Rolling R&B Thread 2010

wow that song is terrible

Am I hearing this rap right? "She look like an Asian, but she sexy as hell", hmm...

Still think Keri looked her best in the "Love In This Club" video.

Jazmine's new album is A++ good on first listen. Maybe a better look for her than the first one, even if it's missing a real barn burner (although Holdin You Down might qualify). Less crazy experimentation and string sections and Daft Punk samples, but it's efficient and *joyful* in an unquantifiable sort of way.

This might have been what I was waiting for in R&B this year.

i remember loving "don't make me wait" and "luv back"

excellent closer, the second one

yeah "luv back" sounds like it could be a lady saw song

and why is there nothing as good or funny or sharply observed as "u get on my nerves" on ne-yo's album?

*ne-yo's own album

also, i just heard the chrisette michele album. it's definitely more arresting than her debut, but i kind of feel for every moment she pushes herself creatively and pulls it off, there are equally lazy moments. kind of like fantasia's album but less coherent and charismatic. but i do like it and def props to her for making it somewhat unexpected.

Still need to hear the Fantasia and Chrisette. I feel like Jazmine's shifted her main influence from Lauryn to Prince.

Good Enough and Don't Make Me Wait are as good a one-two faux-Prince as anything off The-Dream's latest.

At least sonically.

For some reason I am finding it impossible to care about Jazmine's album. :/

I was finding the idea of it impossible to care about after loving the first one and then not listening to it for nearly a year, but the heady rush of listening to it this afternoon hit me pretty hard. Perhaps I will be tired of it by tomorrow. But in the mean time, I recommend it.

I liked the first album when I first heard it but then soured on it really hard.

Yeah, same. Have rarely gone back to it, a couple tracks excepted. "heady rush of listening to it" = the new album. It's a v. different sound for her most of the time.

the first single is one of those songs that sounds like it's trying very hard not to be boring and yet...is. second single that does the "i'm going down" fakeout just makes me want to listen to "i'm going down".

New Raheem DeVaughn video, very Showtime After Dark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNCyKtsdpRU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

i was not wild about Jazmine's first album and thought the new one's lead single was really annoying, but Love Me Back is just killing me right now, just exhilarating

first album is a classic to me, so i'm very excited to really sit down w/ the new one - loving all of the praise it's getting

okay i'm literally just feeding PR copy now but

i really enjoyed this http://www.r-kelly.com/news/r-kellys-medley-soul-train-awards-video

also apparently this album w/ "when a woman loves" is actually coming out & part of it is streaming on facebook http://www.facebook.com/Rkelly?v=app_178091127385

sonically it's very "happy people"

*happy person*

http://sofurious.com/2010/12/03/my-letter-to-keri-hilson/

Sure, plenty of folk will say things like “men do this stuff all the time and nobody calls them out”, however I saw Raheem Devaughn’s new video for “She’s Single” and his termite-looking ass is in the same boat.

love the sexy pics strewn throughout the scolding rant

boy you would think...boy you would think she invented gratuitous sexuality

She was so reserved before this.

lol that blog post is batty.

for context, this is the first song i ever heard by keri hilson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBluHKXsXR0

I would think the issue with Keri Hilson would be more that without the over-the-top sexuality, she's really boring and unremarkable (which has its own raft of sociological implications/issues).

we discussed this in the slut-shaming thread already, but this move doesn't seem desperate or unseemly to me because of a) the boss-bitch businesswoman persona she's established quite effectively, b) the fact that she seems to be genuinely quite smart and on-it IRL (unlike eg ciara, who seems like a ditz, and rihanna, who's come off as dim in every interview except, weirdly, for the ones on domestic abuse).

(neither a nor b are mutually exclusive to being unremarkable - in fact they're prob the reasons she comes off as boring)

Right, the thing I'm getting at is the damned if you do/damned if you don't vortex that people often get stuck in; being rampantly sexual invites slut-shaming, but removing the rampant sexuality makes her anonymous and unremarkable, so exactly what are the avenues for success here?

It's part of the inherent problem with show business; competent makes you a songwriter, but crazy makes you a star.

a) the boss-bitch businesswoman persona she's established quite effectively, b) the fact that she seems to be genuinely quite smart and on-it IRL (unlike eg ciara, who seems like a ditz, and rihanna, who's come off as dim in every interview except, weirdly, for the ones on domestic abuse).

i think this gives a lot of credit to how even stans of r&b analyze music

TOO MUCH credit

I should have said competent makes you a session musician, actually.

I could totally be someone's back-up singer but no one is going to pay me to be a front man (lol wrong voice type, plus also I'm not actually crazy ergo no one will want to watch me)

It's part of the inherent problem with show business; competent makes you a songwriter, but crazy makes you a star.

yup that's keri hilson in a nutshell. but on he other hand, she's found a pretty decent level of success being competent, and that competency can probably ensure that she can knock out a "knock you down" or "turnin' me on" a couple of times per album. i mean, "the way you love me" is a competent enough generic banger. you need to have these second/third-tier artists around, really.

what's weird about the original disowning post is that apparently he was a proper keri hilson stan in the first place - i don't know how you get to that level of obsession w/her of all people

tbf, hanging out over urinals is nagl

none of this changes how terrible that song is

vh1 soul keeps playing a video by 'the floacist f/ musiq soulchild', which is my personal idea of hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KpwASavVEE

this guy really is so incredible.

i love this song

did that link work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KpwASavVEE

the album is kinda really good!

i hated "when a woman loves" so bad, am kinda afraid to check out the album

it's weirding me out that Lloyd's "Lay It Down" has been in the top 10 of the R&B chart for weeks and iirc has been talked about here as a popular song, but i haven't heard it on the radio once yet, had to finally go to YouTube today just to hear what it sounds like. like none of the 3 R&B stations around here are playing it at all afaict.

ship, i knew you hated "when a woman loves" but i didn't know how much of it had to do w/ the whole MIDI orchestra thing -- cuz he's been doing it now w/ a live band & i think it's a monster song

a lot of it was due to the chintzy production but i wasn't crazy about the song, felt very on the nose where the old school influences in his stuff usually feel more subtle and imbedded among other ideas, and in any event not one of his stronger ballads. i'm sure it is better live, though.

although i was a lil like 'lol of course kells gets on the motown revival two years late' (this was, to me, a good thing, like what will he do w/ it?) i actually ended up not feeling 'when a woman loves' at all & am with al on that one "Number One Hit" is just ... perfect though.

the video version i posted is a much shortened version

"when a woman loves" is top 5 this year imo