NE-YO v THE DREAM

isn't it a bit more nuanced than that, though - his prickishness builds cumulatively, somewhere in the disparity between how he stunts (sometimes unpleasantly yeah; not just in 'i love ur girl' but the selfabsorbed rage of 'ditch that' and 'nikki'. also see interview above jeez) and the reality of his questionable talent.

...which ok yeah is bollocks tbf - he clearly is talented and always has been - "talent" meaning as shorthand for not only his at times craven debt (seriously, c'mon) to the likes of kells, or prince ('purple kisses', 'fast car'), or his own dodgy singing voice, but also how very awkwardly he inhabits the mantle of being a proper r&b solo artist public figure. cos let me state this plainly: the videos for 'i love your girl' and 'rockin' are the most painful annihilations of a supposed stardom ever - dream is appalling, pathetic, nonexistent. (jeezy stealing the show with a totally irrelevant obama spiel - before the song even starts!! lolz!)

but then at the same time this is all part of the attraction too, because he is an underdog in the vein of all your t-pain sad panda interlopers and sundry karoke autotuners, and we feel for him somehow, precisely because he isn't some superbeing, and shit is real. i kinda see him like an r&b mr magoo actually! and finally yeah, cos he does write some sweet songs.

yeah it's kind of funny how all his videos have crazy hot girls and really colorful, eye-catching lighting, and he's always dressed up real slick and trendy, but you still can't avoid this really awkward-looking dude half-assedly dancing at the center of it all

i mean it says it all that a song as (relatively) low key as "I Luv Your Girl" has a video with strobe lights and dancing as over the top as Usher's "Yeah!"

right, yeah. i mean the other interesting thing about the mr magoo vibe is - does he realise? can he even afford to? i suppose he doesnt have to any longer now everyone's (stars not crits)(altho!) on his bandwagon. upthread brainwasher asks what does he mean when dream says he's the american dream, and we know what he means? and it's a great question! what indeed.

it occurred to me particularly when reverend and lex i think (soz if not) were adoringly going off on one about a even vaguer erykah badu reference to the american dream and how it rocked their minds - like god, how much more interesting that question is aimed towards the-dream rather than some paranoid neo-hippy!

i really don't get how the-dream is particularly prickish. i mean he's not mr polite ne-yo, but he really doesn't come off as any more obnoxious than most

XP also wrt one of the songs that didnt make 'love vs money', can't recall the name now. something about losing an american dream prom queen, or something, and it's almost like an allegory for fame.

no hate for badu here btw, but yknow, sometimes, it's a bit, underwater stoveTOP

youre really blowing my mind over here

Is that a compliment?

― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 March 2009 14:00 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes!

― Tim F, Monday, 9 March 2009 14:29 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah that kanye song isnt growing on me well at all. kinda limp

i dunno im really glad rtc is into this because im feelin a real strong pull to react negatively to all this like ive got brainwasher 'man where have you people been' disease. maybe undeserved ... not snobbery cuz all i wanted to do w/ the first one was convince everyone how great it was ... undeserved 'i told u so' more like. but hey

'fancy' is amazing. thats probably the best. i definitely prefer the last half of the album to the first(& yeah fuck the lil jon track obv).

& definitely disagree with j0rdan about shawty is the shit being an outlier -- that track is totally w/in the vibe of the record!! extra-strong emotional push. like rtc said its more a contextual thing

i do think 'i luv your girl' & 'livin a lie' are the main ones that lay outside the median the-dream track

yeah, but aren't the ppl who're talking about this now, the same people who repped for Love/Hate (on this thread, not RS I mean)

there are a lot more ppl talking about this one & gettin all "good thing i found out about this album from the ilm year end poll!!!"-non R&B fans

theres nothing wrong with that, im just being immature

the album always had a ton of auteurist appeal to people who don't really pay attention to the genre as a whole, doesn't really matter when those people pick up on it or why

my call for deej to get off brainwasher's dick still stands - the time for change is now

the demo version of "right side of brainwasher's dick" was much better imo

yeah anyone who hasn't heard the demo has truly been shafted

hehe ... penis

"Fancy" is such a shock, the restraint of it, both musically and in his singing. The gentleness and nuance of "...can't fault her for wanting something." And then the drums come in at the end!

As far as the prick or not a prick thing goes: I think Andy put it very well in his belated allmusic review of Love/Hate (somewhat a regurgitation of previous arguments made here):

When it comes to the songs he keeps to himself, the persona maintained is closer to the one within "Bed." He is a lecherous braggart, albeit one with a slightly chirpy voice who is ultimately a charmingly vulnerable romantic, which brilliantly offsets the chumpishness.

usually when i get like what dj dmdeej is saying it's either to do with some "meaningful" part of the artist narrative getting ignored (when you've been there cradling it since day dot) or some greater miscarriage of genre justice - with lvm neither really feel applicable. (dream's moms might be all "wheres my generic song motherfucker!!" tho i guess.) it's like even if you thought late registration was some overblown claptrap you were never gonna be dialling the waahmbulance cos a/ it's just kanye stuffz and b/ the battle for soul of rap won't ever be taking place over college dropout.

Hmm the last sentence of my post seems kinda idiotic. But the structure of "Fancy" is a real shock I think: at first you think it's gonna be this short interlude type thing and then it turns into one of the most epic songs on the album.

The Kelly resonances feel stronger here; maybe that's just "Put It Down" and "Sweat It Out" though.

r|t|c putting it down in this thread btw.

good point, although i have definitely seen some cats fire up the waahbulance for Late Registration, which i totally don't get beyond my feelings about the album
xpost

xp *GASP* 4 the love of god there's no lecherous braggartness in 'bed'!! that tune is the picture of sexy marital bliss!

guilty as charged? xp

well i didn't mean specifically on ILM, but yeah haha

"fancy" is the only one of the suite that i couldn't see working outside the context of the four (decide for yourself it that's a testament or a drawback) but the arrangement — besides how busy and deep it is — works as palate cleanser of sorts in between the overblown hugeness of the other three songs. still i can't help but see it as a prelude to the real payoff, "right side of my brain"

late registration would be an interesting comparison point cuz i certainly feel like there are some songs on lvm that make l/h look like child's play, which is how i feel about late reg and college dropout. i guess for me tho late reg works despite (and because of) its all over the place inconsistency where as lvm is a pretty tight cohesive package. the jump in scope is applicable i think tho

xp *GASP* 4 the love of god there's no lecherous braggartness in 'bed'!! that tune is the picture of sexy marital bliss!

It can't be both?

"love you 'til your eyes roll back"; "I'm a put you to bed"

in his belated allmusic review of Love/Hate (somewhat a regurgitation of previous arguments made here):

FWIW it was published super belatedly due to a technical fuck-up on my end. It was written the second week of January '08.

usually when i get like what dj dmdeej is saying it's either to do with some "meaningful" part of the artist narrative getting ignored (when you've been there cradling it since day dot) or some greater miscarriage of genre justice - with lvm neither really feel applicable. (dream's moms might be all "wheres my generic song motherfucker!!" tho i guess.) it's like even if you thought late registration was some overblown claptrap you were never gonna be dialling the waahmbulance cos a/ it's just kanye stuffz and b/ the battle for soul of rap won't ever be taking place over college dropout.

― r|t|c, Monday, March 9, 2009 3:25 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i agree & actually late registration is a great comparison pt.

this is basically why im just admitting that i have no good reasons to be a dick about it, just that its my inclination -- lol ilm!!

deej you would have a point if this whole conversation wasn't taking place among people who were repping for (or at least hating on) The-Dream a year ago

rev you would have a point if deej didnt already answer plaxico's exact same charge 3 hours ago

my bad

"love you 'til your eyes roll back"; "I'm a put you to bed"

which of these lines was meant to be lechy braggy btw?

maybe it's just a word choice thing, i dunno - always assumed 'lecherous' was the pejorative crosssing the line of cheekier 'lewd' or 'lusty' or whatever, but can't find a dictionary defn to back me up. lech, retch, kvetch.

"love you 'til your eyes roll back" - braggy; not lechy?

"I'm a put you to bed" - neither?

well isn't "I'ma put you to bed" basically the same braggy statement Ice Cube makes when he says "so deep, putt her butt to sleep," but in less explicit terms? that's how I always heard the song anyway. I mean, "Bed" is the song The-Dream said was too 'mature' to sell to Chris Brown.

Right -- "...put you to bed" in this context is not exactly just literal, is it? It's not "poundin' you down 'til your eyeballs pop out," but still.

(And besides, the same sentence contains "charmingly vulnerable romantic" -- so it's not like I'm saying he's Luther Campbell.)

(lechery as in "intense desire or craving for gratification and excitement")

but then at the same time this is all part of the attraction too, because he is an underdog in the vein of all your t-pain sad panda interlopers and sundry karoke autotuners

this reminds me -- I can't be the only person who was horribly disappointed at the end of the "Blame It" video when the guy in the panda suit took off the head and it was Jamie, not T-Pain

so "mr. yeah" is basically tricky reworking his remix of "touch my body" right? right down to that slight rattling noise even

ok im only 14 seconds into the "my love" video and i've already lost it @ dream and mariah acting out a spousal argument and also mariah as hoodrat

http://i40.tinypic.com/10wn0xk.png

lol at WE NEED HEAT

wait till dream finds out that she's still having an affair with kenneth the page

this video is inane - he's just standing by a piano fondling his grammy?

anyone else find it creepy that dream makes the two featured female artists on his albums pretend to be madly in love with him? i always thought that the phone call at the beginning of "livin a lie" was weird and now this video with mariah longingly gazing at magazine covers of him. or is that 'assimilation' part of his genius?

lol i thought you meant kanye for a minute there

that video makes "My Love" somewhat entertaining but i still don't get what you guys see in that song, it's so bland. "Touch My Body" was nice but The-Dream writing an entire Mariah album seems like a terrible idea.

"My Love" sounds like an inferior "We Belong Together."

anyone else find it creepy that dream makes the two featured female artists on his albums pretend to be madly in love with him? i always thought that the phone call at the beginning of "livin a lie" was weird and now this video with mariah longingly gazing at magazine covers of him. or is that 'assimilation' part of his genius?

see, in a regular r&b context this sort of thing is no great shakes - with dream though it feels particularly unlikely somehow. not just because of looks or artistic credibility, but cos he doesn't even seem like he'd be much of a conversationalist either, more of a chronic mumbler.

(also watching the 'my love' vid, it's interesting comparing his sunglasses style with say t-pain or lil jon. t & lj use the instant glamour to validate the sensitive nerds they secretly are, looking totally regular (uh ok maybe not jon but yknow what i mean) and vulnerable when they take them off; dream almost seems to use them to be sensitive in the first place, because his eyes are even more blank and inscrutable than the glasses. where is he even looking!)

anyway this is striking moreso on l/h since rihanna's a recurring figure - lover/friend/companion-thru-rise-to-stardom, something deeper and more intimate than the usual 3 minute collabo fling. (this doesnt really apply so much to mariah cos her whole thing is always that she fully adores whoever she's with at that moment, including you the listener. so we love her too.) i wouldnt say it was creepy necessarily but it is vaguely unreal yeah, almost like a fantasy. and this is why i invoked stuff like him singing in the mirror, kells posters stuck to his bedroom wall, playing out this world where he's a megastar, celebrities on his arm, keys to prince's corvette dangling lightly in the ignition. his ex knowing he she was wrong - any day now nikki will show up, any day.