Terius "The-Dream" Nash Solo Albums + Major Writing/Production Credits (Electrik Red, Mariah Carey, Ciara)

how to be a lady [10] > love vs money [10] > memoirs [9] > love/hate [9] = basic instinct [9] > love king [8]

from this thread memoirs is obv the most underrated

i also would not be surprised if basic instinct ended up higher than love/hate for me, though possibly i'm reacting to the recent "OBVIOUSLY love/hate is the best terius album DON'T WE ALL AGREE" line i've been seeing a lot of recently

scratch one recent

Agreed... it's obviously not

*rolls eyes* - that's been the dominant non-pfork crowd consensus since day 1

seriously dogg basic instinct over l/h is an instant sb

that's been the dominant non-pfork crowd consensus since day 1

lolwut, it's consensus according to a handful of people here, two of whom are pfork writers

yeah i meant to say "ilx" but point still stands

yeah well i am not part of that consensus

i'm aware of that; i was pointing out that calling the trend of considering l/h to be his best work "recent" seemed false, that's all

It's a strong tie between Love King and How To Be A Lady Vol. 1.

With repeated side-by-side listens of both albums, I've noticed that an awful lot of the songs on Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel seem to lift the backing tracks and melodies from songs on Love/Hate.

so far as far as favorite of his solo albums, I'm giving the slight nod to Love vs. Money, just due to the sweeping epic nature of it. must be my metal background but I tend to always pick those as the favorite.

all amazing though.

Hmmm... no love for Nivea - Animalistic which is the first all produced The-Dream album before his debut. But then again he was still finding his sound and it leaned towards crunk a little.

i thought about this, but didn't terius just do production on this, mostly? I was going for stuff where he also handled a fair chunk of the songwriting

my ranking looks something like--

Love King = Love Vs Money >>> Love/Hate = Basic Instinct = How to Be a Lady >>>>> Memoirs

sorry lex

first two are interchangeable for #1 depending on day/mood/etc.

Fuck yeah xp ilxor. I am completely with you. Love hate is great no doubt but the latter two give me much more pleasure at karaoke.

L/H = HtBaL > LvM > Memoirs = LK > BI

How To Be A Lady > Love/Hate > Love King > Basic Instinct > Love vs Money > Memoirs

food for thought, here's how these albums rank in sales:
1. Love/Hate
2. Mariah
3. Love Vs. Money
4. Love King
5. Ciara
6. Electrik Red

Genuinely surprised by that, thought even an underperforming Mariah album would blow all of these away sales-wise.

This has probably been discussed many times over, but Soundscan numbers on R&B and rap albums have always seemed especially iffy to me. It's been over ten years since I worked in retail or distribution, so maybe the situation is significantly different now. Then (and I'm guessing now), lots of mom and pop stores and small chains weren't on Soundscan. Soundscan attempted to provide "balance" by weighting sales at stores that did have Soundscan. Some stores were weighted up to 10. (Guess which stores were treated nicer by labels and distributors.) So, one copy of the self-titled Aaliyah album at Super-Weighted Retailer would count as ten copies sold, while sales at 10-12 (maybe) non-Soundscan stores weren't reported.

Memoirs was Mariah's lowest selling album ever, and it went gold, because, well, she's a superstar. Love/Hate was The-Dream's biggest album and it sold just a lil more than Memoirs.

I don't see any reason not to trust SoundScan numbers these days, it's more a question of how much is being consumed and listened to that isn't obtained through any retail channels.

xpost

One store where I worked was not a Soundscan store. We had a midnight sale for R., Aquemini, The Love Movement, Hard Knock Life, Black Star, Foundation. The store across the street, if I recall correctly, was either double- or- triple-weighted and was more of a rock store. (The kind of store where you ask them the price of the new KRS-One and the person on the phone asks you how to spell it.) They also had a midnight sale and likely sold around a dozen copies of Deserter's Songs or Soul Coughing or whatever, while we did several thousand dollars of business, primarily through those big rap and R&B albums. That's one example of how the figures can be out of whack.

(The KRS-One thing actually happened, btw.)

it's more a question of how much is being consumed and listened to that isn't obtained through any retail channels.

Definitely agree with that, but Soundscan, ehhh... *shrug*

yeah i mean i'm sure there are some interesting sales figure distortions, but aside from anecdotal evidence like that it's hard to even guess what the 'real' figures would be, and i have no idea what effect it would have on The-Dream's sales vs. Mariah's

All sales figures should be determined by Slim Thug.

ThuggaScan

i've recently got back into 'memoirs' - it is def underrated

i actually can't choose a favourite sorry

love king

Non-snark question: are there any dudes or ladies apart from Andy who got into the-dream with the first album and also think Love King is best?

im sympathetic to that point of view & consider it as good /better than much of his other stuff, & more consistent than love vs money ... but l/h still reins supreme for me

om some days i might agree with that - i think all these albums are really really close in quality, the best moments on LK are as good or better as the best moments on L/H and LvM, and where LK actually falls into last place is how ordinary its worst moments are (in this regard i definitely don't agree that it's more consistent than LvM, which doesn't have a bad track on it - like my least favourite track on LvM is "rockin' that shit"! which i adore!)

L/H is not exactly consistent either (fucking "falsetto", and i don't care all that much about "luv songs" or "mama"), actually i'm certain that LvM is most consistent for me.

i could agree that LVM is most consistent, cuz i don't really care about "ditch that..." and i'm sort of love/hate (ha) with "i love your girl". love king, no

om some days i might agree with that - i think all these albums are really really close in quality, the best moments on LK are as good or better as the best moments on L/H and LvM, and where LK actually falls into last place is how ordinary its worst moments are (in this regard i definitely don't agree that it's more consistent than LvM, which doesn't have a bad track on it - like my least favourite track on LvM is "rockin' that shit"! which i adore!)

L/H is not exactly consistent either (fucking "falsetto", and i don't care all that much about "luv songs" or "mama"), actually i'm certain that LvM is most consistent for me.

― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 3:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha yeah see i disagree wildly w/ most of this obv -- rockin that shit >>> walking on the moon, my love, etc
and falsetto & luv songs are 2 of his best ever

def

All his albums are totally consistent, but LK doesn't have the peaks of the first two.

lol disagree

terius is the kind of dude where we all love him (or in al's case can at least admit he's written several songs he likes/loves) but i basically think you are all completely insane when it comes to what his best qualities/individual songs are. except tim f, feel like that dude knows whats up

well i'm generally with you ("Bed" aside) in thinking the Los shit is usually his best

"my love" is my favourite terius single!!

what i love about it and "walking on the moon" is how naturally terius's own twist on those particular single types seemed to come - perfect examples of the generic-but-distinct (sui generic!) commercial r&b song i love. their equivalents on LK are a bit rote. "falsetto" is just incredibly annoying, i don't actually enjoy terius's falsetto that much.

All his albums are totally consistent, but LK doesn't have the peaks of the first two.

YAMAHA

you did admit that "bed" was growing on you last time we talked about it tho iirc! but yes los >> tricky, at least when it comes to dream collabos

jordan s has also expressed this opinion

xxp

except tim f, feel like that dude knows whats up

― fruit of the goon (k3vin k.), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 3:54 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

ha but you explicitly disagree w/ some tim f positions here

YAMAHA

― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 1:58 PM Bookmark

"Fast Car" >

I find it difficult to remember the nuances of our different positions except those that have been crusaded most vociferously or consistently (deej thinks "Walking on the Moon" is the worst song ever; Lex is on some anti-L/H contrastannery etc.)

haha. i guess i dont think its the worst song ever -- its more that its so close to being the exact kind of dream song i like, but then it fails at this, which makes it feel like more of a disappointment than his best stuff

fwiw this explains why i love the kris menace/emil version (i may have said this upthread)

feels like more of a disappointment than his objectively WORST stuff, i mean

i dont like 'my love' cuz its just kinda boring to me, which feels less offensive

i'm listening to "my love" right now and it's just such an irresistible confection of a song, it makes me totally melt.

i always had an idea to poll dream + los vs dream + tricky

los has all the best joints on l/h
i'd give tricky the nod on lvm
lk is all terius pretty much tho so w/e

my order of Dream albums is LvM, LH, then LK.

really close between the first two but LVM starts hard, builds to a fever pitch, then cools out...feel like you takes you through the largest gambit of emotions. Love/Hate's not too far behind, just think the highs are slightly lesser.

i always had an idea to poll dream + los vs dream + tricky

los has all the best joints on l/h
i'd give tricky the nod on lvm
lk is all terius pretty much tho so w/e

― hard as a markers (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 7:47 PM (8 minutes ago)

ha i've had this idea too but thought i'd get some eyerolls, anyway yeah it's los for me by quite a bit. even though dream does most of LK by himself i feel like the standouts for me (like "FILA" in particular) are him basically doing a los impression so

and plus los has "turnt out" and "yamaha" too iirc

Weirdly though I've always felt that Nicole's definite anti-blandness tends to blaze out of PCD material more than on her solo stuff, usually.

But I am up for this album - obv the worst part of Terius' material these past few years has been, well, Terius.

bar those two early solo singles that never did anything, nicole's solo material has mostly just been inferior to her PCDs material

flicked thru this. quite weird. let's dial the first-impressions-ometer to.... hmm yes... unforgiving! so even taking the possibility of contractual obligation/tax scams into account still smacks of a surprisingly shoddy demo collection (had actually kinda hoped for all the milian elope cyborg superbitch bits retooled...)

the workable nascent direction suggested by 'your love' and 'electric blue' (clever terius, no one will ever suspect) is quickly left by the wayside, after that 'heartbreaker' stood out as a good fit.... 'god of war' should have been exactly the cliche dawn richard stomper ur heart desires but instead they somehow pull defeat from the jaws of victory with some inane "ur so annoying" lines

the um, eye-catching title track is i guess supposed to be a startlingly honest ★★★★☆ 'pretty hurts' type fake boo-hoo but coming at the end of this just seems like a thwarted album selfreview sigh

*sheds tear*

damn rtc in the cut that's a scary sight

rtc's review was what i was fearing but i'm happily surprised i like it a lot more than that, though the title track is a car crash and exactly as described. it's engagingly light and airy, i'm into la scherz duetting with a slowed-down, pitched-down version of herself

oh lol i did wonder who that was. innntersting

light and airy isn't incorrect i guess but without much to say or sell (even herself as star) i didnt see what there was to engage with other than perhaps the v curious anticlimactic insipidity in itself - for a putative new record deal and renounced media commitments comeback it's less self-effacing than self-abnegating. and really if nicole stans do exist (and i subscribe to the theory she isnt bland but cmon) is any of this what they might want to hear? even lewis hamilton won't shed a single extra follicle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN5IniOFCr0

still far and away the best look for her here imo

presumably randomly drawn out of a plastic bag of terius toni braxton demos but still

yeah i liked that one a lot

it certainly doesn't play to the strengths i imagined nicole had but idk i'm not getting the "this could be anyone" vibe that would completely kill it, and neither is it the kind of hodgepodge compromise so many other albums have been this year. i don't know if it's enough to stan for, it's only been one listen

yeah no it won't be stan v hate either way. i agree doesn't quite seem anonymous as such but nor am i entirely sure if that's not just solely because it doesn't bear (or bother to bear) the rictus of the despo modern age

Man, this song... <3

https://www.audiomack.com/song/3lxi/black-magic-1

love the chorus. sounds slightly demo-ish to me? like I feel like it could be easily improved a little

just discovered this recently, 2011 Terius/Tricky collab with a Warped Tour band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cB7_Wonxso

"Madness" was pretty raw tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEY0p0IWfnM

if yr still hating on (individual songs from) latter day the-dream youve gone too far imo

randomly my gf has really gotten into the dream lately and i've realized that these days i think lvm is superior to l/h. i used to not care about the "cohesiveness" or whatever but now from a safe distance the latter is just a much smoother, more pleasant listen

uh thats contradictory, i'm talking about lvm

Baby
I hope you save a little pizza for me

I don’t really “read” “music criticism” any more, but what is terius’s stature among those in the know these days? prompted by plying HTBAL on repeat for the past week or so… are the kids even aware of this era or do they just know him as the beyonce guy?