Rolling R&B Thread 2010

i saw ne-yo live last night & he was awesome. sadly i missed ryan leslie due to, idk, not knowing what the time is or what time things start or minor details like that :( ne-yo was pretty awesome anyway.

anyway, ne-yo's valentine's day tips!!

what's not to like about little freak and want her body. they both good! granted what leaked as the raymond album is weak as hell but still!

Carolina Chocolate Drops cover "Hit Em Up Style"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKTXJUYiAT4

part of their regular set actually

dont u have a forks thread for this stuff yet

i kinda like "Want Her Body" but Usher doing a song with LA The Darkman kinda underlines the whole 'what the fuck is happening with his career' thing, it's like he's determined to collaborate with every half-famous bum rapper out right now.

deej dont u have a swag thread for your stuff yet

heh i quite liked that la the darkman cut just for the randomness tho, like if ursh is gonna underline his cluelessness then let it be a entertainingly squiggly line like that at least. (ignore all this if darkman is actually out there generating twitter mixtape heat or whatever these days.)

seems kinda weird to say it but usher is just too old/established in his virtues to be pulling off this young man hype shit again and make another 'yeah!' now. also slightly too much of a weirdo too - i think only other strange dudes who also happened to be recovering from a divorce from their moms were ever gonna feel the everyman realness of that 'papers' bullshit.

i mean i'm not saying dude has to aim at some maxwell/sade level now (not least cos that supposedly grown-up shit on here i stand was fucking terrible) but if he had any grace or self-awareness to throw some money and conviction into it there's a pretty wide expanse of middle ground he can quite easily inhabit, that the public (even *gasp* the kids) would happily follow him into - i'd have to check the record books but i think they used to call it r&b.

for a start how hard would it be to sweep up 14 of these 879 usher-ready cuts lying around gathering dust on ne-yo's mp3 blogleak cutting floor and give them a bit of hot producer slap n tickle? not very, i'm guessing. (remind me again what that particularly egregious one was that lex found tail end of last year?? that was pretty good.)

x-post

Carolina Chocolate Drops cover "Hit Em Up Style"-Whiney

I'll pile on--Whiney they were doing that cover in 2008.

i do agree with rtc that usher could definitely hit the same grown man but not old man 'niche' that ne-yo does -- it takes a certain amount of grace & charm and maybe usher just doesn't know how to convey those things anymore because everything he's done has been so ham-handed from "daddy's home" to "love in this club" to even stuff i like like "papers"

i mean he had a song called "moving mountains" ffs -- the lush sorta disco stuff that ne-yo does would suit well imo

yeah i'm not sure - to be fair usher is probably right thinking he's still in a (pretty unique) position where he can aim younger than ne-yo stylistically, or at very least can be going for something similar to 'closer' let's say. ideally he should be in competition with timberlake, but with neyoian song content i guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9PBlxVWQeE&fmt=34

this is that offcut i was asking about - sounds pretty explicitly like an usher guidetrack now i listen to it again, heh.

if you still wanna hear disco usher though holla back at a 1996!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GQiWmXhvok&fmt=35

*folds arms*

i like "Papers" but i guess sad as it is to say "Lil Freak" is probably the best chance he has of a real club record of any magnitude right now, and that song has Nicki Minaj reciting the names of Santa's reindeer in that middle-schooler-making-fun-of-retards voice and a chorus that always sounds to me like "see my little prick"

tom b's enthusiastic review of it was pretty bizarre -- it strikes me as such a bankrupt & DOA song -- it's hard to even get excited about polow anymore

altho the review did use the phrase "Ush's chiffon moan" which is a true triumph of tom b. vernacular, maybe my favorite that i've run across besides "bruised-growl retro-punk" in the gaslight anthem review that i re-read this weekend

(<3 tom of course)

Ne-Yo would be stupid give Usher shit for the simple reason that it would render likely Ne-Yo's ass irrelevent.

This is good recent-ish Usher disco:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgZlZC-Q3A

it takes a certain amount of grace & charm and maybe usher just doesn't know how to convey those things anymore

ding ding ding

fyi, terius believes "moving mountains" to be his most underrated track o_0

lol

@MissKeri Baby currently trying to usher Polow out the studio so I can be productive w/ Danja...the sabotage.
6 minutes ago from UberTwitter

wtf does that mean?

Whoa, that Raheem Devaughn. Love the Ne-Yo version (which is basically bar-to-bar the exact same song).

feeling this j holiday - "pretty body". Los da mystro on the track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa6AuKi-NAs

yall this shit bangs fwiw

yeah this kinda works in spite of j holiday

ive warmed to his voice but he's pretty undeniably in control of it right here

oh how come nobody told me how dope untitled was? I'd just kind of avoided it (hadn't even heard anything but "supaman high") on assumption that it would suck the big one

i don't think it's great overall but like any R. album it has some jams, i love "Be My #2"

i got into it in January and while it's up and down, I think Exit is absolutely top ten all time for him

Also Echo (Yodelkells!), Bangin' on the Headboard, Go Low, Like I Do and definitely Be My #2.
It feels like an album where he's really reaching to try new things which is impressive, even if it didn't pay off everytime.

anyone heard the chris brown mixtape yet?

::races to google so fast he sprains a finger::

it's... gangsta grillz?

didn't think they could dilute that brand any further after pharrell and ron artest but congratulations drama! looking forward to the justin beiber gangsta grillz.

that would be the chris brown valentine's day mixtape o_0

willie taylor from day26 also did a valentine's day mixtape - called sextape lol - that i d/lded on @BinkieER's recommendation. it was ok.

<3 all of u deeply

its prolly excellent but i havent listened to it yet. still love CB even if he is satan or whatevs

omarion album?

"speedin" is the obvious standout on that album, I also like "wet" a lot... otherwise it's pretty forgettable

Haven't gotten around to Ollusion but wanted to chime in that Mario's D.N.A. from last year is being heavily felt lately. I liked "Break Up" but didn't expect there to be so much more to like. L.O.S. track uses Fray-like piano in conjunction with a pretty strong beat for a track that could have crossed over imho. "Before She Said Hi" is a 90s hip-house sound that doesn't get dusted off much these days. Tricky/Dream tracks are quality if not revelatory. Really only the Jim Jonsin track doesn't land. It's a solid album in a solid year for R&B.

ciara song is *shrugs*

sounds like soulja boy produced this tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qXNRljN3F4

it's really good

if not a bit thin

ha! it interpolates gucci's "photo shoot" -- also maybe the first waka verse to please meh

i was kinda hoping he'd just keep doing 'waka flocka flocka waka flocka waka waka' or whatever for an entire verse

has he stopped doing that now?

wow that chorus is pretty great

lloyd ft mystikal prod by bangladesh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a58lv71Jfo

beat is this big brassy/jazzy thing that sounds... uh like "bouncin back"

I just realized what's so dope about "Bottoms Up" is that it's an R&B song that sounds like "O Let's Do It".

i don't hear any similarity at all between those songs

ditto; love bottoms up and hate o lets do it

hey forks did you get my email (sent awhile ago)?

i don't think so; regarding what? Wanna resend?

resent

thx!

hey what did y'all think of bilal's "airtight revenge" ?

there's some incredible things on that record.

Love that record, esp. "All Matter".

As far as "Bottoms Up" & "O Let's Do It". They both share similar a rhythmic thrust and sonic palette.