Jessie Ware - 110% (and everything else she's done)

pro tip: this song is amazing

http://soundcloud.com/jessieware/jessie-ware-110-1

it could totally be on 'velvet rope' right??

i'm really in love with this thing

I prefer "Running," which will probably be in my top ten. My favorite guitar solo in many months too.

but, yeah, she's worth watching. She reminds me of Shara Nelson.

There's also this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ltza7hYls

Looking forward to the album

I love the video for 110% almost as much as the song. I can't figure out what the muffled sample in the background is saying, "carving my initials on your forehead" I think?

fucking love this song. definitely deserves a thread

original 'running' felt to me way too encumbered with reference and borrowed vibes, but tbf i did come to that conclusion when i was still getting to know her (which i guess i still am). alf have you heard the disclosure remix?

'110', it wasnt really until i heard it on the radio before i realised how much it goes, it's p catchy. not sure if it's gonna be a keeper but certainly one of those brief flings you kinda fall for a bit

Love this song

yeah I've played this song 20 times since I first heard it, I love it

i've been meaning to listen to this and "running" for MONTHS and didn't get round to them because i didn't think i'd have to make an effort. here we are now though, i like them all, on one listen "running" is better and neither are as good as "strangest feeling" but who knows how they'll shake out

"running" is totally and amazingly soft rock

just checked out Strangest Feeling, must have missed it last time around, amazing too. Think she's shaping up to be my 2012 pick of the girls looking at her trajectory.

i think i might start a thread for delilah at some point, her album is really surprisingly good

"running" is totally and amazingly soft rock

― kanye kardashian (lex pretend), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:06 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

so so so tryhard sade tho

just look at the single cover even

"maybe felt a little too record industry to capture the true desired lisa stansfield realness" is what i said about my first impressions of ware generally on the bobby caldwell thread

listening to the three singles together is weird, they're all good songs but they all feel like really overly deliberate attempts to capture a certain aesthetic - sade x soft rock for "running", delilahesque trip-hop revivalism x burial 3am night bus moods for "strangest feeling", airy summery "my boo" breezy realness for "110%"

i think i perhaps like "strangest feeling" best b/c being overly conscious and deliberate suits that gothy aesthetic well

http://i.imgur.com/D0TuS.jpg

1. Devotion
2. Wildest Moments
3. Running
4. Still Love Me
5. No To Love
6. Night Light
7. Swan Song
8. Sweet Talk
9. 110%
10. Taking In Water
11. Something Inside

i wonder if i'm the only person on earth who feels sorry for jamie woon

haha the first thing i thought of when i heard "110%" was "aw, poor jamie woon"

jamie woon's album did decently, didn't it? and now he's just between albums.

capture the true desired lisa stansfield realness

i don't care man i'll take the imitation

sade is the real oak real and stansfield is the real plastic real tho, there's levels mayne

i guess what i'm saying is i am enjoying the video

yeah i dont actually know how woon's sold on the low but i dont feel his album was ever really in the air once it dropped, even in the liminal circles we're talking about. just seemed to drop and disappear

anyway i wouldnt care to speculate on what he deserved but it was definitely more than what he got. i felt like he made brave-ish decisions on that album he didnt have to if he was just playing to the gallery and it's a shame they werent acknowledged at very least

ok maybe brave is too strong but whatever, he stuck to his guns somewhat and i respect that

Produced by Julio Bashmore if you were wondering. It's blowing up, just an hour ago I heard it on a radio station in Mexico City and was wondering what ILM thought about it.

For all the reference points being thrown around here, and I know Jessie Ware's coming from a completely different place, but you could put 110% on the Grimes album and no one would notice. Its level of base competency is higher and it's a good song but I'm not sure the production does it many favours. I listened to Running straight afterwards and liked that one more.

Bit disappointed that so many of these jobbing post-dubstep vocalists seem to be defaulting to a very similar soft-rock middle ground, and yeah while it might be a brave decision up against whatever the FACT-reading bores are clamouring for, you need serious songwriting ability to pull of that aesthetic well and I dunno if any of these guys do.

Does Roses Gabor have a post-guest-vocalist career yet? That might be promising.

"running" is as good as "110%"... this might be my most anticipated album of the year atm

assuming d'angelo isn't putting an album out

Running > 110% for me, but just barely.

I hadn't been slotting Woon into this space in my brain, but now that it's been mentioned it totally makes sense.

No clue what he sold, but that album was mad underrated even on ILM, given the love for 'Night Air'. There were a LARGE number of jams there.

I love the video for 110% almost as much as the song. I can't figure out what the muffled sample in the background is saying, "carving my initials on your forehead" I think?

― boxedjoy, Friday, June 8, 2012 5:57 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You heard it right - it's a sample from Big Pun's Dream Shatterer, I think.

hmmm, not so sure about this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=FnOBjARwNi0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnOBjARwNi0

baby in our wildest moomins

i like this a lot

http://vimeo.com/38905074

hadnt seen it before but this song off the alb is the real deal

"wildest moments" is amazing

fully in love with all the singles now. i think "running" might have shaken out as my favourite so far

think i might be talking to her next week

i'm really taken with how - similar to wynter gordon's newest stuff - ware's vocal strategy is a perfect midpoint between r&b and female singer-songwriter

hmm...I heard "Stimela" and wasn't impressed.

Holy fuck her album is going to be amazing. "Sweet Talk," the latest track to be released, is ANOTHER great track. When the guitars drop in at 2:30... one of the best musical moments of the year. Man this girl's on a roll.

Can we change this thread to "general jessie ware thread" btw i think it's about time

As requested, kinda.

that works. thanks ned!

+1 for Running. Shades of Sade, tasteful trip-hop, etc.

Still I actually liked tasteful trip-hop. Makes me want to go listen to a Moloko record.

That was a good interview BTW, Lex. I wouldn't mind seeing dance music in the UK go classy again like back in the 2-step heyday.

I wouldn't mind seeing dance music in the UK go classy again like back in the 2-step heyday.

I'm not sure this sentence makes sense really? Unless by "2-step" you basically mean MJ Cole and Wookie?

Yeah, and some Dem 2 tracks and Tuff Jam.

And Craig David.

I'm surprised you ended up hating most of the last album monotony. It didn't take over my life like What's Your Pleasure but I still enjoy most of it. Romy's album is better though. That one is still on regular rotation, especially as our daughter still asks to hear Enjoy Your Life almost daily.

Hating is probably overstating it. But the impression I was left with was that the album seemed like a very deliberate attempt to recapture the magic of WYP, and in the end it came across to me as the work of someone who wasn't relying on intuition...it was more calculated, if that makes sense. There was also a certain garish tackiness to it all which is less my speed than WYP's elegant sophistication. And ever since I read Alfred's Peloton instructor critiques in this thread, I've not been able to shake that image when I listen to "Free Yourself" lol.

All that said, I do like Freak Me Now (non-Terfy-Murphy version), and when I saw her live at the end of last year she put on a fantastic show and I'd absolutely see her again at the first available opportunity.

Yeah, I totally get that. There's a few songs in the second half that don't quite work for me now. The songs that would make my own Jessie Ware best of playlist would be the more understated ones like Lightning, Hello Love and These Lips which ended up being my favourite song on the album.

I am kind of fascinated by the reaction the last album got. On RYM it's rated almost as highly as WYM. It also got some of the best reviews of her career. Over on Popjustice people are as divided as they are on here. A lot of people were disappointed with how kitsch it was. A few friends on another music forum I post really dislike it too.

What's Your Pleasure is still probably my album of the decade so far (Mercurial World being the main competition) and was a tough act to follow. I'm kind of hoping she brings back some of the moodiness and elegant sophistication as you say for the next album. Maybe revisit the Devotion era sound or maybe something like The Kill which is the one that gets me the most these days from WYP.

Is it her New Jersey?

my kids absolutely adore T!FG and that's totally fine with me.

this is the kinda song that I bet sounds great at Glastonbury but at home I'm just kinda bored by this tbh

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

Kinda gives me...Deborah Cox remixed by Jayda G. I don't dislike it per se, but I think Romy gets drowned out by Jessie (in the chorus particularly) and so is almost superfluous in the end.

Musically it sounds more like Romy's album than That Feels Good. I really like it.

Lift me up is awesome, might be my favorite thing I heard from both of them

she's on the new salute single, it's great

new single "i could get used to this", co-written with miranda cooper (xenomania), out soon.

you can hear a minute of it here

oh so more along the lines of That Feels Good, uhhhh hmm

you mean That! Feels Good.

We caught this on our very lazy NYE. Was expecting cringe - and honestly, it is, rather - but v. enjoyable cringe: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9wzvuo

wrong thread

that said i did watch that as well and was pleasantly surprised how good jessie j's voice sounded

ha oops! one for Oh! I Always Get Those Two Mixed Up! - i think i have always conflated the two

damn, new single and album announcement and no one's said anything huh, crickets

It is a fabulous first single
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV-ONO_Ok5c

I was pretty whelmed by the new track. I’ll be interested to see if the album itself can achieve the pastoral soul Minnie/Rotary Connection vibe she’s hinting at in its press release.

Yeah, liked but didn't love.

Last album fell out of my rotation pretty quickly, so I'm gonna need to be coaxed back into the hive.

my kids and i adore T!FG!

someone needs to fire that music video editor.

this is pretty forgettable but i can't really place why this doesn't particularly work compared to what's your pleasure

The single is nice, but is lacking that killer chorus. What's Your Pleasure was filled with those. Still looking forward to the album. I am intrigued by the Minnie Riperton influence even though she already perfected that sound with Remember Where You Are.

The track that samples Morricone that she’s played live a couple of times (“Ride”) is I think coming out next week. It seems like potentially it could be a hot mess but at the very least it’ll be less safe than the lead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-NjEx6v-tk

kinda reminds me of "hung up"

idk it's sort of a mess

Ha I was just coming here to say the same thing, except this isn't even half the song Hung Up is.

I actually like it a lot more than I thought I was going to, the restraint on the verses is nice.

There’s another song “Mr Valentine” going around that she played on the radio that sounds good to me too

just like "hung up" the sample feels a bit forced but it doesn't have the relentless hooks of "hung up" to make up

idk I don't hear "Hung Up."

I assumed that was meant in terms of using a huge sample?

oh okay

the sample has the same feeling as the sample in "hung up"

The album...i'm not totally sold. "Mr Valentine" is probably my favourite track, mostly because it's the peppiest. "Sauna" and "Ride" feel beamed in from different albums. there's a bit of Shirley Bassey ("don't you know who i am") and Barbra Streisand ("16 summers") cosplay towards the end, which I don't think quite works, or at least, isn't what I'm looking for from jessie.

"Love You For" and "Mon Amour" are probably the best of the Minnie Riperton-influenced tracks

I'm pleasantly surprised by this. It's a lot more subtle than That Feels Good and its all the better for it. 16 Summers is the only that didn't really work for me after one listen.

Super!Bloom

it's good-not-great but at least it's good

I like the title track

This is laaaaaaaame.

this feels like two or three different albums awkwardly shoved together which compares pretty poorly to what's your pleasure which synthesised all those same influences into a coherent whole

otherwise this is all just... fine. no huge missteps but nothing to really love either. the minnie tipperton stuff isn't really as rich as it needs to be? she can just do better than this

i went back to this feels good because i don't remember it much and this is definitely a step down.

devotion & what's your pleasure both very successfully blended modern house production with various retro influences, just in different ways, and that's ultimately what i want more of from her i think

I think this album is good and I wish her continued success and she’s vv likable but for me her twin towers are Devotion and WYP, Tough Love being a couple steps back. She’s so excellent doing the house influenced thing, she works really well within an actual groove. I sort of assume she’ll return to that well once more in the future, this is better than the last one but still not my thing.

It’s one of those “good” albums which is pleasant but it doesn’t grab me. I still remember hearing Devotion and the whole thing just kills, same for WYP. I think her ambition takes her a bit out of her wheelhouse. I don’t begrudge her going for it though.

Yeah, What's Your Pleasure and Devotion are easily her best albums. She just got it exactly right on both of those.

After a few plays, I'd probably put this new one on the same level as Tough Love. Maybe the latter has higher highs, but it also has Say You Love Me which is frustratingly still one of her biggest hits. I seem to enjoy That Feels Good more than most on here, but it does have its issues. After a solid first half it does dip in that second half. Shake The Bottle and Freak Me Now wore off me so quickly and actually started to grate on me after a while. Even the more obvious moments like Mr Valentine, Ride and Don't You Know Who I Am don't on the new one don't sound like she's trying too hard like the weaker moments on That Feels Good.

Surprisingly I'm kinda into most of this record after not caring about the pre-release singles too terribly much. In hindsight, That! Feels Good! might have been her New Jersey, and Superbloom is a reset.

i'll be testing this album out with my kids and report back with utterly pointless findings.

So far not feeling this one as much as the last two albums. Everything is good but only "Automatic" has stuck with me. Her singing is great on the album though, the varying styles help showcase her range

Genuine lol from the Pitchfork review: The songwriting is so chaste and disembodied that an Old Hollywood censor would have no problem greenlighting it. Arms and the sensation of being held by them is the record’s prevailing erotic act, appearing on the title track, “Automatic,” “Love You For,” and “No Consequences.” Ditto “touch,” evoked in such non-descript ways that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was part of a Covid protocol.

I loved this on my first run through