Rolling R&B Thread 2008

no problem

(another song 'bust your windows', think this is the second single; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8052WWDadY)

inevitably 'high price' OWNS me, like 40-plays-in-a-row owns me, absolutely immense. money will drive you mad. three choruses! hyped for the triple-cd concept album now. 'goodies' did that high operatic thing for like a bar, it was cici being haughty, high status, in control, here she's so high up it's all a bit dizzying and vertiginous and she's lost her mind a bit.

jazmine sullivan's something special, isn't she? 'need u bad' was real slow burn for me but it got there in the end. that middle 8! sadly all trace of 'lions, tigers & bears' has vanished from youtube and the internet is not providing an mp3, but i loved it when i heard it this morning, that line about how "the most frightening thing is you and me" is brilliant. 'bust your windows' is great too. i like that she's ~not~ obsessed with wanting to be mary j, pace keyshia.

the hayden panettiere song is a bit sub-'stars are blind' but it's ok. the video is ridiculous. this girl is an actor?!

feeling both dear jayne singles, 'fall back' is better than 'rain' though.

new discovery - jimmie reign! 'make you wait' is lovely bedroom r&b, the wisp of cassie haunts it a bit but that's no bad thing. she put out a mixtape a...year back, maybe? with a terrific version of 'my love'.

did we talk about the usher album? so bad :(

haha i almost did a "why haven't we talked about the Usher album here? ::listens:: Oh i see nevermind" revive a few weeks ago

Usher's album is not bad, it's just kind of dull.. but there are a few great songs like "Before I Met You," "Best Thing," "Trading Places," etc... it's just underwhelming compared to, say, 8701. he left a lot of great tracks off of the album like "Echo," which is apparently gonna be on Ciara's new album.

Speaking of CiCi, "High Price" is alright, it's grown on me from when I heard it way back... but it's kind of like a step backwards after The Evolution. Everything I've read about Fantasy Ride sounds great though, i'm excited to hear "Work" and the title track.. I love the concept of the album. "Supernatural" is nice.

really feeling trey songz new single in ya phone and joe - emergency room

ok i just noticed "MY BODY LOOK SOFTER THAN A MCDONALD'S HAMBURGER BUN" in 'high price' and am wondering how this is even a good thing, it is just cici being batshit insane

i really want to like "high price" on account of it being pretty daring and out there for mainstream r&b but the near-opera singing on the voices is fucking loony as shit what the fuck is going on

when she says "MY BODY LOOK SOFTER THAN A MCDONALD'S HAMBURGER BUN" in that high ass voice all i can do is lol

otoh luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuda

on the verses*

am i the only one bothered by the fact that "need u bad" feels six and a half minutes long instead of four? probably

yall got any non-youtube links of those songs? they're all nuked

this thing is (incredibly) batshit though
if i can ever get over this singing i will report back

"hmm comparing 'your love' to 'last day' is sort of bewildering me though! do you just mean the way it engages pixelcloudz warpdrive in the chorus"

Pretty much just this - perhaps just because the trick isn't as common as I would expect (even pixeldust and it's descendants mostly arrive already in warpdrive e.g. "Forever"). And yeah, no end of the world finality thing going on (it still obsesses me that Teedra has written two songs on this topic).

"the weird thing is i'd been playing imaginary video director in my head with it all this week, and plumped for a sorta mishmash of silent running and like lloyd-as-ripley waking up from hypersleep stasis in aliens and finding everything gone, all humanity and (obv) the loverrrr he'd been waiting for etc etc you know how i roll and so on"

Wow this has made me fall in love with it again.

"incidentally (hah) do you like the song? i dont even know personally, things always be easier to love than like."

This is me all the time.

I need to find a higher quality version of "High Price" though, at the moment (on 96k radio rip) I can only observe it's characteristics rather than properly engage with them.

i think 'need u bad' is perfect as it is, too long might be overegging the pudding a bit.

'spotlight' is great too, it works in much the same way as 'bleeding love' ie the first 10 times you hear it you just go "oh, ok" cuz nothing jumps out at you and it's just sort of there, overshadowed by the lunacy of others, and then suddenly it all clicks and you realise it never needed vocal histrionics or anything more than light-touch production cuz the songcraft is so good. i didn't care for 'bleeding love' at all for the first 3938320 weeks it was at no 1 but i listened to it on the bus today and it sounded like such a standard.

tim this version of "high price" is pretty good i think

http://www.zshare.net/audio/1563651270522e3f/

yall got any non-youtube links of those songs? they're all nuked

http://www.iheartmusic.com/cc-common/new/6/player.html?art=1702&loc=2&gateway=exiting

also I don't think "high price" is that out there, it's basically a remix of "oh"

ha, there was no uptake curve on "Bleeding Love" for me. As soon as I heard that fucking organ at the beginning I knew I was gonna love it.

also I don't think "high price" is that out there, it's basically a remix of "oh"

-- The Brainwasher, Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:51 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

there's way more shit going on than in "oh" which is hard like this but relatively simple

this is where they stay crunk, throw it up, dubs on the cadillac
vocal feats, repeat beats, ilm posters dont know how to act

ha, there was no uptake curve on "Bleeding Love" for me. As soon as I heard that fucking organ at the beginning I knew I was gonna love it.

-- The Reverend, Tuesday, 22 July 2008 21:43 (Yesterday)

nah man it's when the beat kicks in! that thing knocks.

as i said though, the interesting thing about 'spotlight' is how it doesnt work like 'bleeding love', or other stargate jobs, or most things you hear these days - i guess yeah like tim pointed out, like a musical number

take it no one will cosign any of my indifferences towards 'need u bad'? not even slightly? fine, ima sit here and prefer panetierre.

the interesting thing about 'spotlight' is how it doesnt work like 'bleeding love', or other stargate jobs, or most things you hear these days

it sounds like 'because of you'

work, not sound, though - obviously they have much in common but 'spotlight' seems stark and defiantly unyielding in a way 'because' isn't (and never needs to be); i guess it also subsequently ends up accruing an integrity that makes the stargate/neyo/steppers-pattern meta superfluities melt away sorta like the way they did for 'irreplaceable'.

not wishing to labour the point or anything.

I've only heard "Spotlight" like twice and I can't get it out of my head.

incidentally i'm loving how well the first episode of my ne-yo & plies frasier thing is going! we're filming plies' scenes after lunch, he's just in makeup now.

http://www.rap-up.com/2008/07/11/ne-yo-vacationing-in-the-french-riviera/

http://www.rap-up.com/2008/07/16/ne-yo-vacationing-in-the-french-riviera-pt-2/

ep 2 is set in england and centres on a hilarious misunderstanding about plies being married to the streets

When Lex said "Because of You" I thought "that can't be right" but it's because the remix has totally crowded out any memory of the original in my mind.

I know what you mean re stargate/neyo meta-superfluities. Also perhaps the difference between "Umbrella" and The-Dream solo stuff.

Jennifer kinda oozes integrity though, almost to the point where it starts to seem cynical. Almost. Did anyone else love Dreamgirls as much as me though?

Whatever happened to Fantazia ;_;

"a hilarious misunderstanding about plies being married to the streets"

I laughed.

ne-yo didn't.

i saw dreamgirls on a fake valentines date with a friend, it was pretty much perfect in that context! we did burst out laughing when j-hud's first number starts out of nowhere after that sober first hour though. "what about meeeee"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bogsqyHQuU

paula deanda's 'marching' isnt quite the same thing as 'spotlight', at all, but its nervelessness did come to mind and it is quite good and all so whatevs

The "what about my dreams/what about meee" is probably her weakest moment, though at least she get's excused from having to participate in "We are a family/like a giant tree/reachin' out toward the sky..."

I'm not even gonna click to find out what Paula Deanda's weakest moment could sound like, it's bad enough in my imagination.

No I was talking about Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls sorry.

even further unrelated, but deanda reminded me - how fucking good is tiffany evans 'lay back and chill'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mOIcO1GpYo

SO good! shout out to dbs, this is his catch.

the tiff evans album is pretty good! as for deanda i remember enjoying 'marching' when i heard it but...nothing about it now.

i never saw dreamgirls, i think i made a huge point at the time of going "ok i am terrible at seeing films but i MUST see this one", which had no effect at all.

haha some dude you fucking hater, how about sara bareilles' weakest moment huh!

also i always knew you were gonna have some complaining to do about gifts remix so out with it

as for the integrity of 'spotlight' i think i know what you mean, but it's more to do with j-hud's performance than the song, she's so relatable to on it. am now going to spend some time thinking about how to phrase that non-clumsily, instead of working

I don't remember having a problem with the "Gifts" remix but I haven't listened to it in a minute.

"need u bad" is so sticky....that bassline is like molasses

ok i am currently imagining how amazing michelle williams' 'we break the dawn' would be if it was sung by FANTASIA BARRINO, holy shit that song needs fantasia's voice on it so bad

i could see it being better with her, yeah...MW's helium vox work as is, though.

michelle's ok but i feel she can't quite handle the lift-off the chorus requires

holy shit this is fire

luda/breezy/sean garrett
http://www.zshare.net/audio/163815406eed1504/

sorry guys but this is the new funky house thread now

infestation in the old one

that song is fairly wack sarge, come on

did you just call him breezy?

:(

new lloyd album is very nice

can't hear the luda/sean/rihanna's bf track becuz i dont have speakers at the mo

that lloyd part was meant to be seperate but yeah his album is very very good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Ec7Hj6St0

lolllll jesus christ

overraters come pick up yr boy, he's done

did you just call him breezy?

:(

-- The Brainwasher, Friday, August 1, 2008 10:10 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

w/ tongue firmly planted in cheek

ya maybe im overrating the track a lil bit but im a sucker for those middle eastern string loops