Rolling 2006 R&B thread

also u+k (if a bit more 05 than 06) - ts: ray j vs. t-pain

I'm still marvelling at the fact that a song called "I'm in Luv With a Stripper" is top ten in the US!

anyone heard Chris Brown's album? it's very, very good. "Ain't No Way (You Won't Love Me)" reminds me of Bobby Valentino.

Cassie
produced by Ryan Leslie, and I hope they both blow up in 06. the single "Me and You" is more minimal-not-minimal crunk&b-ish bizzness, but "Just One Night" and "Can't Do It Without" are LUSH. you can hear all three tracks at

my hopes for 2006

Cassie
produced by Ryan Leslie, and I hope they both blow up in 06. the single "Me and You" is more minimal-not-minimal crunk&b-ish bizzness, but "Just One Night" and "Can't Do It Without" are LUSH. you can hear all three tracks at

you can hear Cassie tracks I mentioned at her Myspace .

Robin Thicke's "Wanna Love You Girl" deserves a nod. He's brilliantly understated and the chorus' simplicity is charming.

i always thought it'd be neat if there was some discogs-type site dedicated to R&B (and hip hop too) that'd feature info on production credits coz I don't have enough money to buy all the R&B i want and i miss on all the inlay credits action. :/

in other news: Mariah finally managed to pick a track from "Mimi" that I don't like for her next single ("Fly Like a Bird"), and Nelly Furtado is going with "Promiscuous Girl" for her official single after all. :(

I'm pretty sure I like the new Dem Franchize Boyz single "Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It," more than their previous one (but not as much as their white tee one). Haven't listened to their album yet; assume I will eventually. I really need to hear the Field Mob single that Mind Taker mentioned above. They're great; I totally love both of their albums. Do they have a third one coming out? (Or did I miss it?)

Also, since there is apparently (and scandalously) no Rolling Hip-Hop Thread, I guess this is the thread where I should say that I think the Ying Yang Twins odds-and-sods outtakes album that came out in December is about 100 times more fun than their interminable "actual" album that came out last year. And also I like a bunch of iindividual tracks on the third Youngbloodz album when I put it on, but for some reason I'm still not conncecting with the thing the way I did with their second one *Drankin Patnaz*. Maybe I just like drinking songs (which the new Alkoholiks album doesn't have enough of either, for whatever it's worth. I'm not sure what people like about those guys).

R&B is not just radio stuff though. From the country thread:

>Listening to a pile of Southern soul discovered via CD-baby channels. The album by a jowly guy named Jimmy Taylor leans toward the blues end of things (with lady backup vocals not far from the ones on last year's Bobby Bare album); the EP by the lady named Candis Palmer ("All Men Ain't Dawgs,* since some are electric boogie dawgs apparently) leans toward the disco end; the single by Harold, "Chill Step Party," is steppin' music. He mentions Milwaukee, Chitown, Harlem, and Atlanta in it. More fun than R. Kelly, as far as I'm concerned, but mainly all this stuff obviously has a connection to county music too. (and though candis palmer is happy to have found a man who is not a dawg, jimmy taylor insists that when women say they're looking for a good man, they're lying. really, he says, they're looking for a fool.) (apparently the kinda fool who will let her spend all his money.) (he also directly quotes zz hill's "cheating in the next room in one of his songs.) (he's from alabama; I don't know where candis or harold are from. they're not actually on cdbaby.com per se, but i was sent their cds in the same package that the jimmy taylor CD came in.) jimmy taylor on his album is totally paranoid, and in just about every song he's either cheating or being cheated on or both, and as i said, he seems fully convinced that his woman is going to put him in the poor house (where, in real life, for all i know, he may already be.) in "you're busted" he hires a private detective to follow her around, and gets a photo of her cheating. "love catcher" has a pretty good sax solo. and though some songs sound more blues to me than soul, a couple (like "all i want is you") still veer more toward disco than anybody in country music has, i think, even shannon brown on her new album.
candis palmer, as i said, gets even more disco, but her disco is maybe 1975 where taylor's is 1973. (i think i wrote on the '05 thread that shannon brown's disco sounded 1979, but maybe that was hyperbole; i'm not sure. these two soul singers FEEL more disco.) but even at her most disco, in a song called "don't let someone else come and jingle my bell" or something, palmer gets backed by HARD blues guitar riffs, so the music really rocks. if i had to compare her vocal style to anybody, it'd be the staple singers in "i'll take you there."

-- xhuxk (xedd...), January 28th, 2006

>I really like the apparent '70s hard rock riff in "My Favorite Mutiny," track #4 on the new Coup album *Pick a Bigger Weapon* (due out 4-25). At first I was thinking the riff might have come from the Stories' version of "Brother Louie," but now I am leaning toward "maybe something by Redbone." (I own one Redbone album, which I bought cheap a couple years ago, but I sadly have far from an encyclopedic knowledge of their riffs.)

-- xhuxk (xedd...), February 20th, 2006.

anyone heard the Ne-Yo album yet? I might have to buy that next week.

I love the Jamie Foxx single, although large sections of his album are laughably bad, and it only really redeems itself with the last couple really well executed ballads.

how about that Jaheim being at #1 on the album charts? it really surprised me, given that the single hadn't been a big hit and his 2 other albums never cracked the top 5, but I guess it was a slow week, and you should never underestimate an R&B singer with a dedicated fanbase. I've only listened to the album once so far, but it sounded alright, that whole pillowy ghetto soul thing he does.

glamorous bertha payne, *bedroom offer* EP: southern country soul millie jackson style (i.e., as many parts talked as sung, many of 'em bawdy), from memphis, via cdbaby.com. starts with a good riddance song where glamorous bertha (who on the cd cover is a big girl in her red dress with a red glass of wine) tells you "i don't need your face in my face" so "go away like a bad day" and "you might as well pack your rags." then the title track, which is not about her bedroom offer to him but the other way around, which offer she says isn't enough and the two backup singers (favorite artists: denise lasalle, mary j blige) chorus "bang! bang!" but by song's end glamorous bertha is saying "i need a man who will love me all night long. are you qualified? if not, get off the pot!" then one where she promises to shake it and break it (and maybe hang it on the wall) and she tells "all you womens with big elephant ears" that with her man every day is pay day. then supposedly "part two" of the same song, which means same slinky rhythm track as part one but now with sexy breathy pillow talk all over the top where bertha tells you to lift up her skirt. then finally another good riddance song, this one a tough and funky blues, where he leaves her with a sink full of dishes in a "one-room [some word i can't make out]", hence the best dishwashing song since ray parker jr's "bad boy" if not anita ward's "ring my bell." also she brings him food in bed, which means this might also be a breakfast breakup song in the tradition of the 5th dimension's "one less bell to answer" and karyn white's "superwoman." five songs total, but two around 4:00, three around 4:25, which means glamorous bertha takes her time and surely deserves a lover with a slow hand.

my favorite R&B track of the last couple months would have to be Shareefa's "I'll Be Around" from the Disturbing Tha Peace comp. she's supposed to release an album this year, hopefully that will good.

that's one of the things i like about it! i mean, i can listen to R. Kelly all day, but it's refreshing to hear some moony eyed, raunch-less R&B for a change. his boyish charm reminds me of Kevin Lyttle.

I picked up the Ne-Yo album (it's only $7.98 at Target this week, those commercials finally sold me something), and I'm loving it. I find it to be between the sometimes almost too organic/throwback feel of Anthony Hamilton and the more "artificial"(not at all bad) sounds of most modern R&B.

I haven't really been impressed by those tracks, though, if you ask me "Get Down Like That" is way way better than everything else on the Ne-Yo album.

Will this be the first crossover schaffel-pop track in the US?

http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2006/03/ojays-i-swear-i-love-no-one-but-you.html

No you aren't.

Ne-Yo's "Sexy Love" is great. Those drums! Whoever said it sounds like an MJ ballad is spot on.

I don't think I've seen Cherish's "Do It To It" mentioned on ILM at all. Anyone else like it?

I also like Field Mob feat. Ciara's "So What," which sounds really sad, and which I talked about briefly on the rolling teen-pop thread.

this might be old news,but my favourite r'n'b track in ages is all eyez on me by leyota,formerly of destiny's child
i dunno how it isnt number one everywhere
(well maybe it is in the states,r'n'b is hard to comeby in ireland unless its beyonce)

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDqG7S09__c

Robin:

Check out the following--

http://soulandbluesreport.com/SOUTHERNSOULCHART.html

Chitlin Circuit Double-entendre -filled Soul 2004 (and onward) Theodis Easley's "Stand Up In It" is a song of the year

The Legend CD, on the other hand, is YOGA FLAME. It may be my album of the year. I say this as someone who wasn't quite sold on his first disc. (Or actually was sold/later unsold.) I think he solved the biggest problems with the first album, its monochrome palette and inconsistent songwrighting. There are so many good songs here. "Save Room" = fuckloads of Farfisa + 60's pop squareness (a recurring theme) = obviously great. "Heaven" has these awesomely unreal-sounding detuned drums. "Show Me" has him imitating Thom Yorke (what the fuck is up with black people and Radiohead?) or someone else I don't want to hear, but he carries it off pretty damn well. It's is the kind of plodgy (I like my new word!) indie that's fine for one song, but I have no desire to listen to an entire album of. (Thankfully, the former is the case here.) "Each Day Gets Better" & "P.D.A." are really good in a feelgoodly kind of way. "Again" is kinda of like "Ordinary People" (replace "My Cherie Amour" with "Lately") except even better. Gun to my head, I'd pick the whole
"Maxine"/"Where Has My Baby Gone"/"Maxine's Interlude" suite as my favorite part of the record. More sixties pop squareness, with the light bossa nova arrangement (I may have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about) on "Maxine" and the brushy drums on "Where Did My Baby Go" and pretty obvious Bacharach/David(/Warwick) love all around. Even the filler songs are pretty good. I love this album. : )

Sidenote: For some reason, this thread is hard to search for.

actually, JL has said in interviews that that song is a deliberate homage to Jeff Buckley (and though Yorke/Buckley comparisons are common having heard the song I really can't understand how you'd make that mistake, he forces an anglo/faux-brit-accent thing in his delivery but it's definitely not Yorke-ish).

"Show Me" has him imitating Thom Yorke or someone else I don't want to hear

Just to reiterate.