Rolling R&B Thread 2009

Alright, so I guess it's time to make this thread. 2008 was an excellent year for R&B - both mainstream and underground - and 2009 looks to be just as good! We've got albums scheduled to come out from:

Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige, The-Dream, Fantasia, Usher, Teedra Moses, Ciara, Toni Braxton, Tweet, D'Angelo, Amerie, Bilal, Maxwell, Kelis, LeToya Luckett, Omarion, Alice Smith, Amy Winehouse, Faith Evans, J. Holiday, Monica, Mario, Estelle, JoJo, Brandon Hines, Cassie, India Aire, Trey Songz, etc.

and a few notable debuts:

J*Davey
Janelle Monae
Keri Hilson - In A Perfect World... (LOL)
Muffy
Marsha Ambrosius
Sophia Fresh
Electrik Red

So yeah, what are you looking forward to? And how was your 2008 R&B-wise?

Amy Winehouse is RnB?

Also, don't forget Missy!

What else would she be?

Crap Soul?

"..."

I have eyedrops that are really good for that

http://i39.tinypic.com/wci7af.gif shut up

good way to start off the thread - can't wait for what the rest of the year has in store

haha yeah i can't stand Winehouse but please let's not have this fucking argument, at least not until she actually drops anything new.

i'm still holding out hope that the Ryan Leslie album will drop anytime soon, it really seemed like his singles did well enough in '08 to release it but i guess not.

i'm totally biting that jill scott gif sometime btw

08 was really good but i have high hopes, especially for hilson, ciara and leslie

super psyched for cassie, the-dream, r leslie, d'angelo, badu, ciara and hilson.

Psyched for all the obvious ones, especially after 2008 opened my ears to the joys of R&B, but I really can't wait to see what Janelle unleashes on us. The Chase Suite was revelatory and funky and completely unexpected, and I'm dying to get some more material from her.

was talking about this in another thread earlier, but i just found a youtube:

Thanks, nice work, etc., lex! (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/dec/30/cassie-unreleased-album)

oh thanks, i actually had no idea that went up! yeah, hyped for cassie and ciara especially, though not holding out much hope for either to be actually released. y'all have seen ciara's comic book concept/"supa c" alter ego, right? it looks really cool but a pity that it's coming so hot on the heels of sasha fierce.

teedra's album could be quite special, 'so kool' was v promising, and she's a genius and stuff. am definitely down with all the new dream stuff (how big is 'rockin' that thang'! and i even love 'let me see the booty' now), hopefully he'll get some UK crossover this time round. will be interesting to see what sophia fresh can do with the girl group format too - 'what it is' is an underrated jam.

when's erykah's baby due? i can't see her being the type to plunge into an album promo cycle when she has other things on her mind.

janelle's PR tells me that bad boy are going to get really behind her promo this year...

Rye Rye album will be pretty great despite balti-frankenbeat backlash

she's an R&B singer?

you know, unlike amy winehouse

well, I figure if amy winehouse is an r'n'b singer, we're being pretty liberal

here

wow had no idea there was a connection between this dumb argument and your last dumb argument, thank you for connecting the dots.

I wasn't trying to have some dumb argument

and yet you succeeded

lol zings

i like the keyshia cole from last year. her best album yet imo, shes kinda less naggy

i think the akon was really underrated also

I like "Right Na Na Na", but couldn't even make it through the whole album.

the first half of the album is all good though

its only towards the end where i start shrugging

'keep you much longer' is the most house-sounding beat on an R&B album yet

that akon album is basically a house album

it's also awful

"beautiful" is a good single though

the slow songs are bad, the fast songs are good
that basically how i break it down to an extent

the kardinal offishal rap is good

Ciara's second first single "Never Ever":

not sure about this one....

I mean, it's nice enough in a "Love In This Club" sweet mid-tempo type way, but when she has songs like "Echo" and "I'm On" and "Work" that might not even make the album and she releases this? I just don't get it.

yeah otm

i hope it's a huge hit so her album will come out

i really don't know why she's suddenly lost faith in her superlative dance tracks. i like 'never ever' but the hype was making me expect something of the quality of 'echo' or 'work' or 'i'm on'. (oddly another track, 'one favor', leaked last week, and it's really incredible - about as close as she's come to recapturing the spirit of 'promise', of all these efforts to rewrite the thing.)

I'm kinda loving "Never Ever," plus thank god she did something too straightforward for her to make another video with that lame sci fi/comic book angle. I'm not real into the other leaks, "Echo" is OK but I think she made the right choice for now. Also digging that one with The-Dream, "Keep Dancing."

wowowowow matt was 100% right about the anthony hamilton!!!! this. fucking. album.

his VOICE on 'fallin in love'

i kind of dont like it. or its just like, ok. its so much like everything else hes done. i feel like the first anthony hamilton album you hear is the one you will like the most but in the end hes kinda one note

i mean, i LOVED 'comin from where im from.' but every successive album is like, whats the point of all this

lol hence the title

damn, not sure I like the Anthony Hamilton as much as Matt does, but it's v. good

hilson at 85 on the hot 100, dream enters at 95 - maybe we got some albums coming out finally...

Keri Hilson is about as famous as anyone pre-album now right?

Seems like a good time

hilson actually seems oddly un-famous, despite her songwriting rep and presence on bona fide hits. can't think why this wasn't put out sooner after 'the way i are', though as much as i like some of her songs, she seems a bit too chameleonic to be an easy sell as a pop star...jill of all trades, mistress of none. ie, you can hear she's a songwriter.

yeah, for a long time I think was way more into the idea of her -- beauty n brains, hot girl who can write good songs -- whereas now i've heard her voice more and gotten used to it, but still not crazy about it or convinced that she has 'star quality.' still really wanna hear the album before i make up my mind about her, though.

I think she'd be way easier to sell as a Santogold-type pop know it all

i dunno, like to sell her to Santogold's actual audience? do skinny jeans kids care about contemporary R&B formalism?

Maybe not exactly, but I definitely think that she's more marketable to an older audience than the average top40 R&B

I don't think the audience for Keri Hilson really exists. otherwise Teedra Moses would be huge.

The Santogold audience can stay well away though.

i feel bad for Keri because if you watch her videos on youtube, 90% of the comments seem to be "she's trying to be Rihanna"/"that looks like an outfit Rihanna would wear"/"so much better than Rihanna!!!"/etc. so there's a real image problem out there with the kids.

Ironic that Rihanna is now the standard given when she started out she was like this r&b/dancehall fusionism offsider.

yeah i don't think she's gonna pop off anytime soon but i certainly don't think brooklyn vegan is the answer

I never would have thought to compare her to Rihanna, but now that that's said, her vocals on the verses of "Turnin' Me On" do kinda sound like Rihanna.

lex's reasoning re hilson is interesting too tho idk if it's exactly right or not

I feel like there's nothin' but goodwill for her though and actually now that I think about it doesn't she (and R&B in general lately) have a bit more hipster cred? She was on the cover of Fader (split with Santogol lol) last year

yeah I don't think she's really that much in the same lane as Rihanna, in terms of voice or talent or musical style, but obviously w/ the 12 year old youtube-commenting masses that for better or worse represent the audience that can make or break her, she's already being seen as some kind of derivative also-ran to a more established artist.

xpost - yeah i mean she has a decent about of hip/crit cred, but it's not like that really counts for anything in sales OR serious crit interest unless a record is a big to-do like New Amerykah or something

I dunno, isn't there avenues of working that into mass success. I kinda feel like there's a lot of people behind Hilson who really want her to succeed.

yeah i doubt that santogold has even moved 200,000 copies. hilson is a major label songwriter i think she's probably aspiring to more. don't think the label could make much off of that either.

i think they have the best strategy right now. she's penned a bunch of r&b hits in the past and i think they need to keep floating her songs to radio in the hope that something will catch on. i think she's just had a run of bad luck. there's no reason why her wayne collabo or chris brown collabo should both be flopping right now.

I hear that Chris Brown one on the radio all the time and I don't even own a radio, I had assumed it was doing well!

and yet wikipedia says it only got to 15 in Ireland

I hear that Lil Wayne one on the radio all the time, I had assumed it was doing well!

yall both wrong as fuck - but RETURN THE FAVOR HAS PEAKED AT #5 in the CZECH REPUBLIC, no joke

I have no idea what you mean in any of that post at all

Czech her out

sorry

yeah of course the song that's too eurocheesy for even a eurocheese-mad US urban radio climate would do better in the czech republic. but my constant assertions in the '08 thread that "Turnin' Me On" would be bigger than "Return The Favor" are still correct.

I didn't realise that was actually her in the Love in the Club video, I just assumed it wasn't because surely she'd have a bit to sing if it was.

yeah maybe it's a problem that to a lot of people she's just the random hot chick from a bunch of videos (Love In This Club, Throw Some D's, Miss Independent, etc.)

youtube is being really slow for me today

I don't see how "Return the Favor" is any more Eurocheesy than any number of things that have been huge hits. I would think of it as less Eurocheesy than "Love In This Club" or "Closer", to pick two disparate examples.

"Love In This Club" is Eurocheesy?

yes

tremendously

yeah, true-ish...but "Love" and "Closer" were both lead singles by established artists so there was a lot less friction in urban radio accepting it (although "Closer" took a good while to catch on) and I think ultimately they're pretty bass-heavy tracks that work in that context. "Return The Favor" just feels really tinny and lightweight to me by comparison to those, or even in comparison to "The Way I Are" (which was not really big at all on urban radio, and again had the momentum of someone as big as Timbaland being the main artist to put it all over pop radio).

xpost

"Closer" is Eurocheesy?

"return the favor" reminds me more of the cassie single than those other two - i like return the favor a lot and a hell a lot more of "love in this club" but it doesn't jump out at you the way those other two do. ship's right in calling it "tinny and lightweight"

lol ship

i jam 'return the favor' lots but really to any audience which isn't a priori interested in keri hilson, it's either a) diminishing returns on 'the way i are', or b) 'official girl' without any resonant lyrical hook, ie a less interesting version of a cassie hype kru track

a horrible way to dismiss a song i genuinely like a lot but i totally understand why it's not catching on

i could've seen hilson as a lady gaga figure - if her PR had really gone hard at the songwriter angle and if she'd babbled endlessly about artistry in her interviews (and unlike gaga she actually possesses some!), say. but all of her songs sound like they're written for established artists, not to break an unknown. still think her best moment is that sleazy mixtape track from a few years ago, 'hands & feet' (which was so obv a nicole scherzinger demo) (wait come back)

(ha ha)

Oh plz not Lady Gaga angle. I mean why don't we just say Kelis in that case. Except that Keri can't push the kooky space age angle even that much.

It seems odd that hook-chicks don't seem to break through any more. I secretly suspect the problem for Keri is that her career path was previously laid out by Mya, Christina Milian, Ashanti... All of whom seemed younger / fresher when they broke although Keri def. is hot.

Whereas Keri has this air of maturity around her that makes it seem like she must have been around for quite a while. Only no-one knows who she is. Which makes her seem like some sort of b-grader who's been hovering round the edges of consciousness and so doesn't qualify as a "hot new talent" (tho. obv this is not true).

lady gaga angle is apparently the only one which works now! i'm just playing PR here, i dislike it/her as much as anyone

also hilson's backroom status sets her apart from the ashantis and myae of the world (or er should - she seems to excel at writing generically catchy stuff without ever owning an aesthetic)

Well that's the thing - Keri's not nearly idiosyncratic or even distinct enough for her backroom status to mean anything, really.

Mya's a better songwriter anyways - Keri hasn't written a song as ace as "Why You Gotta Look So Good" or "Late" yet.

And while we're on this:

There's not really that much overlap between Lady Gaga and R&B audiences though, is there?

My sense is that the people who like Lady Gaga are basically into a broad swathe of "personality" driven white female pop - Pink, Gwen Stefani, Madonna. Not coincidentally this type of listener is much more likely to be comforted by protestations of artistry even if there's no evident connection between said protestations and the actual music in question.

My sense is that the people who like Lady Gaga are basically into a broad swathe of "personality" driven white female pop - Pink, Gwen Stefani, Madonna.

Call them the Feisties. And now back to the R&B.

Not sure what Feist has anything to do with anything being discussed here, including the pdwfp-ers, although I'm sure there's some overlap in audiences.

I'm drawing blanks as to who has successfully filled a Keri niche lately, Mya is the closest I can come, but that's not right. Aaliyah had the "pretty AND smart girl" thing going on, but didn't have the behind-the-scene bonafides and wasn't anywhere near as cheeky.

It seems odd that hook-chicks don't seem to break through any more. I secretly suspect the problem for Keri is that her career path was previously laid out by Mya, Christina Milian, Ashanti... All of whom seemed younger / fresher when they broke although Keri def. is hot.

this probably isn't really where you were going with this comment, but there is kind of a lot less going on for those kinds of hook chicks than there used to be, isn't there? I feel like maybe the whole new circuit of T-Pain/The-Dream type dudes has begun to almost completely occupy the lane that girl singers used to have to get exposure. now it's more like girls like Ciara and Rihanna don't start doing hooks on rappers' songs until they're already platinum.

as in feisty

the capitalization threw me off, carry on

keri hilson = the new kandi burruss, surely?

ha ha spot on!

Also Kandi's album wasn't really very good if i recall.

Siedah Garrett

= '80s/'90s Hilson

i actually really like the sepia simplicity of the new milian video. i think the song got undeservedly lost in the shuffle last year, so it's nice to see it given a new lease of life.

Trey Songs - Murder She Wrote

Luv the drums on this, esp. the end of the 1st chorus.

Altho this might be kinda old, now that I look at it.

so apparently the ryan leslie album is supposed to come out on feb 10...

http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/richmedia/images/cover.gif

:D :D :D

also
PRISCILLA RENEA ep in March and album in summer

that image is supposed to be from amazon but they added this new retarded feature where you can zoom in on albums but you cant copy the image address

So I was out for a run today and knackered myself out by the time I was going past Oxfam. So I decided that, as I was out of breath, I'd have a looksy. Inside there was Xscape's Off The Hook and Zhane's Pronounced Jah-Nay (as well as a Grace Jones record I forgot the name of, with a white cover). I didn't have my wallet on me so I thought I'd ask first to see if they worth spending the £1 each on? My knowledge of rnb only really starts when I started listening to Trevor Nelson about the turn of the decade.

no homo @ kanye producing a song ft john legend called "nobody eats but me"

erykah update via her myspace:

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=17447502&blogID=462827864

"any day now my new proje​ct arriv​es . nope - not new amery​kah pt 2 but new baby !! (​shout​ out to mothe​rs to be ) i can hardl​y move my hips are sooo stiff​ ...( i look like a duck w/ long legs)​ meanw​hile im still​ worki​ng away on pt 2 . ( mind blowi​n)​ later​ than i antic​ipate​d , howev​er , but frsh all the same . these​ days i live in headp​hones​ while​ poppi​n b vitam​ins and rubbi​ng my belly​ down with shae butte​r ( plump​ and ripe)​ . im a damne​d perfe​ction​ist and my metho​d is kinda​ weird​ s0 the lable​ just throw​s their​ hands​ up at me and banks​ on somet​hin else lol. ( peace​ to sylvi​a rhone​ ). so any way , im back in the badud​io , ill pause​ for my home birth​ which​ is just in the next room so i promi​se it wont take too long . lol. (​valer​ian and chamo​mile are my best frien​ds ) been spend​ing my days on twitt​er throw​ing out rando​m thoug​hts as FATBE​LLYBE​LLA.​ plent​y of twitt​y milk to go round​ ... i give thank​s today​ for your love , energ​y , respe​ct and feedb​ack . on behal​f of my entir​e famil​y from Edith​ funke​r , nedda​ stell​a ( band)​,​ soul quari​ans ,jay troni​c,​ contr​olfre​aq recor​ds , canab​inoid​s,​ b.​l.​i.​n.​d.​ , THE scien​tists​ ,and of cours​e NAYRO​CK "​HAPPY​ NEW YOU ." IF YOU BELIE​VE IT IT'S YOURS​ . TRUST​ . all my love , ebi breez​y aka fat belly​ bella​ aka loret​ta brown​ aka analo​gue girl aka annie​ aka manue​la mexic​o aka badui​zm pka e. badu.​.​.​.​.​ love and light​ !​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​ !​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​!​ p.s. im gone still​ do 2 mo video​s for pt 1 which​ 2 shoul​d they be ? i was think​in the heale​r and sould​ier.​.​.​eh.​"

so. we'll be waiting for pts 2 and 3 for a while yet, it appears. but for the time being - more videos!

lol badudio

oh bollocks, am going to have to join twitter now to keep up with FATBELLYBELLA

manuela mexico

love this so much i cannot even believe it

plent​y of twitt​y milk to go round

might regret this later

so is PPP just being discussed on the alternative R&B thread

Also here: platinum pied pipers/sa-ra/the new downbeat-rnb thing: why don't i like this stuff more?

But yeah, the PPP album is pretty good. I posted this on the other thread, but I like how they use retro-soul as a jumping point to do whatever the fuck they feel, rather than as an end unto itself.

wiki says new erykah album to come out 2/17...did it get pushed back?

presumably?

But yeah, the PPP album is pretty good. I posted this on the other thread, but I like how they use retro-soul as a jumping point to do whatever the fuck they feel, rather than as an end unto itself.

good way of putting it. i like it too

Guys I'm so excited about Electrik Red (The-Dream's girl group)... their album is going so be insane.

"We Fuck You" is on some spaced-out house&b shit, near the end it gets all acid house-y with the crashes... :

And their new single "So Good" sounds like "Pop Life" by Prince as covered by Kelis:

ryan leslie album is dope guys -- 'quicksand' is almost like NERD & I mean that in the best way possible

WHAT A GREAT YEAR THIS IS

omg yes studio version of Gibberish!!!!!!

Wait, is this Electrik Red album out? These tracks are firrrrre

GOT THAT DRINK IN MY CUP!!!!

no it's coming out in March I think.

Not to jinx everything, but this year's top ten will probably be set before the summer, and it will smash last year's top ten.

your enthusiasm has this weird effect of making me want to turn into alex in baltimore

oh god

anyway "we fuck you" is incredible as is "drink in my cup"

i very much love the-dream

Damn, this Electrik Red stuff is pretty good.

i assume u dudes heard the dj drama/too short/the-dream track?

yeah I have and it doesn't really work

i really like the electrik red tracks which are doing the rounds - do you guys think they'll be any more than another doomed-to-failure girlgroup experiment though? dame four, cherish, dear jayne...

i mean i love all of those, but i'd really like someone to try to bring back the r&b girlgroup as a viable commercial thing, and i'm not convinced that electrik red will. would love to be proved wrong though.

i would be surprised if they were successful but im pessimistic

Not to jinx everything, but this year's top ten will probably be set before the summer, and it will smash last year's top ten.

― Someone Still Loves You Evan and Jaron (Tape Store), Sunday, February 1, 2009 7:52 PM (1 hour ago)

Yeah, this year is off to a great start. My most anticipated album of the year is Fantasia's new one, her last record is a classic IMO and she SLAUGHTERED the Patti Labelle tribute last week:

Keri Hilson - In A Perfect World... (LOL)

^^this one too

^^"return the favor" is dope dope dope

has everyone listened to the R&B Kings 2009 comp? i listened to it during the Australian this morning. decent stuff, but besides a couple ciara tracks nothing really jumped out at me

Yeah, I'm not to hopeful about Electrik Red blowing up... I mean, it's definitely possible with Dream & Tricky behind the boards... and there is a sort of resurgence of girlgroups lately : Electrik Red, Sophia Fresh, Dear Jayne, RichGirl.... one of them is bound to blow up right?

The RichGirl singer is wicked:

single**

i really liked one of the bobby valentino tracks on r&b kings - agree that it was underwhelming overall though

I mean, it's definitely possible with Dream & Tricky behind the boards

ill come in and rain on this parade before al ship does: as much as i love the-dream and tricky they are from infallible hit makers - i could see them becoming the miss jade to the-dream/tricky's timbaland

far from*

yeah, it's definitely not a sure bet. If anyone is a sure bet for blowuptuation it's Sophia Fresh - T-Pain's group - they have the best single out of any of them and T-Pain is the biggest hitmaker... but T-Pain is kind of cooling down now so I dunno...

anyway, lex have you heard the Teedra Moses mixtape?

The problem with all these r&b svengali-auteur types trying to put on girl groups is that by the time most of them have the capitol to do that, their a bit past their peak, commercially if not musically.

they're*

shit, no, i forgot - i was literally on the verge of ordering it the other week but got distracted. i'll do that now, i LOVED 'so kool'.

xp

ok that second fantasia youtube

^ OTM, it actually kinda brought tears to my eyes but I'm sentimental like that

omg yes studio version of Gibberish!!!!!!

wait, is this really him singing gibberish over ths whole song?!? badass. fuck some writers block.

what is "Gibberish"

?

Last track of the new Ryan Leslie album. Not sure if it's a bonus track or what.

studio version:

wait, ryan leslie's "quicksand" is not produced by the neptunes, right ? in this case, it's the most total ripoff I4ve heard in a while... it's like "compile all the netpunes gimmicks ever in 4 minutes" !

a lot of RL's beats have some degree of a Neptunes vibe to them, but on that track he's messing with a style they haven't used in like 7 years.

More good news: Elliott Yamin album in May, single will be released this month...

so it's a neptunes revival already ? (xpost)

(announced producers for Yamin album: Stargate, Jermaine Dupri, Midi Mafia)

so it's a neptunes revival already ? (xpost)

― AleXTC, Monday, 2 February 2009 16:09 (1 hour ago)

no, it's more that a lot of RL's beats have some degree of a Neptunes vibe to them, but on that track he's messing with a style they haven't used in like 7 years. okay?

R&B kings part 2 is out there btw

yeah, yeah, I got you, r/t/c, I was just joking.
still it's weird to hear such a "neptunes" track by someone else (I haven't heard anything else by RL).
and about the 7 years old style, I must listen to it again, but it seemed to me he copied many styles from various neptunes periods, not just a specific old one. I'll listen to it again tonite to make sure.

in any case i think i'd argue that there's enough classic r-les there as the track builds to the outro to not go overly overboard over.

the album's good, though particularly in the last quarter you begin to wonder if that's all there is to it - i feel a little that there's this kinda disconnect of perspective going on where on one hand it's a nice, dinky little debut album by a relatively new artist and that should be that, and on the other that it's a slightly unfulfilling culmination to what's been like 4 years of subfusc internet grooming and what feels like hundreds of tantalising demos. (tantalising only in their very demo-ness, if you know what i mean; the distance between the reality of leslie as a irl industry artist and leslie as abstracted possibility space for the artist you think he'll be.)

the difference between fabo and fabo-less versions of 'addiction' sum it up nicely, i think - the original seems much richer and darker, this fathomless globe of desire cassie & leslie coldly orbit; with fabolous still fun but somehow now botched with a crowding pragmatism.

hi dudes i'm back btw

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f14/snouts/669461.jpg

also think 'gibberish' is getting a bit hypebeasted for what it is but this is lol:

http://www.dailyrnblyrics.com/Ryan-Leslie/494505-Gibberish.html

I'll date you on a date, yeah

"I'll stab a day" would probably rank as r-les' best ever lyric as well, spesh if you subscribe to the notion that he and not kanye be the true face of inscrutable modern yuppie business card anomie 2.0. amirite?

i've been listening to that teedra mixtape for a while but it's hella hard work unpicking your biases and saying something intelligible - half suspect she's on cruise control for a lot of it but fuck does it ever still sound great compared to anyone else. generally speaking though, it's all new material (no exemplary beatjacking as previous save the intro), and all at the hands of a variety of producers. normally this would be terribly worrying of course, except that the one poli paul track on there ('cabernet sauvignon') is actually kinda poor, and almost qualifies (in the right ears) as a comically textbook teedra spoof. also 'so kool' suddenly grows insanely in one's estimation when you're faced with the possiblity here that it's a road she might not be travelling any further down.

More good news: Elliott Yamin album in May, single will be released this month...

― Someone Still Loves You Evan and Jaron (Tape Store), Monday, February 2, 2009 8:07 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

(announced producers for Yamin album: Stargate, Jermaine Dupri, Midi Mafia)

― Someone Still Loves You Evan and Jaron (Tape Store), Monday, February 2, 2009 8:10 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

No one's asking you to care about anything by anybody.

haha yeah, i dunno what was more bewildering to read when i opened this up - yamin/midi mafia anticipation, or the fact that someone still remembers dame four.

oh no wait hold on it was the idea that keri was comparable with kandi. do me a lemon.

http://z.about.com/d/randb/1/0/c/H/-/-/SyleenaGrowingPains.JPG

^ enjoyed this, btw

http://www.zshare.net/audio/5378951219cb1bd5

File Name: 10-syleena_johnson-maury_povich_ft._cold_hard_of_crucial_conflict.mp3

no way song is better than the file name so i refuse to download

i... can't argue with that, to be fair.

hahahaha

what i like so much about quicksand isnt that it sounds like the neptunes but it sounds like n.e.r.d. album tracks, like 'tape you' or 'things are getting better' or something. im suddenly getting deja vu so i might have said this upthread so i wont invoice anyone for this post its on the house

oh yeah sure, that's what i thought what you meant upthread, although perhaps tellingly i immediately went for "bit catchy but charmless whatevs" 2nd/3rd album n.e.r.d rather than it touching anything off the first album.

(...which is so kinda personal canon that i don't think i've ever compared it to anything - anything except, privately (and this is haha but also DEAD SRS FACE + KEY TO A LOT OF MY MISUNDERSTOOD UNDERSTANDINGS) the-dream's album to that fantasy skit where they order up the chick on the phone like takeout.)

anyhow yeah i'm not saying it's not a good and valid point (moreso still now i've spotted my own bias at play), but like ships says overweighting the leslie = neps thing is only gonna be some tears before bedtime.

thats what i said! 17 motherfucker! and that shit gon be turned UP, aight!?

Uh, Yamin has more soul than pretty much every modern male R&B singer you guys love

just listened to ryan leslie album which i thought was aight. the one with cassie was nice and "gibberish" is A+ would listen again and did so 3x

loling at paula so hard btw

somehow the page title "RYAN LESLIE - GIBBERISH LYRICS" is more otm than anything contained on that page

its not really r&b but i like this lady gaga/akon lets dance song quite a bit.

didn't realise this was his second album at all.

wasn't the first one shelved or only released in europe or something?

wikipedia claims europe only

lol @ J. Holiday's new album cover:

http://www.rap-up.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/jholiday_round2-475x475.jpg

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/5705/b000fdeuia01ss500sclzzzzzzzv62np5.jpg

lol @ J. Holiday having a 2nd album. I didn't even know he had a single out!

anyone heard the Bobby Valentino album that came out this week? never really sure whether that guy's stuff is worth a damn but there's a lot of Tim & Bob tracks on it so i'm curious about it.

Haven't heard the Bobby V album yet, I'll listen to it eventually but that "Beep" song isn't exactly promising (though near the end when he starts screaming "SHEEEE GON LET ME BEEEAAAT" is hilarious).

Anyway I'm addicted to this new India Arie single w/ Musiq (who's album from last year is really slept on... "SoBeautiful" and "Until" are incredible) "Chocolate High". The lyrics are kind of corny but in a cute way, it sounds like something Roberta & Donny would've done:

has anyone heard her new album Testimony Vol. 2?

i like the keyshia cole from last year. her best album yet imo, shes kinda less naggy

― choom gangsta (deej), Saturday, January 3, 2009 11:29 PM (1 month ago)

Alright, so I've kind of come around to this after pretty much hating it at first (besides "Brand New" - which is still the standout to me). I still think it's her worst album, it's really, really overproduced and it's just not what I look for in a Keyshia Cole album. That said, there are some bangers on it, the aforementioned "Brand New" which is one of her best songs for sure, "Oh Yeah Yeah-Yeah" with Nas which is so DRAMATIC, and "Please Don't Stop" which is awesome electro/freestyle type track, and "Trust" which I loved back when it was a bonus track on Just Like You, Monica takes it to another level though for sure.

Also, here's some new stuff I've been feeling a lot lately:

Chrisette Michele "Epiphany" : Title track and lead single from her upcoming sophomore album, written by Ne-Yo.... I love how lazy/languid this sounds, like it really conjures up the image of her sitting alone waiting for her man to come home and just playing this on the piano. It's nice, I'm definitely excited for her album now. First one is slept on ("Mr. Radio"! "Let's Rock!")

Pleasure P "Boyfriend No. 2" : BANGERRRRRR

J. Holiday "Make That Sound"

Jesse Boykins III "Pantyhose" : This probably fits more in the sideways thread, but anyway dude is really talented... like a spacier Dwele type sound. Plus "I Want To See You In Your PANTYHOSEEEE" is like the best chorus ever.

Keyshia Cole is like this to me.

Yeah, I posted about Boykins in the other thread, but certainly don't mind discussing him over here. I've been listening to his EP a lot, but need to hear his album more. Dude makes some of the most purely sumptuous music I've heard recently and seems to do it it with odd combinations of sounds that shouldn't go together like tablas and muted trumpets. Speaking of which, "Tabloids" is my JB3 jam.

Yeah I saw the video for "Tabloids" on BETJ a few months back and was like woooow... "sumptuous" is definitely the right word to describe his sound. There's so much going on that it could easily sounds amateurish and sloppy but everything comes together so well.

I really like that one.

Anyway I'm addicted to this new India Arie single w/ Musiq

im listening to the new one now...this song and 'therapy' are great, the rest i'm kinda lukewarm on atm.

omg the song with mc lyte is so bad

oh shit the next one is just as bad :(

Laura Izibor, the lastest UK-export... her single "From My Heart To Yours" has been getting lots of play on VH1 Soul/BET J. It's cute definitely, but her voice sounds really forced to me (similar to Joss Stone). Was is it about these British soul-singers? It's so exaggerated... but anyway it's a good song and I'll check out her album definitely. He's a live performance:

Melanie Fiona, yet another person doing the whole "retro" thing - her single samples the Zombies. She's got a great voice, if Duffy can crossover and win a Grammy (eugh) then Melanie deserves to make it big for sure. Here's the single "Give It To Me Right":

And a look at her album ("Monday Morning" and "Sad Songs" sound promising):

Laura Izibor is Irish.

at the beginning of last year there was this uk funky mix that started out w/ a remix of 'from my heart to yours' that was just banging -- it wasnt a funky house remix at all tho, pretty mainstream glossy joint

My girl Priscilla Renea, who's the girl mimicking Rihanna on that "Emergency Room" demo (she co-wrote that track, too). New EP soon, like a month or something, album in the summer.

Trying to figure out who the Electrik Red girl who I like's voice reminded me of, I think it's Chilli from TLC. The little "How'd I let him come back" hook at the beginning of So Good is killing me.

Heard American Boy on the radio earlier and actually really connected with what Rev was saying about Estelle's voice on that track on another thread, despite all the stick he got for it. Its the sharp notes, they seem to become a bit extra sharp in her throat, she slices into them with not a little grating.

Donnie Simpson had a nice interview with Jazmin Sullivan on the radio this morning. Wish I could see her do her 30 minute set opening for Neyo tonight in DC.

really feeling that chrisette michele joint. didn't know bobby v had an album out! will check it: he seems to go from great to blah almost at random. ('beep' is really boring.)

yeah, a girl I work w/ is seeing that show in Baltimore tomorrow, i haven't seen Ne-Yo live since his first album was out and I'd really like to see his show now. xpost

loving that RichGirl single, although it's kinda sad that years and years after Rich Harrison got all that buzz with Beyonce/Kelly/DC singles, he's finally got a group doing something and they sound exactly like Beyonce and Kelly.

Love what I've heard of the Ryan Leslie record. Worth picking up?

i think so. there's a thread on him somewhere on ilm too.

Reunited Blackstreet and En Vogue playing at the club, Blackstreet on Friday. Should I go?

No way! Blackstreet at BB's is tempting, especially since I missed Bobby Brown, Ralph Tresvant and Keith Sweat last week...

I really never listened to their stuff; where's a good place for a neophyte to start?

There is a best-of ... I would also suggest the double-disc comp "Gold: New Jack Swing," which has some excellent remixes.

xp yeah Ne-Yo is playing here with Electrick Red, Jazmine & Musiq this Friday & Saturday. I want to go but tickets are like $70... and I don't even really want to see Ne-Yo I just want to see Jazzy & Electrick Red. Luckily I've seen Jazmine already (INCREDIBLE) so I can afford to miss this show.

File Name: 10-syleena_johnson-maury_povich_ft._cold_hard_of_crucial_conflict.mp3

― r|t|c, Monday, February 2, 2009 9:50 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no way song is better than the file name so i refuse to download

― jordy (J0rdan S.), Monday, February 2, 2009 9:51 PM (2 weeks ago)

Syleena is the father!

i picked up that syleena album in LA, must give it a listen...

Really liking that Priscilla Renea stuff.

had not seen the jamie foxx video with ron howard in it 0_o

He looks confused to be there.

more for matt2:

Keri Hilson - In A Perfect World... (LOL)

HEY GUYZ THIS ACTUALLY EXISTS:

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9513/kerihilsoninaperfectwor.jpg

And it's pretty good all things considered. Not the MINDBLOWING DEBUT ALBUM I was expecting two years ago, but the production is great throughout (as expected) and there are lots of good tunes on this... standout is "Inuition" (which wouldn't sound out of place on the Aaliyah album), really classic throwback Timbo beat, "Get Ur Money Up" which is an ANTHEM, "Make Love" which is just gorgeous, "Knock You Down" (which the next single FYI) and of course "Where Did He Go?"...

anticipating this download

Honestly I'm more excited for her second album, since she's on the way to establishing herself with this one ("Knock You Down" should be another big hit for her, and I think "Get Your Money Up" could do well) the next record should come out without being chronically delayed and everything leaking a year before the album actually comes out.

<3 u brainwasher!

really really really feeling this right now

Might prefer this over the album version.

really looking forward to that album; suppose I should already have found it?

and a few notable debuts:

Janelle Monae

she's r&b, just kinda out there, maybe kinda experimental, maybe kinda pretentious modern r&b

great! i downloaded her EP the other day, and now i'm really excited

Totally love Janelle, somewhat less taken by her live show.

yeah that keyshia cole joint is awesome

monae is so fuckin corny

cant all be Cool Kids can we

heh

take it to passive aggressive notes, folks.

i kinda like J Holiday 'It's Yours', unexpectedly

(forksclovetofu), Friday, March 20, 2009 9:59 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i kinda like J Holiday 'It's Yours', unexpectedly

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski), Monday, March 23, 2009 8:34 PM (Yesterday)

worst song on the album (which is great)

there's a new j holiday album? had no idea.

i guess i'm excited about the imminent chrisette michele...

the hilson album is pretty much what i ended up expecting. she has v little presence of her own, even her swagger on the 'turnin' me on' remix is generic swagger rather than keri-specific swagger (though it's still fab) and can't carry the album, but her anonymity seems to benefit her material in single-sized bites, for songs which demand nothing of you but your enjoyment.

You really think Keri has no presence? The album does get a little generic at times, but I think she's got the most "swag" - to use an annoying overused term - out of pretty much any r&b chick right now. On the Intro and "Get Ur Money Up" in particular (and her "Turn My Swag On" remix which is awesome).

And yeah definitely excited about the Chrisette album, "Epiphany" is probably my single of the year so far.

when did swag become such an overused word?

i really liked the keri! i think you're both a little too far to the extreme here - she's no beyonce, but she's definitely got a presence about her...it's this sub-badu "distinguished" persona that works for me. for some reason, the leaks didn't do much for me aside from "return the favor", but i really was feeling songs like "turnin me on", "make love" and "alienated" the other day listening to this. i think "energy" could be great if not for the ham-handed production, esp. the chorus which is just so over-the-top and bad imo

the chorus which is just so over-the-top and bad dramatic, huge and amazing imo

nahh

nahh

The main problem w/ "Energy" is that the chorus doesn't go ANYWHERE. AT. ALL.

otm. i really like the verses tho!

I've got J. Holiday, Bobby Valentino, Case and Trey Songz at the club tomorrow, all performing with a live band to an audience of about a thousand; it promises to be kinda batty. Sold out more or less on contact.

I'm not sure you could put together a lineup of R&B singers that would be less welcome for me.

i love "energy"

anyway i gotta side w/ lex, i listened to it right when it leaked but then forgot about it, everything seemed good and competent but not what you'd expect from an album that's been gestating for this long w/ a bunch of the most successful and best r&b and pop producers and writers behind the boards. it's not even as generically good as the ciara leaks and certainly not as singular as the cassie leaks, but maybe ill like it once i get around to listening to it more

has the elctrik red album leaked? does anyone care enough to put it on the internet? big week for urban music b/w these two and the RAWSE album

as yall know, trey songz is my least favorite artist on the planet— i think i'd have to kill myself if asher roth's next album leads w/ a trey songz single

Yeah, the Keri album isn't terrible or anything, but it's ultimately pretty hard to care about once you've heard it.

I'm not repping for any of those artists, but I'd be curious to see if any of them can perform live with a live band.

probably not

haha man you're Trey Songz hatred is funny...i don't particularly like guy and sometimes on his annoying hooks on rap songs i understand where you're coming from, but "Wonder Woman" and his first single w/ Twista were decent, i could see him coming out with something really good at some point.

Electrik Red ain't really out this week, is it? Amazon's listing it as April 21st now.

Those are precisely the only two Trey joints I f/w.

i guess it makes sense that it got pushed back, i remember seeing mar 24 on the def jam site but they were dropping videos like last week

i gotta say that i 100% love "can't help but wait" but that's probably cuz i thought it was a ne-yo song for 2 months, i just hate when rappers show up w/ trey songz songs as crossover attempts when a. dude sucks b. has never had a crossover rap hit besides the one w/ twista c. it's not that hard to write a good chorus

oh, shit forgot about "Can't Help But Wait", I like that one too. It was better than Ne-Yo's own singles that year.

when did swag become such an overused word?

― Plaxico (I know, right?), Monday, March 23, 2009 9:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i really want someone to attempt to answer this. like an academic research paper

along w/ swag, who amongst rappers/singers/athletes started the mohawk trend, i spent like 10 mins trying to figure it out the other day but couldnt. i remember diddy for the marathon but it didn't take of then as opposed to this past year when EVERYONE had them (seriously 40% of college basketball players). was it around 'party like a rockstar' or something?

btw all these songs suck

2008: "Bust It Baby" (Remix) (Plies featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Freaky Deaky" (Flo Rida featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Da Baddest" (Big Kuntry King featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Thug It 2 The Bone" (Lil Scrappy featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Hood Love" (Maino featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Street's Won't Let Me Die" (2 Pistols featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "That's My Word" (2 Pistols featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "I'm da Man" (Plies featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Girl If I" (LL Cool J featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Ya Heard Me" (B.G. featuring Lil' Wayne, Juvenile & Trey Songz)
2008: "Street Life" (Buju Banton featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "One Night" (Yung Berg featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "I Just Wanna" (AZ featuring Sheek Louch, Max B & Trey Songz)
2008: "Ride" (Ace Hood feat. Trey Songz)
2008: "Cuddy Buddy" (Mike Jones featuring Trey Songz, Twista & Lil Wayne)
2008: "No Make Up" (Huey featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Without You" (Rebstar featuring Trey Songz)
2008: "Takin It There" (Young Jeezy feat. Trey Songz)
2008: "All I Need" (G-3 feat. Trey Songz)
2008: "Love for Money" (Willie The Kid feat. Yung Joc, Bun B, & Trey Songz)
2008: "Pop Rose" (Drake feat. Trey Songz)
2008: "We Global" (DJ Khaled feat. Fat Joe, Ray J, and Trey Songz)
2008: "Supplier" (Shawty Lo feat. Lil Wayne and Trey Songz)
2008: "I Got to Get It" (Topic feat. Trey Songz)
2009: "Successful" (Drake featuring Lil Wayne & Trey Songz)

xpost

wait are you talking about the fauxhawk???

i dunno, i thought Trey was a good replacement for Turk on that Hot Boyz reunion joint

xpost

whatever whatever— basically im asking how we made it to yung la. were shop boyz THAT culturally relevant?

i dunno, i thought Trey was a good replacement for Turk on that Hot Boyz reunion joint

xpost

― a black hole of energy and cheer (some dude), Monday, March 23, 2009 10:48 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

this one hit me the hardest~~

i think the black faux hawk trend was really just an outgrowth of the white fratboy faux hawk trend that preceded it by 5 years...like a lot of other Kanye-endorsed urban music fashion trends, actually.

yeah i think that's pretty plausible. the fauxhawk def. started as an LA pretty boy, nylon magazine/MTV reality show look a couple year before the shop boyz lineage fauxhawk

http://l.yimg.com/img.tv.yahoo.com/tv/us/img/site/58/08/0000035808_20061116141727.jpg

like, oh my god, how did we ever get to yung la from a paragon of humanity such as this

haha xpost

as a staple of black culture it seems way more current to me than 5 years ago

im not asking about fauxhawks on white ppl or else i would've bumped the politics of messenger bags thread

no i mean it's been a staple of white douchebags for at least 5 years longer than it's been a staple of black douchebags

I can't recall Kanye w/ a hawk. Seems he's rocking w/ the mullets. :/

thank you, noted cultural critic burt_shipley

xxxxx that dude's even got wallet chain! see hiphop influenced fashion trend circa 07/08 skull studded belt not pictured

well the kanye mullet was kind of a mohawk. but yeah he's not really the best trendwhore to pin that particular trend on.

a great example of this: Chrome Hearts jewelry showing up all over the "Ballin" video a good 2-3 years after it had already become a little played out as white dude douche-bling

i have nothing to say about r&b.

white dude douche-bling is a good phrase

ed hardy = white dude douche-bling for your torso

i was on south beach tonight and saw so many ppl wearing ed hardy, made we wanna get all ted bundy

obv douche's were whatever whatever but i wanted to shake every 48 year old w/ a 25 year old on his arm and be like "THIS ISN'T COOL— PEOPLE DON'T THINK YOU LOOK COOL. YOU HAVE TURQUOISE FOIL ON YOUR SHIRT"

i thought "swag" moved into annoying "i'd hit that"/"bling" parlez with 'swagger like us', personally; just another sin to lay at Kanye's feet.

AND WE HAVE A WINNER

http://www.vaporsmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/maurice8-540.jpg

1. skull belt
2. messenger bag
3. (LV of course)
4. fauxhawk (although dude could just be bald)
5. ED HARDY tee!!!
6. raw denim
7. Prada sneakers

thank you, Shop Boyz.

white people, the inspiration "urban" fashion all along?

for

wooww at that pic

shit i forgot the tee over the long sleeve shirt and I think i see some sort of chain going on near the left pocket

why are you laying this all at the feet of the Shop Boyz anyway? none of them even had mohawks!

i just assumed

lol at wikipedia

Sometimes, terms like what the dilly, yo are popularized by a single song (in this case, "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" by Busta Rhymes) and are only used briefly. Of special importance is the rule-based slang of Snoop Dogg and E-40, who add -izz to the middle of words so that shit becomes shizznit (the addition of the n occurs occasionally as well).

why is that dude not the subject of a poll?

rev

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=71055#unread

man i am listening to a LOT of mediocre falsetto in these soundchecks

ffs where's Block Party?

????

The Keri Hilson album has been doing a good job of keeping me from overplaying the new Dream. It feels a bit unexceptional maybe, but I'm still enjoying it (with the exception of Akon's awful, throaty yelps on Change Me). Slow Dance and Make Love stand out especially. Make Love is like some absurdly overblown Diane Warren-type shit but wow, it works.

Honestly I've been listening to Keri and J Holiday way more than Dream.

wow i need a gif of keri and wayne miming a pitcher/batter interatcion on kimmel

b/w seeing this and discovery that flo-rida's single samples "i'm blue" it's rly been a banner night for the lolz over here

btw hilson swings so wildly between dope swagger and corniest chick ever on stage, it's so jarring

also lyric sites

Balla wanna be Weezy
Yep Im at the plate again
Keri if you pitch it at me Ima swing a weight at it

loving this:

weeks i waited, razor at wrist, knowing any minute now brainwasher would arrive with cloak & scythe to big up "my girl melanie fiona". but my redeemer never came.

and oh hellz no this bitch did not just jack 'silly games' for her tired-ass jazmine sullivan business model! sit the fuck down already.

also dearest thread, there is to be no weaselling out of being held accountable for like 2 years of nonsensical hypemannery in the wake of keri's album being grim trash. (god polow how i hate what you have become!) (i like 'alienated' ok though.)

nor is "hmm i like roast dinners BUT ALSO POPCORN??!?!?!" gonna really wash as any sort of insight wrt scoring points off love vs money - that shit worked better on the jamie foxx thread for a start.

yeah "Alienated" is my pick from that one too. haven't really absorbed the album for better or worse yet though.

pity 'alienated' isnt a proper cassie song actually, keri seems too leathery for it almost.

(in the context of the rest of the record, at least.)

ffs where's Block Party?

― Plaxico (I know, right?), Thursday, 26 March 2009 09:20 (4 days ago)

i. the missy album? - why on earth care! (but, i will stand by 'best best')
ii. the rubbish band? - still wasting their very handy drummer!
iii. the lisa left eye jam? - in a bargain bin near you, run and get that shit!!

btw hilson swings so wildly between dope swagger and corniest chick ever on stage, it's so jarring

― unique whips (J0rdan S.), Sunday, March 29, 2009 2:31 AM (Yesterday)

loltm

with rtc and ship re: 'alienated' love

I think my fav thing on the Keri album now is the corny as hell but wonderful "got a lot of girls on their do do do do doo" bit on "Intuition".

btw hilson swings so wildly between dope swagger and corniest chick ever on stage, it's so jarring

i know right! think it boils down to: her arm and upper body movements are fierce; her legwork is gawky and when she has nothing to do she just ends up standing there looking awkward. and like terius she should keep the shades on.

am jamming the 'turnin' me on' remix more than anything on the album so far...

Keri is just proof the the songwriter-to-artist transition always has its awkward bumps in the road, even if you look better in front of a camera than Sean Garrett. And seriously, at her stiffest and corniest she still comes across with more personality than all the dead-behind-the-eyes Cassies and Ciaras y'all are always trying to pinocchio into real girls.

i would kick it with hilson before ciara or cassie, im just saying it's funny

it's also funny cuz she's always got this super confident face on even tho she looks ridiculous half the time, compare this to cassie who bombed on 106 & park but was kinda embarrassed about it so i felt bad.

yeah...kinda reminds me of Ne-Yo's half-assed MJ stage moves, which he does in videos way more than he should or needs to but still kinda shrugs and admits he's not a dancer like Chris Brown or whoever

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y264/leviz/electrikred-howtobealady-1.jpg

yes

can't help wondering whether "volume 1" is a tad optimistic, but whatever: YES

i would kick it with hilson before ciara or cassie, im just saying it's funny

― tweet me 911 (J0rdan S.), Monday, March 30, 2009 1:38 PM (3 hours ago

u mad

nah im saying i would kick it with hilson before ciara or cassie

the super mario brother of this R&B game back from dancing with the stars career purgatory:

i guess he gets points for being the first singer to cash in on gucci mania, and i hated "diva" so much that you'd think i wouldn't be able to handle another R&B "a milli" rip, but i kinda like this. at least until sean garrett comes in, which i totally thought was bobby valentino the first time it came on the radio.

WE AINT NO DANITY KAAAANE BITCH

ha ha, oughta known que was bout it bout it when the pashmina came off.

always meant to give that first day26 album another chance, felt like it might be quality but it glided right over me the couple times i put it on - i know brainwasher was into it, anyone else?

talking of s garrett, really prefer him tangy rather than obsequious, ooh you vixen

although it's actually mario's creamily earnest quality that makes that bangladesh tune all unsettling and gross to me i think.

And seriously, at her stiffest and corniest she still comes across with more personality than all the dead-behind-the-eyes Cassies and Ciaras y'all are always trying to pinocchio into real girls.

― the worst breed of fong (some dude)

trying so hard not to trip over this blatant teddybear-baiting. but it's funny how out of all these supposedly braindead puppets it's actually your bro hilson whose strings are so depressingly clear for all to see, with her total inability to transcend any of the hype/beef/feeler-song/teaser/trailer industry machinations she herself is quite happy to set into motion. if she's so cool and talented - and i'm not saying she isn't - doesn't she deserve your free pass the least?

keri is quite simply not kandi because she doesnt and never will have a 'dont think i'm not'. end of.

or to put it more succinctly

http://twitter.com/cassieventura/status/1428166027

classic

i don't want to shock you but you are ~~overthinking some shit~~

i approve of shipley embracing the tilde.

the best keri solo hits absolutely stand up to 'don't think i'm not' - i mean, they're more hooky ear candy than great situational songwriting but looking at keri's actual songwriting credits this shouldn't be a surprise at all. really if the keri/kandi comparison falls down it's in their work for other artists. kandi has 'no scrubs', 'bills bills bills', 'bug-a-boo' and 'there you go' off the top of my head (wikipedia is oddly silent on the matter). and 'pop ya collar', or am i imagining that? keri has, what, 'gimme more' and 'wait a minute'.

I'm sold. She's good.
Think I'll get the EP.

Yeah, you know, I love all the songs on the EP, but when i was listening to the samples on itunes, the production sounded pretty horrible. I'm going to buy it as a donation, and if i'm write about the sound, i'll send her a sweet note about it.

right, oops

that song wasn't bad. she needs to ditch that guitar tho

I agree on the production based on what I've heard. She sounds like she deserves the support.

http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu226/mariahfan/2r46d7n.jpg

1. Ciara To The Stage
2. Love Sex Magic featuring Justin Timberlake
3. High Price featuring Ludacris
4. Turntables featuring Chris Brown
5. Like A Surgeon
6. Never Ever featuring Young Jeezy
7. Lover's Thing featuring The-Dream
8. Work featuring Missy Elliott
9. Pucker Up
10. G Is For Girl (A-Z)
11. Keep Dancin' On Me
12. What's Your Name
13. I Don't Remember
14. Echo
15. I'm On

The whole album has leaked basically ("Like A Surgeon" - awesome title - and "What's Ur Name" are the only ones that haven't), I'm glad it's finally coming out at least...

btw I think you guys are totally wrong about keri's album... you should give it a few more listens, I think it's pretty great actually. the only song I don't fuck with is that Akon track....

'pucker up' is awesome. freestyle revival, let's make this happen.

- missy is back on 'work'? why?
- chris brown is still on 'turntables'? why? still haven't got to a stage where i can really listen to him again
- lol are they trying to pretend 'go girl' didn't happen. it's grown on me loads though!
- WHERE IS 'WALK ON THE WALL' >:(
- can pretty much live without the rest of the leaks though - i like 'rattla', 'roll call', 'one favor' and 'the fit of love' but not so much that i care about them making the final cut
- wonder what the chances of 'echo', 'work' and 'high price' being singles are now

oh and glad that they didn't shove the enrique duet on just cuz it's doing well

"Like A Surgeon" - awesome title
this is a weird al yankovic song title

no 'go girl' is pretty :(((
also liked 'explode'
is 'lover's thing' the same as 'keep dancing'?
thank fuckin god 'echo' is still there...now make it a single

I play Echo so much that its the only Ciara song most of my friends know.

haha yeah all of my friends at home were forced to love it over christmas break

btw I think you guys are totally wrong about keri's album... you should give it a few more listens, I think it's pretty great actually. the only song I don't fuck with is that Akon track....

― P is for Pussy (The Brainwasher), Monday, April 6, 2009 5:57 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

was listening to this over the weekend and nothing sounded so good in a long while.

i was hoping for her sake that Ciara would've ditched the comic book motif by now, but i guess it's good enough that noone gave her a green light on that whole misbegotten triple CD concept.

Yeah, I've really come around to the Keri album now with only 2 exceptions--the Akon track and Get Your Money Up, which just feels a bit weak after Turnin' Me On.

"Get Your Money Up" might be my favorite so far.

ok how have i slept on this jamie foxx album for so long! it's GREAT. well, five tracks in.

http://www.bbkingblues.com/schedule/moreinfo.cgi?id=4694

so weird that 'love sex magic' is becoming a genuine hit. it's only been on UK itunes for two days and is already top 10.

I liked it when it was just a JT demo floating around, but in its finished version w/ Ciara it's a monster song.

i thought it was indistinct trash at first, the video makes it feel more like a hit but i'm still not sure about the song. what's the point of Justin having his own little production team if all they're gonna do is off-brand Timbo?

credit crunch.

love sex magic has a really fun, breezie vibe, which i like, but it's slightly inane

what isn't tho

lol

it's impossible to not "like" i think but it doesn't scan as a ciara song at all, which is pretty disappointing i think

huh, I had it pegged as Ciara the first time I heard it on the radio

it sounds like her, it's unmistakeably her (and making a proper 'Ciara song' at this point would have to involve bringing Lil Jon back from the dead). but yeah, putting her on a song with anyone with an actual personality kind of instantly throws her into the background.

well i mean you can tell by her voice i guess, but it just sounds like a futuresex/lovesounds outtake with ciara's vocals replacing some studio hand's demo

I will admit that it did remind me of that last Lumidee song where she was only on maybe a nanosecond of it.

well i mean you can tell by her voice i guess, but it just sounds like a futuresex/lovesounds outtake with ciara's vocals replacing some studio hand's demo

― the rickey henderson of sbs (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, April 7, 2009 12:20 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

pretty much

it sounds more like justin ft ciara, but it's done its job in getting this album campaign going, and i suspect it's the kind of track which will only benefit from being a ubiquitous spring jam. makes me wonder how well 'echo' would've done in its place, even w/out justin.

I don't actively WANT to listen to it, but if LSMagic gets played some 90 times in the next few months around me, I'm okay with that.

otm

putting her on a song with anyone with an actual personality kind of instantly throws her into the background

c'mon, she's been on songs w/ludacris and missy and held her own personality-wise

and petey pablo!

Luda is kind of a special case given his ubiquity as a guest star on records; there was a period of time where it felt like a surprise to find him on his own records.

Did she do a track with Missy guesting? I only remember her on Loose Control" where she certainly was in the background for me, especially when compared to Fatman Scoop.

1, 2 Step

haha I completely forgot that song existed

Okay, is anyone but me watching 'Sunday Best' on BET? I should really start a separate thread, but there was a chick on there last night who did a cover of 'grandma's hands' that kicked the FUCK out of the crowd.

full perf:

rolling BET gospel thread would be cool with me

It's SUNDAY BEST y'all - BET's gospel American Idol

I liked it when it was just a JT demo floating around, but in its finished version w/ Ciara it's a monster song.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, April 7, 2009 4:08 AM Bookmark

okay, I'm not crazy for thinking I heard this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Ride#Track_listing

so apparently "echo" and "i'm on" are going to be bonus tracks and not part of the proper album?? WHAT THE FUCK

it's so they can force all ciara diehards to buy the deluxe ediiton

That is really a terrible and stupidly short-sighted trend.

yeah...it sucks because now every major retail chain and digital store has its own 1 or 2 'exclusive' bonus tracks for most high profile releases. it's gotten to the point where I'm like hmm if I go to Amazon I get these songs, but if I go to iTunes I get these songs (or I go to the independent CD store I usually frequent and just get the basic album).

although i guess with Fantasy Ride it's not a retailer-specific thing, just deluxe and regular, so nm

So guys Chrisette Michele is about to drop a classic album, I can feel it! I'm loving this sampler, especially "Notebook" (which is the second single):

http://www.defjam.com/site/news.php?news_id=107637

the "birthday sex" bridge is some shit huh

"Notebook" sounds good but i don't know if i can get past Chrisette Michele's weird mannered retro kewpie doll enunciation, it kinda ruins "Epiphany" and most of her other songs for me.

yo janelle monae opened a show i was at last night and wooow i love her. she's fucking bonkers onstage and somehow she got 750 dorky indie kids dancing like crazy. she came out for of montreal's encore and dueted bowie's "moonage daydream" with kevin barnes. <3333

kinda jealous

she's fucking bonkers onstage and somehow she got 750 dorky indie kids dancing like crazy

it's crazy what happens when dorky indie kids aren't listening to bon iver

ha i like to think that people at this show are too cool to listen to bon iver but thats probably not the case. it was a fuckin rave from start to finish last night, even with of montreal playing a surprisingly single-light set

hey kids that's just super

anyone wanna talk about R&B? i'm giving the Ryan Leslie album another pass since it left me cold the first few times.

Things are pretty slow in R&B land right now, but May is going to be a massive month (Chrisette, Electrik Red, Ciara, etc.)... right now I'm in love with this new LeToya single:

janelle is an r&b singer, shipley, which is why i bumped this

i havent listened to r-les very much recently, but i still bump diamond girl and gibberish on the reg.

haha yeah that's kinda cool, although i don't think i really got into it until the bridge...LeToya's first album was pretty decent.

xpost don't get butthurt, dude, i was just trying to make sure we didn't go from 2 dudes talking about bon iver in this thread to 5

letoya's first album was one of those which was a lot less than the sum of its parts. there are tracks from it that i still jam regularly ('all eyes on me', 'gangsta grillz', 'what love can do') but i just couldn't care about her as a viable solo artist.

really like that vistoso bosses song 'delirious' that was on idolator the other day...

just got the actual! final! ciara album today. really like it - pretty cool hearing 'high price' in cdq at last, lots of songs without the promo voiceover, quite a few leaks i'd missed. sequenced well i think, the return to the dancefloor 3/4 of the way through really works. final track 'i don't remember' is a bit like tweet's 'drunk' in its haze of morning-after regret, though it's more a good girl just embarking on going bad w/out realising the road that lies ahead, rather than tweet's deliberately-drinking-self-into-oblivion.

i saw anthony hamilton live the other week. dude puts on a great show, check him out if you get the chance. did we talk much about the last album? it's pretty special...

oh is it my imagination or is solange's 't.o.n.y' actually becoming a hit?

i fucking love hamilton and the new album was one of my faves from last year.

Somebody tell me about Drake.

oy, this show tonight.

drake is a boring fake wayne, no idea why ppl care about him

when the Anthonly Hamilton album came out Cibula was all IT'S GREAT and i was all IT'S GOOD and he got all mad, it was fun.

no yeah TONY is a hit. even i like it!

xpost

xp yeah "T.O.N.Y." is doing pretty well.. I always see the video and it recently debuted on the R&B charts (and it's #1 on the Dance chart but that's not really an accomplishment).

Can somebody make a list of all the worthwhile R&B albums released so far this year? I've been following the thread, but it's so singles oriented that I'm having trouble navigating through it.

just had a dude tell me drake is going to be gargantuan within a month; haven't heard him yet, but I'm inclined to believe based on the source.

the hamilton album is like quarter ok, half very good indeed, and quarter INCREDIBLE INCREDIBLE. think it's def his best yet. matt c was basically right!

"half very good indeed"

lol @ british ppl

um...

The-Dream
Ryan Leslie
Keri
Jesse Boykins III
J. Holiday
Muhsinah

uh... that's about it... there are some others that have some good tracks (India Arie, Day26), but for the most part it's kind of been a slow year so far.

i didn't know that was a formulation particularly peculiar to british people

and I wouldn't say Point of it All is his best yet, but it is a really great album and there are some incredible moments on it most definitely.

i kinda prefer SoCo and comin from where I'm from more than this one. AHamilton's albums mostly tend to have two or three knockout tracks, three decent and then half filler. I like his filler better than most people's singles tho.
Still crank up Cool every now and again.

just got the actual! final! ciara album today

oh, hey lex..

lex how's "like a surgeon"? i'm very excited for that one

also i am happy that "TONY" is catching on! that was the song i first loved from that record, before i fell for (obv) "sandcastle disco". she played one of the late night shows recently and kiiiillllllled "TONY", lemme try to find a youtube

yeah the Jimmy Fallon show... amazing performance.

here it is, on jimmy falloln. she opens with this great old cover that i forget now...someone on idolator said what it was tho

i was starting to list recent releases but Brainwasher covered everything I was gonna say, except Charlie Wilson, and the Bria Valentine album packaged w/ the new Prince is better than most of the reviews are giving it credit for, "Another Boy" might be my favorite R&B track of the year so far.

wish i had a fuckin' target around here for that prince

also patrick, try PPP if you're into some maybe kinda out-there, modern maybe pretentious r&b

yeah by actual! final! ciara album i mean a promo e-card and it'll almost assuredly leak before actual cds are sent out

xps

'like a surgeon' is a midtempo, kinda hookless thing...on one listen it sounds like a great beat in search of a song that fits it. might grow on me though. 'tell me what your name is' is good though, some really great divebombing 808 sounds on it

favourite cuts on the point of it all - 'the news', 'fallin in love', 'i did it for sho', 'soul's on fire', 'prayin for you/superman'...

brainwasher u missed the jamie foxx album btw!! maybe my second favourite after the-dream. plus, brandy and anthony hamilton were right at the end of 08 and totally got overlooked...

i really like individual cuts off the keri album but not feeling it as a whole. didn't really feel the r-les at all. ciara def recommended when it drops though.

r-les, after initially leaving me cold has totally grown on me. it's blank formalism, but it's done so well that i love it for the songs themselves, even if i have no stake in leslie as an artist. brandy needs more love. overlooked like mad at the end of 08 and was a fucking great album. haven't spent much time with jamie foxx. the keri has yet to open up to me much beyond the singles. we'll see.

TONY is a hit? what? i mean, love that song to death, but how did it hit where sandcastle and i decided didn't? where is it sitting on billboard top 40 etc.?

someone might've heard it on the radio at some point and that's a big thing for solange

in reality it's not even bigger than "i decided" was but i guess that'll change soon

i think i like the mike jones powerballad

haha yeah me too, extra points cuz his voice is so ugly and confrontational

proto plies but i didn't even realize it

i wanna be neckstewyOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

nice autotune restraint there

someone might've heard it on the radio at some point and that's a big thing for solange

in reality it's not even bigger than "i decided" was but i guess that'll change soon

― ...and you will know us by the trail of banned (J0rdan S.), Monday, April 20, 2009 4:18 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u weird with defining hits and shit...it just straight up has a lot of momentum right now that "I Decided" never had, it will be charting a lot higher very soon.

i was really just trolling the ppl who like solange here, it's not a "hit" tho

this is like a few months ago when people when i said "Turnin' Me Off" was going to be huge and "Return The Favor" was a flop and nobody believed me

if "tony" makes it to #2 on hot rap/r&b and top 20 on the hot 100 i'll suggest ban myself

not saying it'll be huge but it pretty obviously has a lot more radio potential than "Sandcastle Disco" imo

i don't hear the "obviously" - 'sandcastle disco' has the hugest chorus on the album, easily, and it's still the same basic motowny sound...?

i dunno, i'm just saying this from a gut level as a non-Solange stan

Stanlange

nope

^brakhage's older brother

Would somebody care to list some good R&B albums of 2008? This thread is so single-oriented and disjointed that it's impossible for me to navigate.

― Patrick South, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 23:03 (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Can somebody make a list of all the worthwhile R&B albums released so far this year? I've been following the thread, but it's so singles oriented that I'm having trouble navigating through it.

― Patrick South, Monday, 20 April 2009 20:43 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

1. lol
2. gtfo

lol

to the week!!

INDUSTRY SPIES

navigate my fist patrick south!

― r|t|c, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 23:05 (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

't.o.n.y' kinda cracks me up for some weird reason, ha ha i think it is just the tony-ness of the name. like, "if it wasn't for daaave!". also did i miss why it's acronymised? is it a t.r.o.y thing? is she shilling for time out new york?

"from the smash hit album tony hadley's street dreams"

"the other nite - y?"

not defending just saying

i guess it stands for "The Other Night oh whYYYY" which may be even worse wordplay than "If You Seek Amy" but somehow it doesn't ruin the song for me.

still haven't figured out if the song is about her getting knocked up or if the video just adds that context to it.

xpost

TONY stands for "the other night..." wait now i'm forgetting xps

i was really just trolling the ppl who like solange here, it's not a "hit" tho

― ...and you will know us by the trail of banned (J0rdan S.), Monday, April 20, 2009 4:28 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is like a few months ago when people when i said "Turnin' Me Off" was going to be huge and "Return The Favor" was a flop and nobody believed me

― EDUARDO MANOSPENES (some dude), Monday, April 20, 2009 4:33 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if "tony" makes it to #2 on hot rap/r&b and top 20 on the hot 100 i'll suggest ban myself

― ...and you will know us by the trail of banned (J0rdan S.), Monday, April 20, 2009 4:35 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not saying it'll be huge but it pretty obviously has a lot more radio potential than "Sandcastle Disco" imo

― EDUARDO MANOSPENES (some dude), Monday, April 20, 2009 4:38 PM (41 minutes ago)

^^i just went through like the four phases of snoopheadshake.gif reading these

Haha--wow. It looks like I've been lost at sea for over a year, struggling to navigate the disorganized waves of posts. Sorry about that...I just like full albums!

And, Kevin, thanks for the PPP recommendation. I didn't care for their first album, but I'll try the new one--because I AM into the Sa-Ra field of R&B (though it tends to suffer in the songwriting department).

rtc #1 r&b thug

-- The Reverend, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 2:07 AM (Wednesday, June 18, 2008 2:07 AM) Bookmark Link

a good chunk of the TONY video is artsy shots of solange peeing

hah patrick i just take badly to the oft-repeated suggestion that rolling threads are always these impossible impenetrable insider cliquey things, when really it's just the accusers being bone idle. also forgive me if untrue but i don't recall you ever saying anything else!

re the meaning of 'tony', good lord.

so now about drake, a very cursory flick thru his mixtape the other month suggested he'll be little more than the kinda trendy cross-promotey kanye/pharrell stan from your natural first impressions, BUT i am feeling this one tune 'a night off'

which is like enormous midnite slow-mo slowjam tidal waves crashing on lunar shores, etc. also features lloyd, of course, cos he is 4ever down for r&b siderealness.

vistoso bosses 'delirious' is some proper cassie fan club material, and excellent. there was actually an underproduced version of it on a collipark music sampler (for they are his electrik richgirls) about a year ago, but it really needed the freestyle aspect spelled right out the way it is in the recent one. huge lolz at idolator following up with news of a inoj comeback btw, considering what i said on the cassie thread.

old og:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/58939499897bbcdb/

nu ft soulja boy

That Drake track you've posted up there bears no small resemblance to T-Pain's 'Studio'... but maybe just the way my ear bends

and before anyone says anything - what, you expect me to go to the grave with pointless trivia like that on my conscience? xp

pretty great xp

not @ forks

forks that is a truly random-ass comparison but i'll let it go on old-skool t-pain kudos grounds

shrug. i hear things.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8arft_young-steff-slow-jukin-new_music

would like to think this is a sleeper hit brewing somewhere in the world, but i dunno; does have its own dance though. it's really good anyway (skip the first 25 secs), satisfying like, er... some bread out the oven. steff is signed to richcraft's label btw but this isn't a beat of his, which is sad because (though i know some here love it) richgirl's '24s' sounds ill at ease to me. rich should not be having a label imo.

Steff's playing at my club tonight; sounded okay during soundcheck.

well whatever you do, keep us posted on that.

ahhh run 4 cover it's the return of whatshername the hook singin pride of england mad scientist aka the scherzinger 'supervillain' guy! and here he be with more bright, medium-height concept fun. in the grand scheme of things i forbid myself to even vaguely hate on this tune and its impeccable intentions but privately i am recalling matt dc's unspecific ambivalence on the supervillain thread and about how he is the secret ilm badman and usually right about everything. seriously, eve though i love them there is something just not quite right with these tunes isn't there?

lolz, ur a cranky guy.

if by that you mean "dude shut up, that whole 4/4 marriage bit in the middle of '25 to life' is the dopest shit you ever heard!" then good point

Oh, an album I forgot to mention.. Corneille The Birth of Cornelius:

brains the muhsinah clips i'm listening to sound kool, am i right in thinking that it's only sine that's come out so far and not triangle, or the 2LP comp?

incidentally haha i am currently nabbing daybreak off this particular random blog º_O

http://r-t-c.blogspot.com/2009/03/muhsinah-daybreak-20-2008.html

yeah, Triangle/the 2LP set hasn't been officially released yet but there's a leak of Triangle floating around.. or at least an early version of it. It was supposed to be released to iTunes last month but I guess it's been pushed back.

and sine is the same as daybreak yeah? (repackaged mathemagical style for people scared of nu-soulness presumably?)

hmm i seem to have daybreak already, but it calls itself the oscillations: sine

corneille is cool btw. saw him at a showcase the other day. struck me as a bit hamilton-lite (no bad thing), will have to dig out the music again though. i guess the back story will get him a ton of press

What's the backstory?

it's kinda harrowing - his entire family was killed in the rwandan genocide when he was a teenager (slaughtered in front of him iirc, he only escaped by hiding), he fled on foot to the congo and was taken in by some german friends of the family

friend of mine saw muhsinah live on sunday - apparently she dropped the mix and it became apparent she was miming :(

*mic

Weird. I saw her open for Teedra Moses a couple weeks ago and thought she stole the show (only because Teedra played almost the same set as she did 2 years ago and the sound was fucked for the first half).

am i the only one who feels like Keri's "Make Love" is going to be a cover of 4 non blondes' "what's up" when it comes on?

richgirl's '24s' sounds ill at ease to me. rich should not be having a label imo.

i should not be having opinions imo.

haha, i'll have to listen to that later. "24s" is definitely flawed and dated (sounds like it could've come off the same beat tape as "Soldier"), but i mean how high are we raising the imaginary bar producers/artists/etc. to define as "should be having a label"? everyone who can make a couple hits gets an imprint, either they make shit work or they don't and it usually doesn't have a lot to do with their actual level of talent or clout.

also is that a typo or are we bringing "ain" back? what up cold mountain!

well i meant it more like that rich has been in something of a rut to me for a while now post-amerie (even during really, towards the end) and so the last thing he should be doing artistically is needlessly boxing himself in further by betting all his chips on a signature sound or whatever - especially since he's never been the kinda hollerin-ass fool to qualify as a big name cachet guy and has always been a classic producer's producer. (you only have to look at nu-polow floundering under the weight of his selfstyled rep, doing panic clunking 'bangers' from memory just to keep his head above water.)

up until this one song (which tbh i'm just going wooooo over in this moment, dust might even settle on that too for all i know) i'd have loved to have seen rich duck out of the game and quietly do random outside the box shit and remixes and stuff, salaam remi style - it wouldve like, stretched him artistically.

i dunno...i mean before the Rich Girl stuff he basically hadn't had anything out on a major label in almost 3 years AFAIK, is that not ducking out enough? for all we know he was doing random outside the box shit but as far as official releases it's been radio silence. still kinda want to hear the stuff he was supposed to do for Before I Self Destruct that i'm sure got cut 8 release dates ago.

well, yeah sure he mightve done, how do you want me to answer that? i just meant ducking out like not being a name producer anymore and having the freedom to fuck around getting mark ronson money here random olde england or doing soundtracks or hanging with reggae dudes, whatever! (i am implying of course that i think he in particular may be very suited to that.)

ur right about the datedness of 24s anyway (though some of it, like the synth at the end is pure class) - the xylophone is quite lil jonnish as well. (and wasn't soldier already pretty stale idea-wise when it first came out or am i misremembering?) but above all i wodner if the richgirl sanging mode is just too unfashionable now to get any sort of a foothold these days. (guess at least theyll be able to tell their grandkids they were a baziliion times better than cherish though.)

i dunno, i never particularly liked "Soldier," but more that it sounded it kind of flat and brittle compared to his breakbeat stuff than that it felt like it was chasing or trailing behind any dominant trend/idea. the xylophones always bring "Triggerman" to mind more than Lil Jon or anything else. i am curious what RH has been up to since 2006, like if he just kept pitching tracks to big artists until they stopped returning his calls or has been trying to get this group off the ground for the longest time and finally did or what. either way, i don't know if i could ever see him woodshedding and actually changing his style up significantly.

all the Rich Girls sound like Beyonce/Kelly/Solange to me, and at least some of them still have careers so i dunno if that's too unfashionable.

i too have gotten my hands on the actual! final! fantasy ride. it's good, of course, but nowhere near as good as it could have been. leaving off "echo" is just fucking inexplicable and i'll leave it at that. i really like the two Dream songs, particularly "lover's thing". neither missy on "work" or CB on "turntables" really add anything to the songs, which were just fine without them. "like a surgeon" is just retarded; it's like if 77 tried to write ciara a song lyric-wise and, as i believe lex said somewhere, is pretty hookless.
one major flaw i can pick out with this overall is the lack of a real cohesive feel. it could be due in part to the fact that we've been jamming most of these songs for the last five or six months, so they lack freshness. mostly for me, it's just that the timberlake song sounds, well, like a timberlake song, the dream songs sound like the-dream songs, and there are too many superfluous guest spots, as mentioned above, to make this feel like ciara's shit. one of the many great things about sasha fierce was its lack of guest spots, which allowed B to put her awesome personality at the fore.

i mean all that said this is still pretty good, it's still got "ciara to the stage", "love and sex and magic", "never ever", "work", "high price" and "lover's thing", all of which are jams. and of course i'll be sucked into buying the deluxe edition so i can have "echo" as well

one major flaw i can pick out with this overall is the lack of a real cohesive feel.

this is possibly bcuz it's three "mini-albums" crammed onto one disc?

that sentence was a bit vague wrt my eventual point, if you kept reading

i did, i'm just saying

K3vin OTM. that said, it's still probably one of my favourite albums of the year.

"Echo" is nice and all but I don't really the cult it's got

love that "Never Ever" has continued to rise up the R&B charts and become a sturdy little hit after they called Timberlake and left it for dead

kind of love that that's happened in my head - really love 'never ever' now

i think fantasy ride has more of a cohesive feel than i was expecting, though maybe that says more about my trepidation w/r/t total botchpotch. in a way i'd have liked them to keep the three-cd thing.

kind of love that that's happened in my head - really love 'never ever' now

YES! Somehow it has transformed from this insubstantial faux-Promise thing into a massive world conquering sea of regret. (in my head at least)

I still haven't found any good reason to care about the Ciara album.

http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu226/mariahfan/BROOKEITUNES600-1.jpg

kind of lol but mostly sad that 4 years after her debut B Valentine finally managed to squeak out an indie 'mixtape album' for the follow-up. "Gold Diggin" is pretty dope, though.

bad photoshop there.
Chrisette Michele's soundcheck was pretty tight.

"Slow Jukin'" is kind of awesome.

anyone else listen to the whole chrisette yet? it's pretty good, if a little toothless. the songs are so ne-yoesque (and lol gender neutral) i have a hard time not imagining him doing them better. "epiphany" and "notebook" are obv good, "blame it on me" is a pretty well-done heartstring tugger, and "porcelain doll" is as close as you're gonna get to swag with her

Ya Kid Shaffer wrote "Epiphany" and possibly other stuff, so...

the brooke valentine cover makes me a bit sad

ditto

this should've been on fantasy ride

somehow your choice of words that pic of brooke valentine in her underwears made me feel something other than sad.

― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, July 24, 2007 11:47 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nice on the ciara!

feelin this new lemarvin "too many patrons"

too many "pay-trons" or too many "puhtrohns"?

did electrik red get released then?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8xBx7ApEPCY/SN7EeWEuZbI/AAAAAAAAEHM/iYg_VSvtOdA/s320/nicole1.jpg

yeah man, end of last year as a semi-official mixtape

Gets released in 6 days according to amazon, etc.

can listen to the whole thing here fyi

http://www.myspace.com/electrikred

i thought i wouldn’t really give a fuck / but now a bitch all in loooove

otm

rip nicole wray miss u boo ;_;

hey i saw Teairra Marí on tv today, if she can crawl out of the 2005 wormhole anybody can

ER album of the year so far quite easily

I fucking love Binkie OMG. "I'm not a freak I'm not a nasty ho.... well I'm lyin but I'm classy tho"

i mean, the-dream still exists, y'know, but so far, this definitely kills keri and ciara.

nah this is better than lvm

"P Is For Power" shit yes

Y is for YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS... Vanilla. If U wanna try, boy u gotta buy.

"On Point" is my fave tho... this will be the soundtrack to my summer along with GaGa's The Fame

omg that one is about to start!

super excited about this

im going to be proud to be one of the 21,000 people purchasing it

Yeah it's a shame this is gonna flop because it's really brilliant and is full of hit singles.

terius writing a song called "kill bill" has exploded my brain tbh

I just watched the "Friend Lover" video and....um.....why are they collectively seducing Thom Yorke?

exciting

"bed rest".... so lush

bed rest is really pretty

great beat

kill bill... o_O

ER album of the year so far quite easily

― i'm educated in sex, yes (The Brainwasher), Wednesday, May 20, 2009 10:53 PM (Yesterday)

fuckin with hyperbole 09

why couldn't it be? completely done by dream/tricky

yeah... not hyperbole at all. what else is coming close? '09 has been sort of lame so far tbh.

doesn't sound so farfetched so far

damn this album has me drunk on glistening synths and breathy vocals. feel like fairies are drowning me in liquid gold.

this album is as great as i was expecting

every time i have to remind myself 'friend lover' isn't a christina milian & kelis duet i feel that little bit more insane. totally beats me how dream aint hella dumped by now cos that is some cold shit!!

would you dump your last potential meal ticket?

"Friend Lover" is amazing, I almost convince myself it's a totally new kind of song.

moreover - and no offence to electrik red, i guess - but said duet wouldve pwned the world in a way this never will.

same goes for most of the album actually (like, 'on point' so kelis it's dumb). like i was starting to say about richgirl, whatever the weird serendipity it is a nowadays girlgroup needs in order to embed itself in the modern popular consciousness i don't think these girls have captured, even though they themselves seem quite fun and the songs are good and efficient - it's not their fault particularly.

which one's binkie again? i've only got eyes for the main one. (who, the blurb goes, is addicted to pg tips apparently??? - hott rite)

well no yeah i wouldnt dump my last potential meal ticket either i suppose but if he's giving out perfectly-suited latin freestyle bangers to my audio doppelganger then i'd begin to think the piss was being taken somewhat!

well i hope for milan's sake she hasn't tricked herself into thinking that she's terius' muse or anything

holla @ a dawning realisation me and terius are exactly the same bad boyfriend. kelly told yall - don't bring em in the cluuuuub

"Friend Lover" as a duet would inescapably be read as a lesbian homage.

I don't think the girls are great at carrying the wispier moments (though often those songs sound amazing). I probably should listen more before passing judgment though.

Also I'm surprised "Electrik City" didn't make it.

"i thought i wouldn’t really give a fuck / but now a bitch all in loooove"

I didn't even know that this is what the first line said. Such a good lyric!

i'm liking the ER album altho it's not standing out for me much more than the last Danity Kane LP other than being sassier/naughtier/whatever

i feel like it gets more dirty AND more playful than DK, like 80s electro playful, which is really making my week

Yeah, I think the playfulness is key to why they aren't so dead-ass boring as a group like DK. Personality helps.

wow terius continues his streak of ruining songs with unnecessary cursing by having an unedited version of "so good" that foes "ooooh/ SHIT/ daamn" instead of "oooohh/ *groan* / damn" - congrats all involved

i dunno i've heard both versions enough times that i don't really have a preference between the 2 at this point

yeah, i dont think its as big a deal as the change to shawty

idk i think he really fucked up the song - the breathless orgasming of is pretty essential imo

"bed rest" is crazy - by the way what the hell do the other three girls in this group do? cuz it's one girl singing the whole thing as far as i can tell

haven't heard the whole album but it wouldn't surprise me if it's a Pussycat Dolls type deal w/ one singer and glorified backup dancers

it all kinda makes you rethink the whole pity party for all the other girls in Destiny's Child who actually got to sing whole verses on singles and shit

^^^yeah really - all this production reminds me of 90s era bad boy BIGGER THAN THE CITY LIGHTS DOWN IN TIMES SQUARE shit

i get a definite nightime in the city vibe

so many orgasm sounds on this album

Haha, this is great, I'm glad I asked

what the hell do the other three girls in this group do?

been wondering this myself and shipley otm

all this drip-sweat gasping on electrik red reminds me of like... 112 or something

Namoi is the main singer that sounds like Kelis, Lesley sounds like Christina Milian, and Binkie is the rapping one (she does all of "On Point")

Naomi**

does it really matter?

christina milian sounds like something??

Well, someone asked what the other girls do so....

it was me and it was rhetorical

not that i don't appreciate the answer just that i think sounding like kelis and sounding like milian = u r the same person

well SORRY geesh

haha im sorry

i'm more zinging the chicks in ER than begrudging you or something - sorry - no shots

jordan whats your lastfm

album is really really amazing - dream is just something else

http://www.last.fm/user/sargnt88

"freaky freaky" really sounds like timbaland

those drips are right out of "cry me a river" and the FREAKY FREAKY UH *MOUTH CLICK* is like every aaliyah song

seriously this album

"p is for power" is my favorite i think. the open space in the chorus is amazing

I'm glad though that "P is for Power" gets all melodic and melodramatic in the middle-eight, else I might mistake it for Yo Majesty or something similar.

haha yeah the bridge comes out of nowhere really and is pretty cool

open space in the chorus is always kind of a breath of fresh air

guys, we need to participate in the electrik red dance competition.

you've been dancing

Electrik Red- How to be a Lady Vol.1 Terius 'n' Tricky make girl-pop magic

it's funny that almost everyone on ilm calls him terius now

that's cos terius and tricky and alliteration

I'm sad that my calling Ne-Yo "Shaffer" isn't taking off in the same manner. It even alliterates with Stargate, kinda.

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

wait did they skip straight to making a video for that song without ever making one for "24"? weird.

that's a great video!

and an incredible song, too - really hope it blows up

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

^^^

intro is pretty fucking crazy, turns into at least 3 other tunes thereafter

shades of Madonna 'Human Nature' in the vid but also weirdly reminded of Dream 'He Loves Me Not' sexed up

song is giving me a "Ring the Alarm" vibe

Why have none of you fuxx alerted me to this amazing song:

if u read the jukebox u will find these things tim! i only gave it 7/10 b/c i thought the chorus could do with another line but i feel this less now

i'm quite glad richgirl are pushing 'he ain wit me now', which is just INC-RED-I-BLE, rather than the kinda blah '24s'

jordan s, on April 29th, 2009 at 3:34 pm Said:
i didn’t get a blurb in, but the chorus on this one is really underwritten, and i think it would’ve been REALLY good if there was anything else in the chorus besides endless repetition

^i standby this comment

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=465

Al Sh1pl3y: Maybe I’m just a sucker for pretty girls talking dirty, but I’ll never get tired of R&B songs that take not just the sound but also the explicit vocabulary from hip hop.
[6]

this comment re nina sky is very prescient in the wake of 'how to be a lady vol 1'

I do read the Jukebox Lex, but I missed that one obv. Actually two weeks ago i gave the Jukebox a big big-up on my show!

Admittedly "On Some Bullshit" is no way as amazing as that RichGirl song which just transformed my life forever.

ha ha i only just now watched the whole thing - kept getting only halfway thru and having to have a lie down in the middle of the floor

"let's make a promise now, keep the drinks comin"

YEAH IT'S OFFICIAL AND YEAH IT'S ALL REAL

i like the Drake track upthread too

as global r&b ombudsman i strongly would have recommended 'on my bullshit' deported over to the uk funky scene (to be rerecorded by katie pearl or van cleef or someone, natch) where its tooty horns and 'funky drummer'ism could happily have prospered with its original sense of inevitable nina sky-brand failure and abject internetty obscurity transformed into just your standard acceptable knockabout anglo-nostalgic ineptitude. cee eff:

you're welcome.

donaeooo
donaaaaaeeoooo

also some breaks in funky would please me.

by the way, this week's electrik ruddy ilx climate of bimble-babble poptimism about throwback girlgroups, swearing, svengalis & shiny things only naffs me off more with regard to steff's 'slow jukin' being hopelessly fronted on. the good old days are back: LOCK N LOAD

Nina Sky - On Some Bullshit {6.91}

#
kevin k, on April 29th, 2009 at 3:25 pm Said:
damn, how long has it been since a song has broken 7.0?

#
jordan s, on April 29th, 2009 at 3:34 pm Said:
last one to break 7 was royksopp ft. robyn iirc

#
rtc, right this minute Said:

roffle

The Nina Sky >>> Royksopp/Robyn, though that's not bad.