Tank: One Man

Also because I am procrastinating.

The titles are the digital readout thing like usher which is so last year. The opening interlude is like I didn't even notice.

One Man is even more intro before the real track. Man I'm so sick of intros.

Like two minutes total... why!!!?

And here goes the title track. More of that stutter slo-jam beat. But hell Tank gets credit coz he's producing it himself and there's this nice electric organ coming up below that screams "70s" and the percussion has normalized into a houseish thing mainly except my god are those snares and bells so crisp! The house thing is really there, though slower granted, but the little surprise and anticipation in each hit makes it feel so fun. And he's just throwing the chorus vocals over one another -- total Usher. His range isn't as good though.

And what is it with these "awwawwwaww" things trailing his vocals as it ends?

Supa Sexy. I love how everything on Tank productions bristles. And these full synth chords with a sortof ------\ decay like carefully sculpted but raw, y'know. Are those maracas? He's lifting "sexual healing" now. Yeah it's like a maracas beat like latin flavored except with thse flat tones interjecting. Man I could totally go stepping to this and tear it up.

The bridge is all about "when my emotional stability is leaving me" he can "get on the telephone and caaaaalllll... youup! baby!" Damn. And the way these electronic heartbeat meeps sneak in underneath.

He's all slow jamming but this is totally uptempo funky-fresh asymmetric dance.

C'mon somebody bring the Tank hate to make this interesting!

This is a "Cavie and Overdose" production called "My Place" -- am i stupid for not having heard of them?

they've taken things down a notch -- the string sample keeps running instead of chopping in and out and hah there's a "funky" guitar sounding all thin -- the beat is "back that ass up" except way muted so he can actually keep things toned down. If you take the voice as the tempo then it's like the snare runs recede into texture and now they're bringing in the "sexy funky" saxaphone like LA law! I'm not impressed.

Bring the Tank Love!

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf500/f529/f52955svten.jpg

The damn sax is just fading now and it's like mr. sub-santana on the guitar.

sterl I don't even know who tank is but I can scowl and try to do that hatefully if you want I should do that

Unpredictable. This is written by Static from Playa and Tank produces so you KNOW it'll be good. More of his synth-string fills and the beats are way more spaced. Boom-tikitiki-ta! (pause) (repeat).

The chorus is real sweet. The sax is like vocodered and there's some ill decay going on here. Tank's voice is really nice and wide open with no whine but he chokes a bit in the high register. He's got nice inflection though like dancing around the beat.

Cake & Ice Cream feat. Heat.

He's calling his wife and they're talking about setting a date for the weekend "coz I wanna freak" -- it's one of those story songs! Finally we start to get to the horndog core of a good R&B album.

His voice has gotten all delicate and nimble which is where he shines. Take the backing track and amplify it and fuzz it up a bit and it sounds like Gotti's new style.

He really takes off here and it's like R&B freestyling and Heat brings it "baby coz I want you!"

The production is nice all bass and swirly fruits and they occupy the midrange and now Heat is mad coz he doesn't take care of the kid.

sterlings got the one up on me cuz i wasnt actually listening to the record while i wrote half of mine.

Close feat Mowett

This has a nice swing to it and the piano handclaps and creaking door give it this sweet nostalgic feel. The lyrics are about how close he is to coming "I'm so close I can feel it.. I'm so close baby I don't want... I don't wan't... I know you can feel it I know you can tell."

The strings are perking up like to emphasize how silly this is.

I'm The Reason. The guitar is more "modern" sounding for a change and it solos then cuts out. I can see him at a piano performing this solo. The backup singers are particularly nice here, in the angelic register, and it's real sweet all about taking responsiblity for a breakup. "Many days I questioned you. I just didn't trust what you said you'd do."

He closed a line with "whoah!" like he's surprised at how sad he is. The guitar is heading into real acrobatics now, but his voice is real strong at like the perfect register for him, and there's this staticy or rain thing cutting in and out to underline like how sad this is, y'know. Good singers do their own vocal science and that's what makes Tank great is how he doesn't emote in quite the typical fashion but throws his pauses and emphasis in funny ways I can't quite articulate.

Make Me Wanna feat. Sparkle

oh no! Sped up soul sample! oh no! This would be a perfect song for the best 70s disney musical cartoon never made. There are really birds twittering in the background and everything. Old people like 70 or so getting up and dancing real cricket-like to this would be the cutest thing ever.

he sends it out "if you got somebody out there you love or you lovin right now just sing this little melody with me". The calypso flavor to this album is really subtle and odd.

Let Me Live feat. Mannie Fresh and Jazze Pha

Cash Money production. Typically "interpolates" vast portions of "All Around The World" as in "and ayayay". The turn it up springtime party vibe continues. Mannie comes in and he's got the "still fly" flow and it's all about "parkin' lot pimpin til the sun come up". This is like the kickoff jam for a party for people to start twerking with before you bring the heavy stuff and really move the floor.

"Party Like A Thug"

The other Cash Money joint with Baby Da #1 Stunna which is a hellova name. Not the first "sweet dreams" lift Cash Money's done I think. But it's not super-overt. I'm getting fairly sick of this sound by now. Tank really needs to start changing it up. Bring more of that low end funk bass again. Credit it for throwing in 1001 production effects though, all scratches and vocal science and tin cans crashing. The drum solo bit here is spectacular as it fades.

I Wanna Be That has Jazze Pha bringing the horse latin to introduce it. There's a nice suspenseful creeping shuffle here, but he never gets too heavy like on this whole album it feels nearly entirely hurt-free and fairly dirt-free. Jazze's got some nice inflections on his short verse here, doing a drawl-quaver and he produced this too, which we should credit him for.

I wanna sway a cocktail glass to this.

No Why is a straight Tank number and I can't differentiate it right now except there's a nice wistfulness in his voice right now. He's dropping these "hooold" all high between the backup singers' lines i mean i suppose it's like anti-funk. Instead of locking it into the groove, he manages to keep disrupting like underlining his own insufficiency.

Club takes it back down -- tight swagger to it. Nagging female backup chorus "baby whyyoulook so fly" "coz I love the club" he sez. I could make this my theme song. Wait! He just said "with the dj who plays my theme song!" great minds think alike.

There's like a sandpaper scraping, fine grained, as rhythmic underpinning along with the deep bass. He brings all the componants together and starts to run them against one another for a sweet payoff.

So Many Times by Big Tank of Timbaland Productions, written by Static from Playa.

Richer and more melodic already, with these guitar runs back and forth and lower more mellow voices in backup like classical chorus low. Minor key melody lost in memories of so many times of sex. "tell me your favorite and i'll tell you mine." "lord if i had to chose one I would go with the day you (unintelligible)" damn I wish I could figure that out.

Everything in this song works perfectly. He gets to put on his "disintegrating with lust" character and everything sways while this whole semi-comic semi-baroque soundscape twirls around and I think he's singling "I like 'em fresh out of jail" but i hope not.

Better Man is produced by Bud'da who was ace on Aaliyah.

Straight four rhythms with arpeggiated acoustic guitar and big booming timpani. The vocals are really drowning in this, which is fine because damn is it pretty. Epic movie soundtrack stuff here. Violin. There's something inexorable about this track -- i think that's the word -- undeniable.

I Still Believe is by Dennis Ross and produced by him too and it doesn't feel like Tank, but an R. Kelley inspirational toss-off.

Shame it has to close such a nice album.

So is the new Dave Hollister as good as Chicago 85?

c'mon people!

no.

yes!

Dave hollister's better
Jahiem's better than him
Donnie is better than the both of them

Revive coz we need to talk about Tank's other production work elsewhere.

And Static from Playa and Bud'da and the whole first-tier R&B but second-tier hip-hop production kru.

Did anyone see the video for Tank's big single? It was all Matrix kung-fu action and sweet domestic romance. Fucking fantastic.

Or just talk about "On The Side" which he did for Dave Holliser and how Tank is the master of layered vocal science.

Side question: Does anyone in this bitch even listen to R&B and if you do, do you pay producers any mind at all except maybe for She'kspere and Max Martin and Timba/Neps? Talking about hot producers is like the easiest critical gimmick ever coz they matter so much but except for the "names" nobody ever seems to notice their distinctive shit.

you have a lot to say about tank but no one else ever has anything to say about him.

:-(

I honestly didn't know Tank produced Dave Hollister, but "On the Side" is a great track from a lyrically schizophenic album that I'll have to listen to again.

Eh I don't see it as that lyrically schizophrenic -- or at least not moreso than any other modern rap or R&B album, and Chicago '85 has enough of a pretense to narrative continuity as "the movie" that the album reads well as a sort of extended-play version of the stuff that everyone loved about Ms. Jackson.

hello i live in holland.we don't here alot of tank but i my boyfriend and his brother have all his cd's and cd's that he worked on.D hollister.and we colect everthing we can find.he never had a singel in holland so if you could give us some information about tank we would be very happy.send it to: missjackson1@hotmail.com. please send us anthing we are very big fans.Tank is the best.we absolutely love him.