Girl" (I still can't get over this song)..... It sucks that a lot of these songs have been around forever so the album doesn't feel particularly "fresh", but I can't wait to hear what he comes with next. And I have no problems with his voice... it's kind of nasally and he doesn;'t have much range but I don't ever find myself thinking "this would be better if someone else were singing it"... though someone on another forum said that they could hear Bilal doing these songs and I definitely hear that... "Just Right" wouldn't be out of place on Love For Sale

weird that after 2 perfectly good and popular singles it's "How It Was Supposed To Be" that they ended up launching the album release with...the first few times I heard that song I thought Mario was bravely carrying on his recording career after some kind of debilitating throat ailment.

the first few times I heard that song I thought Mario was bravely carrying on his recording career after some kind of debilitating throat ailment.

― n00bian princess (some dude)

lol

I dunno, his singing just seems kinda half-assed most of the time, like in the way Pharrells do, but not quite as annoying as that.

haha ship

yeah...the falsetto on "Addiction" is very Pharrell, but less obnoxious.

Were "Diamond Girl" and "Addiction" actual hits? I haven't heard them other than of my volition at all.

they were medium-sized hits on the R&B charts... both peaked at #25 I think. They got 106&Park play too....

not big hits but i would say they were definitely hits, heard them both on the radio (particularly the latter) quite a lot.

xpost

"Bass & guitar by Tom 'T-Bone' Wolk"

"Keyboard by David Sancious"

Some guitar IS by Brent Paschke (Spymob, NERD)

Umm... is there some greater meaning to those posts (other than the last one) that I am missing?

Two names I did not expect to see in the credits.

Ah, I should have googled them instead of acting a Finn.

http://www.hallandoates.de/images/Band/T-Bone_Wolk_1982_Japan-tour2.jpg

we talked about this a bit on the r&b thread too

my other favorite neptunes throwback is that ricky blaze / ron browz joint

ricky blaze has a song with ron brownz

????

i feel free vs. quicksand

drums on that are way too fresh for it to be a neptunes throwback but ugh autotune hell

u are a certified nu-browz hater though

quicksand definitely sounds MORE N.E.R.D.-ish

find it kinda weird ships is all browz-furrowed given the latter owes 10000 x more to swizz beatz than he does t-pain autowhatever imo

also that hook is str8 linkin park, what's to hate

^what the fuck

anyway "valentine" is my shit right now - i think in this weird way his amateurism works wonders for the album, like he can't really sing and the arrangements often aren't anything spectacular so it leaves his writing right out in the forefront but the dude can reeeeally write hooks

i like how he seemed to give up on trying to take some kind of magic cover photo that would make him look handsome and just went for the most awkward posture possible

― n00bian princess (some dude), Thursday, February 5, 2009 12:29 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha yeah its like 'ugh when is this shoot going to be done hang on let me itch my ass' *CLICK* whoops last roll of film 'ILL TAKE IT'

― k3vin k., Thursday, February 5, 2009 12:31 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

lol yeah also he didn't even iron his shirt all the way

find it kinda weird ships is all browz-furrowed given the latter owes 10000 x more to swizz beatz than he does t-pain autowhatever imo

― r|t|c, Thursday, February 5, 2009 6:32 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

real talk, if browz did most of these same exact joints w/ zero autotune they probably would be more on some swizzy shit and i probably would like it. but he didn't and they don't, so i don't.

so are we all liking this? 'gibberish' still kills me and the rest are solid and growing on me

i'm all liking the idea of buying the CD when it comes out on tuesday.

I'm suprised how much I like the album, considering I kinda hate R-Les.

the keyboard solo on "i-r-i-n-a" >>>>>>>>>>> everything.

I'm kind of surprised that this album isn't wankier... he kind of contains himself and doesn't show off for the most part

I don't get you Reverend

I'm suprised how much I like the album, considering I kinda hate R-Les.

― I cut my hand on a low-hanging disco ball (The Reverend), Monday, February 9, 2009 4:55 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

other way round for me. there are good songs here (nb: not the really neptunesy one) but he's just an inadequate frontman.

and i did try :(

The thing is that these are very minimal compared to the Neptunes. Leslie's schtick I think is a sort of concise precision.

yeah there's only one or two which are really neptunesy but they kind of infect the rest by proxy a bit. don't get me wrong though, i love r-les's schtick generally, just don't think he can carry an album. will still give this another chance though.

I'll admit, I do tend to just put on a track or two at a time.

Cassie's album shoulda been released instead of this.

not this again

haha

I don't get you Reverend

Suggest Ban Permalink
― Plaxico (I know, right?), Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:20 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Dude strikes me as a consumate unlikeable dbag. J0rdan pointed out off-board that I had the exact same initial reaction to The-Dream's album, which I now love, so take that with a grain of salt.

he's more corny than douchey to me

haha it was this coupled with your dislike for the dream album that was making me O_o, glad to hear you've come around on one at least.

not to attack but

Dude strikes me as a consumate unlikeable dbag

i buy this line of thinking re DREEEAMER but w/ leslie i thought the opposition would be w/ his gentlemanly leanings. never got the impression that dude was douchey

I guess "douchey" isn't quite right. Leslie strikes me as one of those people you can tell are trying really hard to appear cool but can't pull it off at all.

a.k.a. corny

he's more corny than douchey to me

― Pregnant M.I.A. (The Brainwasher), Tuesday, February 10, 2009 5:10 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

^otm then

lol ya

That probably goes more within BW's "more corny than douchey" line.

haha xp

fwiw, I never at any point disliked the Dream album, just had reservations about it. Same here.

Although I'm not sure there's anywhere near as much to this album as The-Dream's, which is remarkably dense, especially by comparison.

"Out of the Blue" is the sleeper cut on this album for me... such a smooth track.

i know what you mean, Rev, there are some lines on "Diamond Girl" that always struck me as pretty douchebaggy ("I could be with any fine girl instead of you," "I'm a lead mean, you could be my co-star"), but that hasn't overcome my initial impression of him as a talented corny/nerdy studio rat who does vaguely desperate stuff like juking the stats for his YouTube channel, which somehow makes him more likable or tolerable to me. whereas i really just get the heebie jeebies from The-Dream, even though i sometimes like his music he seems like the biggest talentless fraud with zero charisma imo.

i'm completely with ships here. really the only parts that bug me are the things like ^above which are kinda wtf, because the rest of his lyrics (that i remember anyway) strike me as much more thoughtful and well-intended.
and i think i like him for the opposite reasons that j0rdan said before lol, i find a lot of it to be really carefully and tightfully arranged. and yeah the dude can just write hooks. i still can't really put my finger on why gibberish makes me feel the way it does (good), but it's my favorite song still and i'll have to put more thought into it. though i havent really loved an 09 album yet, i've quite liked a bunch and this might be my favorite so far.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f14/snouts/ryanlezza.gif

i was thinking about this today listening to him, and

impression of him as a talented corny/nerdy studio rat who does vaguely desperate stuff like juking the stats for his YouTube channel, which somehow makes him more likable or tolerable to me

this. along these same lines, when he uses bad grammar in his lyrics (not that often but still), it's really funny and obviously self-conscious (since dude has a 1600 SAT and is a harvard alum) and is really endearing to me.

his phrasing is very cassie. i like the melodies and production on the album, but honestly can't help but HEAR cassie performing this stuff circa her first album. it sounds nothing like the brilliance she's been leaking lately, but the songs and space in them and the rush of words and pauses are all very reminiscent of Cassie (2006) album tracks.

uh oh.. tis the cassie brigade

http://graphics.boston.com:80/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2008/02/06/1202335469_8686/499w.jpg

kinda wish I got that ref

cult of cassie on ilm

sorry. i wasn't trying to be a cassie brigader at the moment. i just meant it's very obvious that ryan leslie wrote much of both albums. the meter and the phrasing and the rhythm of the lyrics/vocals strike me as very similar. i quite like a lot of the r.les album on its own merits - it's good.

the intent of the comment was more...in the same way that I can hear ne-yo's tone/phrasing/standard tropes in songs that he writes for other people, leslie has a very specific type of song style/structure that isn't that common in the genre as a whole.

care to elaborate on that? it's an interesting point

whoops, didnt realize you were the one who mentioned cassie...nevermind, makes sense

cassie getting brought up on the r-les thread should really not surprise anyone, and would be pertinent regardless of cassie hype kru

fwiw she would perform 100% of the songs on his album better than he does

I think his style seems to hang on these awkwardly swung phrasings, lines starting mid-beat and stuff, but in a really poised way, nothing loose about it.

http://sobs.com/newsletter/images/R_n_b_Soul/2009/ryanleslie.jpg

yay can't wait

late on this, but krys ivory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snUJcQuHy-Q

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/252/211299.jpg
from california, a cancer survivor (this is her life story according to the internet)

guyz, check out this old beat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0BM3hlQwP0

a few hours later, i'm really digging that krys ivory song. she has a new look, wow:

http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl2/33/330044/24_2009/33f99cb3d1f78157_KRYS.jpg

wow is one way to put it...

i don't really like r-les when he raps, like at all, so i'm not even gonna let this grow on me. still will rep for the album tho

New album Transition this fall... first single "You're Not My Girl" produced by the Neptunes (supposedly...):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSFCtSEbzkY

ooh nice.

leslie stays making hot beats

produced by the Neptunes (supposedly...):

i didnt mean this song specifically - i can read

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqQmurICzyc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH8xjx4jOf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvFps1j-Iro

new album is shaping up to be great, I'm loving practically all of the leaks...

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.9937/title.ryan-leslie-debuts-transition-says-it-was-all-for-a-girl

Album release date: Nov. 3
Track List
1. Never Gonna Break Up
2. Something That I Like (feat. Pusha T)
3. Zodiac
4. Is It Real Love
5. Sunday Night
6. You're Not My Girl
7. To The Top
8. Nothing
9. Guardian Angel
10. All My Love
11. I Choose You

You're Not My Girl is a great slice of post-Neptunes funk. All My Love and Something That I Like are also A++. We'll see if he can actually pull off two great album in under a year. Hope so.

His solo stuff is really good, but it's not as good as his work with Cassie. That whole album is great, but "Just One Nite" is really hitting me hard today.

damn, pumped for this

mildly so

yeah def excited for this - good for 5 or 6 out and out bangers at worst

this is out there and very good

whoaaa

this has been such a crazy month

too lazy to take these thoughts and make them a cohesive post

me
i'm just listening thru laptop speakers right now but
you know, it's weird
i get this feeling that he's obv a technically great musician, his arrangements are great
but... there's something that doesn't totally grasp me about his music
he might be a boring lyricist or personality maybe idk
this album is good tho, it's really glitzy, almost cheesy in places, but it's a bit funkier
k3vin
yeah he's definitely a boring lyricist - i realy like the first one but there's this disparity b/w the great beats and the kinda bland lyrics he sings
it doesnt bother me too much tho, like you said i'm basically a fan of his music first
it might be telling that my favorite song of his is "gibberish", which doesnt really have any lyrics to speak of
me
IT'S FUNNY THAT YOU MENTION THAT
k3vin
he's more than capable of creating atmospheres and moods through his arrangements, and yeah he kinda trips over his own feet occasionally
me
this is the last paragraph of my popmatters review of the first album
He ends with his most left-field track, “Gibberish”. The song finds Leslie using AutoTune to turn his vocals into soup and to muddle his lyrics completely beyond recognition. The commentary—overtly placing the success of the song solely on the melody and arrangement—is if not slyly intentional, then ironically emblematic. Naturally, it’s the prettiest song on the album.
k3vin
otm
me
this new album def has more complex and interesting arrangements than the first album
seems more cohesive
but we'll see
trying to place my finger on why it doesn't grab me
i'm trying to think about him in relation to ne-yo
k3vin
i wasnt huge on "i'm not your girl", i'm hoping itll hook me more in album context
ne-yo's a different kind of dude...i think he's mad overrated melodically but hs lyrics tend to be pretty good - he's very descriptive and specific and for me, tends to avoid banality in that respect
me
ha there is a real \m/ guitar solo on one of these songs
it's kind of hilarious
k3vin
oh dear
me
it's like hearing a hair metal solo from someone else's headphones
i like it a lot tho
k3vin
haah ok
me
yeah i mean, the hyper-specifity of ne-yo doesn't grab me either necessarily
i mean like, i guess leslie could never write a song like "mad"
not sure if he could ever write one line as sweeping in its succinctness and otmness as "i don't want to go to bed mad at you"
leslie is wordier but it doesn't bring much to the table maybe? idk
i should post about this
k3vin
to a certain extent lex is right w/ his criticisms of leslie
he likes his music but thinks he's an incapable frontman
but i guess for me it doesnt bother me that he's not this great personality, though i'll never like him as much as, say, terius
i think we had a conversation about this months ago iirc - he's kind of endearing in his over-earnestness and in that he seems to be trying way too hard
maybe that was shipley
in my review i cited a line from "I.R.I.N.A.": "i may not speak your language, but i know just what to say"
basically said that the line would be much more effective imo if it were reversed, but that it's clear he's trying and so he gets a pass for that
me
the thing is, i can't really imagine a more "dynamic" singer singing these songs
i can't picture what that would add, if anything
i think he writes his songs with himself in mind
like there's not that much room for freewheeling vocally
but maybe he just chooses not to because he can't
k3vin
maybe that problem lies in the fact that he's the dude that writes the songs - someone else could come up with something totally different w/ the equivalent beat

i think the problem is that he's singing the songs and cassie isn't

('cassie' could also be replaced with, like, 'krys ivory' or whoever, though cassie is still probably the best voice for leslie)

whomeverrr

THIS LEAKED? Jeez. Bad night to be out on the town. Finding it now.

Liking way more than the first album, initially. I'm only about a third of the way in tho.

she'ssss got that something
she's got that sooomething
that i liiiike

come on guys, this album is hot

yeah but not in a way you get all excited about up front. ur sposed to realise that all the songs are in ur head six months later and be like "hey remember this turns out it was awesome" IMO

still waiting for that to happen with the first album tbh

honestly this album's even less immediate - it's darker, bassier, more contemplative. it's a total winter record

dude needs to STOP rapping though, real talk

this album's better than the 1st

i guess i like his 'bloopy bubble backround noise' effect more than 'neptunes bass jangle' effect

i still find dude a way more difficult presence as an artist than he should be, though

like when folks hate on the-dream's persona, i find leslie way more ... i dunno ... unlikeable. hes so much more reserved & insincere feeling or something

i like him because i think he is more relatable in a different way

love that pusha t almost sounds like he's rapping about liking project runway. from cooking crack to sundays on the couch watching bravo...

i find leslie way more ... i dunno ... unlikeable. hes so much more reserved & insincere feeling or something

kind of sad that i can't engage w/ this album despite the fact that i really want to. there's just no excitement or something.

andy k, <3 the brady bunch ref in your review

Lanvin broke niggas call em ray-bans

i don't think leslie is more unlikable he's just a more boring writer

i think he's definitely "unlikable" - there's plenty of other issues that make his assholishness interesting & worthwhile to me though

like what

i could see not "liking" him because he's sort of a boring presence but i think you really need to be stretching with your extrapolation to think he's actively an asshole or something

I find him obnoxious but I've no idea why so it's completely unjustified. I like both his albums this year

don't get much of an asshole vibe from him, but find him less likable than The Dream b/c he a boring writer/performer.

interesting though that everyone sites "gibberish," the one song he didn't write vocals for, as his high point. you do get the feeling in his singing that he's also a little bored by his lyrics. he does seem looser or something on "gibberish." i could see the process of writing the words instead of just singing random shit taking the fun out of it.

like what

― a goon boy (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, November 3, 2009 5:50 PM (53 minutes ago)

fwiw, here's what i just wrote, last paragraph of my review

The usual complaints arise, of course – first and foremost, Leslie needs to drop this deluded dream he has of being a rapper. Songs like “Sunday Night” threaten to be sabotaged by Leslie’s laughably gauche punchlines, and even on “Something That I Like” (where his swagless “rapping” is actually much more tolerable), he’s completely upstaged by a very average Pusha T verse. At best, though, Leslie’s lyrics are agreeably bland, so what makes him so damn compelling? Is it my own sadistic nerd projection? Maybe; there’s certainly something gratifying in seeing a Harvard-educated wannabe playboy continually trip over his own lyrical feet. But Leslie’s gift for melody and mood is undeniable, and ultimately his strengths outweigh his weaknesses, especially on this record. For as long as he’s going to be referring to the girl he’s trying to get to spend the night with him as his “sidekick,” he’s gonna need to keep whipping up these great gloomy atmospheres to bum out to.

swagless!

thank you

yeah i don't really get an asshole vibe from him either, occasional "I could be with any other fine girl instead of you" lyrics aside, more like he's just a studio nerd famous for desperate web 2.0 stunts like faking YouTube stats, which would make me like him less if i didn't think he was a really talented guy and kind of an underdog

wasn't he cleared of the youtube controversy?

i dunno, never heard anything proving he didn't, link?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoHr2QmB2Mo

the point isn't whether r-les was guilty of juking the stats (oh noes) or not but that that minor fiasco was another unsurprising daily event in his implacable diddy-without-the-heart endless vlogger multimedia cross-promotion start-up company hype campaign which had been rolling on since like 2005. none of which would make him an asshole as such (he isn't really), but then when he finally follows through with that self-satisfied pharrellian chocolate-box banality of an album earlier this year i was more than a little fucked off with dude, yeah - after all the stringing-along it felt like he was quite happy just to blithely drop off his business card for the (to quote brainwasher way upthread) "...but I can't wait to hear what he comes with next!" happy helmet set, scented with just enough weak lavendery perfume to mask the main "It sucks that a lot of these songs have been around forever so the album doesn't feel particularly fresh..." bit.

funny thing is i really really like this new one though; way stronger balance between the light playfulness of what's always going to be something of a vanity side-project - he seems to be knowingly aware of his capriciousness now in a way others (like say terius) aren't (not a de facto good or bad thing-in itself before you jump on me) and not taking the piss and seeming fundamentally insincere, with better songwriting and mildly compelling better attention to detail this time round. i don't believe he should suffer critically for that lightness when dudes like dam-funk or wonky dubsteppers jacking boogie moves on hyperdub are on the exact same yuppie shit he is but gameface it out with quintuple gatefold lp sets and sophisticatedly finessed pr prescences (respectively).

another thing is that as time's gone by (since the earlier album i guess) it's felt like there's been an appreciably solidified difference between his solo stuff and his outside production, which are often more sculpted and have the darker bassier contemplative gloomy atmospherics that k3v talks about but i have trouble quite locating on this album.

the back half of his s/t kind of hints at that feel, but the new one really fleshes it out and explores it more fully. it's a winter album for that reason, like i said

i do still think i prefer the first to this though, as much as i like it. the highs are probably more pronounced and the production is probably fundamentally more impressive to me, though Transition is (to beat a dead horse here) more of a mood piece that begs to be explored - kind of the definition of a grower

er, i just kind of realized i'm disagreeing with you w/ that first post? i dunno, right out the gate you can tell there's a different look he's going for - compare "never gonna break up" & "something that i like" w/ "diamond girl" & "addiction"

but 'addiction' is the darkest out of that lot, surely? i agree that transition is more of a grower but that's by virtue of its level consistency rather than by any definable shift in mood or scope. i need to listen to the first again before i say any more tbh; like i say the context will have changed entirely though.

suppose it might matter that i refuse to acknowledge the version of 'addiction' with fabolous on it - the presence of a third party totally spoiled that shit.

but yeah no fine, 'addiction' is just the one track like that anyway; i see what you're generally saying but - slighty more demure production aside - he is still exactly the same guy on transition as he is the s/t. the trick of this album is in not making that guy look so glibly irritating now so you can have a wry smile and a pinch of salt to go with his continuing r-les-ness.

"Addiction" definitely felt more like itself in its original incarnation, but that's one of my favorite recentish Fab verses and I always think of it when I think of the song (whereas I never thought his encroachment on "Shawty Is A Ten" was an improvement in any way and kind of ruined the intro)

i dont get the comparison to dam funk / wonky dubstep at all (& i only feel defensive about the former, usually totally into h8ing on dubstep but whats the comparison exactly??)

i <3 his rapping fwiw

like, i would take this more seriously if he released it on quadruple gatefold? i doubt it

deej I don't think you're the kinda strawman r|t|c's referring to.

no leave it, he likes puzzling me out. http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

i didnt mean that tho, i just mean this 'lightness' 'yuppy' thing ... i dont get the concept behind it -- that these guys are all indulgent? that there's not ... what ... meat to it? what does that mean? it feels like a vague concept imo

oh no doubt it's a vague concept. i mean, i like dam-funk okay i guess but i just feel i'm unlikely to ever see anyone finding him a problematic artist the same way they might leslie, and the only real reason i can see for that - besides the fact that leslie sings songs and dam-funk doesn't, which is a superficial distinction imo - is that dam-funk has all the apparently legitimizing trimmings of a serious musical dude of gravitas. and what they share is not a sense of indulgence as such but i dunno, a dorky retro boogie keyb capriciousness, a cute 80s flavoured peculiarity. (maybe leslie is more of modern times for some people but that's how i hear him anyway to a certain extent.)

the yuppie thing is partly a straight descriptive of that (particularly in leslie's case) but also - besides being my handy way of stating where i stand on wonky artists and kode9's pert claims on a lineage from pirate radio/nuum/etc, heh heh - kinda nicely sums up the ~vybe i get from these three put together, what's at play in the sphere of fandom (that i find myself in too, to an extent, tbf) for this sort of stuff: i dunno, it's all a bit, um...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGsht0Lto9o

~ internet connection, babyyy - serious~

... yknow?

anyways, carry on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXWJB-XZFUY

i posted this upthread, but this is probably my favorite r leslie thing from this year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63sl_txFw5A

listening to transitions and enjoying the hell out of the sound, the 80s yuppie twinkly keyboards and bass and stuff, he's such a great and distinct producer. unfortunately still a total nonentity as a frontman. i don't get how anyone could think he's an asshole: he'd have to impinge on you at all to get to that stage.

i mean come on, he's inarguably an asshole! it's whether or not it affects your reaction to the music that's the question

how long have we been arguing the point for you to suddenly throw out "inarguably"?

i agree with lex tho, he's largely a non-entity as a frontman - it would be like calling your comforter an asshole or something. it's just kinda there. idk.

asshole is maybe too strong a way of putting it but i still think what we all discussed on a rolling r&b of the past about leslie being cut from kanye cloth applies; certainly back in the day he used to run his mouth a lot more (dimly recall one particular whinge about not getting his dues where he took a pop at ne-yo!) but i guess that all impinges more on a rss reader than it does one's ears. not that that doesn't still count of course.

essentially with him in particular people are always gonna have very differing reactions to his persona, depending on a variety of factors - i doubt he'll ever be one for the outright definitives so the scope for interpretation is greater than your average.

i couldnt really ever say he's a non-entity as a frontman though - slight and amateurish sure, but there's as much to chew on with him as with anyone else.

I think he wants to come off like an asshole more than he actually is one. Arrogance is a common trait of the kind of stardom he aspires to! After all, what else is "I'm a lead man, you could be my co-star" but wishful thinking? And possibly his pickup line to Cassie all those years ago?

i mightve misremembered that ne-yo hypebeef or else they made up, why because ooh this look intersting

http://www.sohh.com/2009/09/fabolous_ryan_leslie_ne-y.html

OMFG wait how could i forget about that ultra-bateman interview with him a few years ago, hold up while i find it!

In the time I’ve spent with Leslie, he has revealed only two interests beyond his life as a musician and an entrepreneur. The first is buying custom-made clothes. The second is watching DVD biographies of industrial-era titans like John D. Rockefeller. Ask him to speak contemplatively, and he’ll quickly hide behind platitudes or shift the discussion to talk about the next goals in his sights. At these times, he pitches his tone less to the person sitting across from him and more to some sort of vast audience in his head. As though he were speaking into Daytona’s camera and dispensing advice to fans, like in his video-diary entry titled “A Word About Good Representation.” (This tone can sometimes contrast sharply with his surroundings: He once gave a lofty speech to me over a meal at Jimbo’s Hamburger Palace—the cash-only greasy spoon on Lenox Avenue where Leslie eats almost all his meals.)

http://nymag.com/news/features/24094/ , of 2006 vintage!

i never really got why terius was supposed to be an asshole either, as al says a certain degree of arrogance or sleaziness hardly merits a mention.

i'd wait for leslie's slight presence to grow on me but it never happened with the first album so...shrug.

At these times, he pitches his tone less to the person sitting across from him and more to some sort of vast audience in his head.

heh this reminds me of the incorrigibly sweet ciara

“This song is called ‘Open Toes,’ ” shouts Ferrera over the deafening beat. “It’s about hot shoes with open toes,” he yells.

lol still cracks me up

even though it was as usual only for the benefit of the delighted flute-clinking dinner party audience in soto's head this still kinda makes me laugh

― r|t|c, Tuesday, September 8, 2009 5:43 PM Bookmark

yeah j4gger sent that zing to me in an im, nice work

ok this one song where he says things like "did you come here to take my lonely?" and "this is real, baby, givin' you undivided" -- guy is taking dropping words out of sentences to fit the meter to nonsensical new levels. this motherfucker went to harvard.

yeah i had that gripe with his first album, not sure if i wrote about that but i didnt really notice it as much with this one. that kinda intellectual slumming should probably put me off but i tend to give him a pass because i find him so desperate as it is

anyway doesn't that second line you cited go "...givin you my undivided"? that at least makes sense

i'm just gonna say that i v much enjoy his rapping

so i was listening to this tonite & decided actually i love it

"sunday nite" is like the dopest tribute to having a gf ive heard in awhile

you are right about this album btw - one thing i love about his songs is that you can immediately tell how he thought about & constructed each song - each instrumental element is very distinct and deliberate & i'm glad that he didn't lose that when he decided to go funky - more than the-dream or ne-yo leslie feels like a composer to me

he seems more academic about music, if that makes sense (not to bring the harvard thing into the discussion but) - this prob won't register in this thread but he reminds me a lot of spoon - everything is economical, nothing is extraneous

not sure if i actually believe my composer statement when thinking about the 'love vs. money' suite

i'm equally mystified at how unpopular his music is and at why a major label is still releasing his albums - it's not even like he "launched" cassie's career or something seeing as she doesn't have one

he should do more producing for rappers too i think

yeah his tracks for Fab were dope, would love to hear him do more outside production

i haven't really connected w/ Transition yet, but i've yet to hear anything on it that i like remotely as much as "Valentine" and the singles off the first one

yeah nothing has cut as deep as "valentine" or "gibberish" for me either, though i really like "sunday night" and "something that i like"

I really like the record but it often sounds a bit like the lyrics and singing are a pretty major afterthought to all the neat production, like he could be singing fucking anything half the time.

For me the standouts are "Never Gonna Break Up", "You're Not My Girl", "Is It Real Love", and also "All My Love". The music in "All My Love" is really amazing, the bit in the outro with the strings coming in and out is unreal, should go on longer.

i'm gonna listen to it, but last time out i really just ended up playing gibberish on repeat, quicksand was pretty good in a micro-n.e.r.d. way but u no after that

I really like the record but it often sounds a bit like the lyrics and singing are a pretty major afterthought to all the neat production, like he could be singing fucking anything half the time.

yeah this is otm. forgot to mention "never gonna break up" as a fave too

this album is better i think

plays through more coherently - more interesting to listen to as a whole

this might b a little live blogg 4 me but that is one first snare and already this is meatier than the first one in a way i didn't think i wanted but yeah this already sound better tm, less thn a min in tho

voice layering sounds lusher and sound is thicker but its still just as sparse somehow also, arrangements get a bit buckingham in places

i think lyrics on a few of these are actually pretty great

i like how the 'interesting production' functions but its not weird/interesting enough that it would work on its own, like, without great songwriting & functional concepts like "sunday night"

well i think i like how it isn't partic *wee-ird* sounding but like has these strange headphone moments buried in it, but yeah, its not exactly the foregrounded appeal, more like little details and textures that r gonna b fun to find in the context of some pretty slick 80's style soul pop, i kno i've said phil collins b4 but

exactly

oh ok lol i thought i was disagreeing wit u sorta

is it ok 2 repost this here?

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo305/lejospopo/didntmeanto.jpg

okay but that guitar on you're not my girl, really?

how dope is that solo in that one song

lol i was disagreeing w/ ronan, trying to say the same thing you were xxxxp

i mean there r some great details tho, i just love how the sound of the keyboards pulls away from the speakers on some of the little descending runs on To The Top

every time i try to pay attention to the lyrics my mind just wanders away - really really really cannot get past his wallpaper nothing voice, no matter how pretty the arrangements

guess that is ur cross 2 bear

ronan is dead right abt all my love, which is prolly the showiest production, that bit where the piano replaces the synths!

yeah that end part is so amazing, and the synth back into the piano, there's just something in that shift back and forth as it fades out that works on some level beyond explanation for me.

i'm not saying the lyrics are terrible as such, there is some content there, the music wouldn't work on its own cos it's obviously song structured, but that doesn't mean the actual lyrics are then great. I mean yeah the lyrics are fine, I think there's just a few parts where they're in that zone of him saying he wants to bone someone in a v roundabout overly sensitive and thus ultimately sleazy way. eg "if it's a question of your pride, put that thing aside."

Wondering is that the source of the yuppy complaints cos that's how I'd think of "Intimate Connection" too.

it works lyrically 4 me like the strokes lyrics do which is, its pretty meaningless drivel on the surface but there are lines that jump out for almost no reason and seem great!

ha, that's an interesting comparison - i think julian is a great lyricist on the first two albums pretty much in the way you describe

aye jordan, I get your spoon comparison, but it doesn't quite work because britt d. is a way better lyricist and a better singer to boot

i mean arrangement wise

yeah I get that, I'm saying the comparison ends there

i feel like ryan leslie & the-draem exist to be diametric opposites of each other while kinda being the same

ryan leslie, super-rehearsed & labored-over **craftsman** composer of precision
the-dream, naturally-gifted & ballsy but kinda unable to rein himself in & be thoughtful

honestly, maxwell is the best blend of these two approaches & its why i like his record more than either

About halfway through a first listen to Transition right now (I'd already heard "You're Not My Girl"). Really digging this aesthetic. Guess I should check out the self-titled one, too?

its not as good

btw is it me or does this record sound kinda compressed & not pristine/clean? its kind of annoying actually

the first one has some moments, like 'quicksand' & its short enough that if you like this one you probably wont feel like you wasted your time. but its def not as good

I think 'sunday night' is definitely my favorite on this

yeah i was skeptical that this was really gonna be much better than the last one which i dug A LOT on a surface level but once gibberish wore off was kindof eh abt the whole thing. k3vin was right that its more of the same but in a really good way this time round, hard to even say what's so different but definitely shinier and a little more crooked than last time, not a huge diff, but a huge diff in terms of how often i wanna hear this.

I liked the last one a lot, listened to it quite a bit. It's hard to pick one for me but current one yeah probably edges it, listened to both a lot and still playing Transition.

deej i don't see the line you're trying to draw b/w the-draem and maxwell at all

im arguing that maxwell combines the carefully thought out compositional approach of ryan leslie w/ a more 'felt'/improvised follow-yr-inner-voice appeal of the-dream very naturally so it seems v. natural

lol naturally so its natural -- you get what im saying

I dig both this dude's albums to extents, but his talent-to-personality ratio is way out of whack.

y'know every time I listen to the Maxwell album I certainly think "this like Ryan Leslie meets The-Dream"

I think deej's comparison is more about songwriting approaches than actual sound.

if that's the case then we can just put every auteur from every genre ever on some vague precision vs. ballsy spectrum

okay this might just be because i was listening to their best of a lot around the time i was listening to his first album, but does anyone else get a weirdly "Carpenters"-ey vibe off the production to this?

if that's the case then we can just put every auteur from every genre ever on some vague precision vs. ballsy spectrum

― some dude, Wednesday, November 25, 2009 8:10 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i guess you could, my point was that the-dream & leslie seem to have fairly opposite songwriting approaches/personalities. i dont think im reading that much into it.

The Maxwell comparison is a bit different -- its not like he splits the difference or something -- I'm just saying that he just feels like he covers more bases.

"Never Gonna Break Up" is a dream for fans of creamy synthesizer tones.

listening to transition a lot lately, and ive tried saying it a few times but never really got at why i really like this guy and why i think his personality works is that it is a really great equiv for his whole aesthetic. I think its important that he is the producer as well on these tracks bc he makes them sound like a tasteful/tacky expensive bachelor pad where his sortof-an-asshole yuppie dude'll show you his big tv and put the moves on you, and i think he has a great way of just suggesting his sleazy-slick intentions in the fancy upholstery r smthng

^^^yah good post

this could be kinda like j0rdan said about "Blame It" in the ilx poll, where the sound is the actual sound of the subject matter, and you respond to the artfulness of that creation even if you don't necessarily like getting your drink on in pricey joints, or sleazy assholes

yeah that's a good post tiarnan

kind of was lukewarm to this guy at first but i find myself coming back to both of the albums from last year

2nd one is incredible & mad slept on

i dunno, besides "never gonna break up" and "sunday night" the second one kind of came and went with me, he left some great leaks off of it ("ice cold", "luv this luv", etc.)... I definitely thought the first album was a lot better, but maybe I should revisit it.

'rescue u'

i dunno i cannot get this album (transition) out of my head. i catch myself humming 'all my love' at least one a week at the moment. incredible song.

i think the reason i found his personality jarring for so long is cos it rings really true. outright swagging + boasting never annoys me. but he is like so many guys i've known in real life who play at being this slick sensitive 'i create music' dude.

ha otm

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs015.snc4/34125_535729522013_43201281_31627600_6707217_n.jpg

transition is def a classic album

should've been on my pazz and jop

he is a really terrible rapper tho

there's a grocery bag line on "sunday night"

he is a really terrible rapper tho

― de jong and the restless (J0rdan S.), Monday, July 19, 2010 3:32 PM (1 hour ago)

BEEN TELLING YOU

I still have this nagging feeling that his self-titled is better than Transition.

Less clunkers lyrically. But it's not about the lyrics with dude, I know.

i still prefer the self-titled. it's a bit less....all-around competent than transition i guess, but way more distinctly ryan leslie

like, i actually disagree and think the debut is way more clunky, but ryan is an awkward dude! a ryan leslie album should be awkward sometimes.

i don't think leslie is very distinct tbh

'transition' is a bit more lush, just better composed all around -- i think it's homogeneity works in its favor

i never really warmed to Transition. it's not bad, but it doesn't have the 2 minor classic singles and the deep cuts I got attached to that the self-titled has.

the first album's cover almost insists on its awkwardness, it's like he kinda must know that's his essence

the two are really close for me, but my favorite songs of his are on the self-titled ("valentine", "gibberish") so i usually go with that one

xp disagree that he's not distinctive - at the very least he's got (well had) a decently recognizable production style

i don't think being "distinctive" really has that much bearing on whether or not he's great, but it's not like you can draw connections between many of the songs on the debut -- transition is a different story but it's that way purposefully

"Valentine" is so fucking good

yeah man that's the one that kept growing on me and that i now love the most

i wish dude had enough buzz to do more rap beats, love his stuff on the last Fab album

yeah that song is really awesome

valentine, irina & gibberish are the best deep cuts off the first one

i wish dude had enough buzz to do more rap beats, love his stuff on the last Fab album

― magic ksh (some dude), Monday, July 19, 2010 9:11 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark

yes -- also "something that i like" off transition

man this is getting me all nostalgic, s/t was the first record i reviewed for my college paper

Nostalgic For 18 Months Ago: The Memoir of K3vin K3ller

haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwK3bqhJIYk

this one is dope too

idk i thought the 2nd one sounded way more interested in songwriting & less abt sounding like the neptunes

idk about sounding like the neptunes, but i agree that the second one def has better songwriting

i know i didn't listen to it as much but i barely remember any of the songs off the 2nd

he produced a joint on the new fab EP

ryan and fab are a very good team

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgCSBoPyyP8

my shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zcDr4DbKEg&feature=avmsc2

also enjoy this fab/ryan collabo

he's offering A MILLION DOLLARS (he has a million dollars?) for the return of his laptop

http://www.facebook.com/ryanleslie/posts/167995709886177

lol

lol @ that song

god that is so funny

i don't understand how this guy is always touring in europe? i mean, i love him, but he has fans there? he doesn't even have fans here!

also i'm astounded that he can, if he can, afford to offer $1m for a laptop -- off of one cassie song & two placements on the last fabolous album

he does have fans here. hes surprisingly popular w/ regular R&B fans

not a superstar or anything but ppl know who he is

RL is one of those dudes that seems vaguely monied or well backed no matter how successful or unsuccessful he is -- went to Harvard, was mentored by Diddy and Tommy Mottola, grinded pretty hard w/ his imprint, youtube channel etc. before being at all famous, probably is just the kind of resourceful guy who knows how to stay well off even without hits.

yeah deej is right i know irl r les fans

good pt by somedude also, seems pretty resourceful

not stans or anything but people who dig "addicted" and stuff xp

apparently he's off Universal and doing his next album independently? not many mid-level R&B artists survive that kinda thing in any meaningful way but if anyone could be the R&B equivalent of a Koch rapper i guess it's him.

yeah i mean a fab guest spot or w/e is probably still in the cards right

looool - rl's totally some1 whose stuff i always look out for, for no real reason i guess. i liked transition a lot and listen to it all the time.

i've come across a surprising amount of ryan leslie fans irl.

i'll be seeing him at fabric (!) on the 15th, if i am back from miami in time.

fabric?

on a mon night!

(i think they've started putting on gigs now.)

ryan leslie is a perfect example of someone who makes a grocery bag punchline work 4 him

― challopian youtubes (deej), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 5:35 PM (22 minutes ago)

example, pls

if u dont f/w 'sunday nite' i dont f/w u

It's cute how that's your favorite track from Transition.

new song

http://www.nextselection.com/joanofarc/

where classical references meet grocery bags in an erosion of the boundaries between high and low culture

"maybachs & diamonds" is awesome

"joan of arc" is dope -- every song off this project has been really great

ehh im not feeling it

yeah it's ok but i don't think there's any reason for r-les to be rapping so much

the first few times i heard Wiz Khalifa's "Roll Up" on the radio i thought it was a really disappointing new Ryan Leslie song

"roll up" is much better than this

KICKIN IT W MY BAAAAYBEEE

The only Reason why Ryan doesn't all the fame is because he worked hard to get to where he got.. !! he didnt sell his soul to fuckin satan !!

AntonioCarlton2 4 months ago 82

thats 82 thumbs ups btw

It's cute how that's your favorite track from Transition.

― Tyler/Perry's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" (jaymc), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 5:11 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHF3kNKCkbg&feature=player_embedded

New First Single.

why is he rapping on all of these? STOP IT R-LES

the arrangement and chorus are fantastically overblown but really the verses are just him shooting himself in the foot repeatedly

nice "grocery bag" bit in the first verse...

agree he really shouldn't be rapping, plus the music is nowhere near as interesting as usual imo.

He performed this when I saw him live last summer. It's def whatever. He shouldn't push autobiographical shit

Did you see him at that warehouse on Ravenswood?

Yah

this guy was really on some shit for a year there

STOP RAPPING, R LES

new album's production is so fucking good but ugh this is sub-kanye rapping so bad

haha yeah i read some interview where he talked about how rap-driven this album is and my anticipation instantly disappeared

yeah i haven't given a shit about his music for a while because of that nonsense

yeah this is a fucking travesty, he's stepped up his production so much, this is some gorgeous stuff, if he only gave these tracks to a real rapper or sang over them instead... ugh

rappers and singers getting too comfortable doing each others' jobs is like the downfall of recent popular music history imo

for every instance of that yielding a good song there are 50 bad ones

ha that's a pretty solid theory xp

yeah i checked out his youtube channel for the first time in a while recently...terrible.

this record does not sound good to me

yeah even production is bad.

i think it's quite good, the production? what you dislike about it?

the rock guitars,the emphasis on the live drums, surely plenty other things... i don't want to listen to it again.

yeah beats ain't even hot

hahahaha
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/rap_slap_kvSTBaoDlN18eNtiOLK72L

dude comes across like such a clown in this whole ordeal

hahahaa shit that seems like an onion article etc

how is this real

Didn't even know dude had a new album until Spotify told me an acquaintance was listening to it. Especially caught me off-guard because I thought this acquaintance only listened to folky NPR indie.

This isn't very good, is it.

it's awful

still can't figure out how making a youtube video promising a reward for yr laptop's return is legally binding

man this guy fell the fuck off huh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8VetbXWbFM

okay, I’m glad someone else revived this thread, because I was thinking the other day: did I coin “swagless”?

run it back off his new alb is good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr1Y70FEQRY
handful of good tracks on there i think

He has some slept on cuts where the production was pretty crazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fj5A1gBVH8

Donell Jones - Better Start Talking

"overdose"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiQciji2V9M

"elektro"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzLtgF1W2Sg

not to completely disregard your posts but i was talking to a zoomer recently who in the context of diddy trial stuff was like "why is cassie even famous?" and so i pulled up "u + me" on my phone and after two seconds of hearing the beat he was like "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

what other rap/r&b beats from that era are as instantly recognizable even to people w/ no connection to the song or artist? like in the "name that tune" sense. "yeah!" probably? "me & u" might be the most iconic 5 notes of the mid 00s

"ice cold" is probably my favorite unreleased cut of his:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40gwYCraPag

these ryan leslie deep cuts are great.