lol Ashanti

whoa thats some sik shit ashanti wtf u used to be so nice

The nice girl who used to follow Ja Rule around in videos urging him to fuck up people?

o come on jah rule couldnt fuck up a sandwich - all fun and games!

really boring, nonsensical ilm-style article about ashanti in the reader today

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/musicreviews/080612/

they try to tie her latest album to some weird thesis about r&b and hip-hop and it reads like a bad argument on rolling R&B

ja rule has been working out a lot.

So has Nelly! It's like all of the super-wimpy hip-hop dudes suddenly realized that everyone could pound the living hell out of them and started mainlining steroids.

That Ashanti would have to resort to lame PR stunts to sell records is as much an indictment of her label as it is of the singer.

Yeah the music industry in 2008 makes it so fucking easy to sell records.

"ilm-style"

Ashanti’s problems—now and then—mostly stem from being on the wrong side of the zeitgeist. Specifically, she has a very uncomfortable relationship with hip-hop.

I'M SORRY BUT DOES THIS GUY NOT ACTUALLY KNOW WHO ASHANTI IS????

yah like every sentence could be c+p'd into rong 2 thread

his whole narrative of r&b and hip hop fusing seems based entirely in selective readings of history and is v. bizarre

Basically, here is the subtext of that review:

"A new Ashanti album came out and it really sucks, but for some reason I used to think that she didn't suck, so now I have to make up some incomprehensible bullshit to explain why I think the same old shit that everyone else always thought sucked suddenly sucks."

I didn't read the article I just don't ascribe any particular style to ilm and especially not any style that involves multiple paragraphs any more you dig

xpost Dan have you ever considered a job as a critic

you mean you don't think that the music on her debut was the last, gorgeous gasp of 90s R & B???

j0hn if thats what ilm would look like if we were writing full paras, be glad we arent doing so now

Taking his cue from Butterfly-era Mariah Carey, producer 7aurelius didn’t so much write songs as pour glittery, translucent glop over beats and vocals. The result was a syrupy, trudging, pulsing drone—doom metal by Care Bears. Ashanti and her infinitely multitracked doubles often sound buried alive, desperately emoting from inside an echoey pink plastic prison, repeating and repeating R & B signifiers (“Baby baby baby baby baby”) until all meaning is squeezed out of them and they start to register as pure sound. It’s overwhelmingly, swooningly, gooily romantic, miles away from the invulnerable iron-bitch strut of Beyonce or the true-pain confessions of neosoul artists like Keyshia Cole. In other words, it’s neither tough nor real. There’s nothing hip-hop about it.

I DON'T EVEN LIKE ASHANTI AND I KNOW THIS IS COMPLETE NONSENSE WITH RESPECT TO WHERE SHE WAS COMING FROM AS AN ARTIST. HER PROBLEM WAS ALWAYS THAT SHE COULD NOT FUCKING SING.

Yes but Care Bears

haha deej u gotta know I hate the sort of musical ideology that lies festering underneath any phrase like "the last gorgeous gasp," c'mon man, I know we ain't always see eye to eye but fuck man who on here would say something like that

ok I can think of two but besides those two.

btw Dan I am predicting a classic thread here, huge props to you

Anyway, doom metal by Care Bears = Tool/A Perfect Circle, not fucking ASHANTI

the invulnerable iron-bitch strut of Beyonce

wtf does this even MEAN

I just don't see how he managed to waste all of those words and miss the only interesting thing Ashanti has ever done, ie get people to threaten their friends with death threats.

ok I can think of two but besides those two.

-- J0hn D., Friday, June 13, 2008 5:48 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

that seems like a low number

but yeah to be fair im only thinking of a specific slice of ilm over analysis here

Ned and...?

im thinking more of mid-period ilm where there are lots of ppl making up grand narratives and theories about music but oftentimes did not have grounding in context/history of music.

positing about drum n bass creating timbaland, or hip-hop's embrace of ecstasy

okay lolololol I listened to a biit of her new single and this is the least annoying she's sounded in YEARS

fuck that piano, tho

pix plz

"fuck that piano" = most disappointing GIS ever