― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 3 November 2006 19:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 3 November 2006 19:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jessica P (Jessica P), Friday, 3 November 2006 21:04 (seventeen years ago) link
Lalena just asked me why I was listening to Edie Brickell (who she likes) while Dirtie Blonde's most country/Sheryl Crow song ("Change The Water") was playing. She's probably right. I never listened to Edie beyond the hit about throwing her into deep water or whatever it was. Mostly with Dirtie Blonde I just hear potential, I guess. But I'll give it a little more time and see if any songs kick in.)
Finally got around to playing Justin's album this week. Has anybody pointed out that his singing sounds really, really consticted this time out? Maybe it did last time too, and I didn't notice, but this album is nowhere near as great as his first one. Maybe that's what comes from trying to imitate Prince instead of Michael Jackson? I dunno. I guess "Summer Love" is pretty good. Am I alone in this? (I haven't really been paying attention to the discussion about that album, at all, so it's not really clear to me what people think about it. Ditto the Paris Hilton album, which sounds better to me, especially "Stars Are Blind" and "Jealousy," though it's weird I like her doing slow songs better than doing dance songs. Though I don't mind the Rod Stewart cover or the Bee Gees imitation. Brooke Hogan's CD sounds to me like the Paris Hilton's only less good, and her version of "Low Rider," which is about low riding jeans, reminds me of L'Trimm's version only nowhere near as good. At least so far.)
― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link
Uh, that was pretty incoherent of me, wasn't it? I meant am I alone in thinking the first Justin album was lively and effevescent and fun and funky pretty much from beginnning to end, and the new one sounds totally reigned-in, Timbaland or no Timbaland? Are people interpreting this as a "maturity" move, or what? Am I just confused?
― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 17:09 (seventeen years ago) link
But yes, the singing is perhaps even more constricted. But I'm not really into Justin for his pipes per se.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 4 November 2006 21:35 (seventeen years ago) link
Brooke Hogan's album, on the other hand, is growing on me a little.
― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link
I think that this album is mostly too dark/intense to recreate that situation, but it's too soon to tell really - I could imagine people singing along to "Damn Girl" perhaps. I don't think "mature" quite captures this album. It's more serious and intense and caught up in perfecting signifiers from other genres (hip hop, funk, Prince), and certainly pop albums have gone wrong before by focusing on these things rather than on simply great songs, but there's no reason why they can't also go right by doing this as well. In fact this is precisely what Justified did relative to Justin's N'Sync days, so it makes perfect sense that Justin would seek to go further down that path.
I agree that Justin is perhaps drawing as much or more from 90s Prince than 80s Prince, but for me this is actually a point in its favour (although I'd say it's more "Get Off"/"Sexy MF" Prince than, say, The Rainbow Children) - the dubiousness of this proposition relative to the safer option of emulating 80s Prince/MJ makes the album's success even more interesting. Though I recognise my argument rests on the premise that the album is a success.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 4 November 2006 23:32 (seventeen years ago) link
And "Sexy MF" would be on my short list of least sexy songs of all time.
Which isn't to say that I might not wind up liking Future Love/Sex Sounds a lot, someday -- right, like maybe when a few tracks hit me as singles. (Confession: I originally liked Nick Carter's solo album more than Justified!!) Though I gotta say, most of what Tim's saying really does not make me optimistic.
― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 23:51 (seventeen years ago) link
Different kind of intensity, I'd argue: closer to how I'd use the word when talking about rap or dancehall, and it's not necessarily adverse to chart success either - I'd call "Get Busy" "intense" (nothing on FutureSex/LoveSounds is as good as "Get Busy" but "Get Busy" is one of the best songs ever - I must say though that I was surprised that it was as big as it was, I'd previously thought it was too relentless to be so successful).
Of course FutureSex/LoveSouinds will necessarily be a disappointment if you specifically want Justin to be "lively and effevescent and fun", this is pretty clear from even a superficial sampling of both records.
Whether that makes it a failure as a pop album is a different question of course, as a lot of pop music becomes better pop to the exact extent that it seeks to run away from those attributes - e.g. Kelly Clarkson is a better pop star when she's singing "Since You've Been Gone" or "Behind These Velvet Eyes" or even "Because Of You" than when she's singing "Walk Away" (not a bad song, mind). Which is not to say that these songs don't often end up also being lively and effervescent and fun in a different kind of way, but whatever that way is it's mediated through the music's statement that it is or does not want to be any of those things.
Quite a few people decried "Like I Love You" and "Cry Me A River" as being try-hard, pretentious, enslaved to standards of musicality or style which took them away from being good pop songs. And, as much as I disagreed with those people, I felt there was a kernel of truth there: esp. with "Like I Love You", at first I found all of the carefully underscored and highlighted stylistic decisions (the deliberately naturalist drums etc.) to be almost obnoxious in their desire to be noticed and valued. A couple of months of radio play totally normalised the song though and now it sounds basically like good pop (it helps that several people subsequently attempted to make their own equivalents of this song). And, more than that, it's not good pop in spite of all the affectations, but because of them.
PS. I would at least agree that "Sexy MF" isn't as sexy as it holds itself out to be. The same applies to all the songs with "Sex/Sexy" in their titles on Justin's album. Somehow though the allusion to/desire for/aspiration to/simulcrum of "sexiness" is totally endearing in both cases, and perhaps more loveable than actual sexiness would be (I tend to think it's a core component of Justin's success that he in fact falls so short of his intentions on so many levels).
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 November 2006 00:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 5 November 2006 01:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 5 November 2006 02:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 5 November 2006 02:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 5 November 2006 02:47 (seventeen years ago) link
For me a better pop album comparison point might be Madonna's Erotica (perhaps not-coincidentally my favourite Madonna album, followed by her debut).
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 November 2006 02:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 November 2006 02:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 5 November 2006 13:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 5 November 2006 13:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Zwan (miccio), Sunday, 5 November 2006 16:55 (seventeen years ago) link
actually, it's her duh-dunt-duh-duh (you know, the sound you hear before people yell "charge!"), not her la-la-la-la. and the song ends with a christopher walken imitator requesting more cowbell!
― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 5 November 2006 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link
yeah that's a perfectly sensible position even if I disagree with it.. (...except... Ray of Light? JUSTIN's Ray of Light? Really?)
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 5 November 2006 20:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― Zwan (miccio), Sunday, 5 November 2006 20:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― Zwan (miccio), Sunday, 5 November 2006 20:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 6 November 2006 03:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 6 November 2006 06:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 6 November 2006 06:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― pinkmoose (jacklove), Monday, 6 November 2006 07:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 6 November 2006 21:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 7 November 2006 21:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 7 November 2006 22:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jessica P (Jessica P), Tuesday, 7 November 2006 23:22 (seventeen years ago) link
i don't really think of it as dark and would agree that 'cry me a river' is darker than anything here, though i know what tim means by intense - there's something in the loving attention to texture throughout which is very overwhelming, the way each sliver of sound seems completely perfect. i disagree that it forfeits energy and fun, too, but it's a different kind of fun: slicker, more poised, less bouncy and innocent. i actually think 'rock your body' is the worst justin single to date though i do like it, but to my ears 'lovestoned', 'sexyback' and 'chop me up' are more than its equal in terms of dancefloor fun.
i could see an argument in saying the justified singles are superior to the fs/ls ones, though bear in mind we've only had two of the latter (and i think 'my love' is the best yet, but then i would). and i'm not usually one to rate consistent albums over albums with great singles - but fs/ls is just such a coherent statement that it makes justified seem even more singles-and-filler than it did at the time.
bearing in mind that i also think erotica is, like, madonna's PINNACLE (and by extension pop music in general's pinnacle), we may have to put this down to never-the-twain-shall-meet differing tastes.
― The Lex (The Lex), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 10:33 (seventeen years ago) link
Do you really not like "Rock Your Body" so much?
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 10:43 (seventeen years ago) link
both erotica and fs/ls are cumulatively dark rather than song-by-song dark (though erotica much much more so, in that 'in this life' and 'bad girl' are much more staring-into-the-void than anything justin tries to do, and erotica explicitly deals with death as well as sex - justin's crack song, as good as it is, is not quite so bleak). but yeah, the darker moments somehow infect the less overt songs and make them dark by proxy.
the most successful dark moment on fs/ls is the '...comes around' coda! i'm not so keen on 'what goes around' because i feel it does absolutely nothing to build on the template already perfected by 'cry me a river' and 'nowhere', but the coda just sounds so...vitriolic and vengeful, and totally makes the song.
― The Lex (The Lex), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 10:52 (seventeen years ago) link
Tim's comparison's good, but I heart Erotica and _hate_ FS/LS.
― edward o (edwardo), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 11:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Lex (The Lex), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 11:10 (seventeen years ago) link
"My Love" is OK. But then again, I only really liked "Rock Your Body" off the first one because it was such a joyous ray of technicolour exuberance. But at least Justified had actual SONGS ON IT.
― edward o (edwardo), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 11:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Lex (The Lex), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 11:38 (seventeen years ago) link
Why are you trying to reason with me on this? My JT hate is well documented and rather irrational.
― edward o (edwardo), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 12:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Lex (The Lex), Wednesday, 8 November 2006 15:28 (seventeen years ago) link
I've only heard three tracks from the Timberlake - this won't stop me from jumping into this convo when I get the chance, but I have a lot to do in the next five days. Haven't even done my song of the day yet. It'll probably be JoJo's "This Time," prod. by Scott Storch, may be even better than Brooke's "About Us" and Paris's "Jealousy" and Storch's two big Chris Brown hits. Almost up there with "Baby Boy." Very minimal when it comes to songishness: beats, chanting, talking, sweet keyb plinks, orchestral hums, quick doubled-up harmony voices inserted as beats, microseconds at a time.
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 9 November 2006 20:11 (seventeen years ago) link
Anyway, there's this one with before/after-surgery Ashlee pics along with surprisingly sober assesments from plastic surgeons.
Her chin is partially gone, along with the bump in her nose. She's plumping her lips with, one assumes, collagen and has had her brows lifted. She's 23 and getting Botox.
Right now, she basically looks like nobody, an anony-bot Maxim-ready girl thing. But that's right now--at this rate, she's a couple surgeries away from Jackson-ville.
Rarely has 'prettiness' been so eerie.
― Grey, Ian (IanBrooklyn), Thursday, 9 November 2006 22:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 9 November 2006 23:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 9 November 2006 23:39 (seventeen years ago) link
OK Mark, now that you're here, what do you think of Aly & A.J.?
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 10 November 2006 00:42 (seventeen years ago) link
One track I do like a fair bit is "Like That" - it has a hook like a playground chant. It's sweet. The retro stylings (a la Disc 2 of the Xtina album) in her two co-writes are also at least interesting.
Incidentally, UK edition has a different running order to the US one, as well as the usual bonus tracks. One of these is "Leave (Get Out)"! The fact that the presence of "Leave" is prominently mentioned on a sticker on the CD cover suggests Universal don't have much confidence in the new material.
― Jeff W (zebedee), Friday, 10 November 2006 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 10 November 2006 14:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 11 November 2006 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link