HAPPY PEOPLE COME AND POLL IN THE NAME OF LOVE — R. Kelly artist poll

Rank your TOP 25 TRACKS and TOP 5 ALBUMS and send your ballots to popthelevels at gmail dot com. Ballots due Friday Nov 8

-All collaborations that feature Kellz in a prominent vocal roll (not just a sample) are eligible for the tracks poll (Hotel, Go Getta, Street Dreams remix, etc).
-Jay Z collabo albums are eligible for the albums poll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Kelly_discography\

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http://rarerborealis.com/wordpressblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/RKellsinthekitchen.gif
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view6/2859890/usher-ft-r-kelly-same-girl-o.gif
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DJP welcome, obv

Use this thread to hype up slept-on tracks/albums etc.

Kellz' acting in the Same Girl video is so great

alriiiiiight!

can i request that you count originals and remixes separately, and ask voters to specify which version when voting for songs with remixes? R.'s remixes are always such a distinct entity from the original song.

Yeah def

I dont see nothing wrong, with a little bump

Down Low is my fav music vid ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXdu3pwT4ps

oh man, fuck fuck fuck

just to be clear, songs that kells wrote but did not perform prominently in are ineligible?

Yeah so production-credited songs are a no go unless he lent some vocals. If its questionable just link it here and we can all decide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgyZ0kklvw0
^ lots of make out sessions to this song in high school

very excited to dive into making my ballot for this. made a playlist of R. deep cuts over the summer: http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2013/07/deep-album-cuts-vol-10-r-kelly.html

Ah man, awesome list! I'm gonna devote some more time to this next week. Gonna be hard deciding which singles to keep in my ballot. Like JayZ, I think I prefer album cuts but it will be fun to go back through and see what sticks again.

What are we to do with Trapped In The Closet? I hadn't heard it before; got through chapters 1-5 earlier on the headphones, with a massive grin all over my face as I walked round the shops.

I'm tempted to fill the ballot with it tbh. Then again, it's clearly its own thing separate from all the others.

Lol I've never listened to those.

if you're gonna be a dork and vote for those i'd say make 1-5, 6-10 etc each one song

i kinda feel like "Trapped" is such a depressing lost cause at this point that it doesn't matter who votes for it or in what form. whichever way hurts its placing the most i guess.

Im fine with leaving it out all together

My wife had arranged for an estate agent to take a quick look round out house yesterday, so I stayed home to let the agent in. I was busying about with Double Up on in the background and when the doorbell rang I turned the music way down like I normally would, thinking no more of it. Only the agent who arrived turned out to be an attractive young trainee, and of course suddenly all I could hear really clearly was Kells taking us through Sweet Tooth, Havin' A Baby and Sex Planet.

I've never felt so sleazy in all my life, I didn't even have the good luck to be at one of his Christian songs instead.

lol awesome

Double Up is really my favorite of the last few albums, "Hook It Up" is so fantastic.

It's dispiriting to reach the later albums and find him mired in autotune and sub-Timbaland beats. Something like Exit from Untitled would be excellent, but the effects are so distracting. He has such a lush signature sound, there's so much he could do with band arrangements, and it's not like he needs autotune at all.

well, he didn't really start with AutoTune until just after Double Up (with the "Same Girl" remix), and the last 2 albums were kinda retro throwbacks, so Untitled is only one with really heavy AutoTune. i don't think he's had a really consistent album in a while but i think there's always gems. his production has always been kinda chameleonic and of its time, what we probably most think of as 'his' sound was the spanish guitar thing that the Trackmasters did with him a lot in the early 2000s.

Love Letter wasn't consistent?

It was certainly cohesive, but for me nah I didn't feel like it jammed from front to back

some dude otm

I liked Love Letter a lot but I only go back to a handful of tracks now, and maybe one or two of those are top tier in his catalog.

will anyone else have A Love Letter Christmas very high up in their list?

Really looking forward to the results of this poll as I'm not familiar enough with his full catalogue to vote although have a few favourites from what I've heard - the Nivea and Sparkle duets and Three Way Conversation, for instance. I think the first two are noted ILM favourites but no idea about 3WC.

Of course you're qualified, I'm just discovering most of this stuff too.

I was primed for Three Way Conversation to be terrible - seems like exactly the scenario Rob would go too far on - but it's actually pretty great.

The zoooooo

Like Jurassic Park except I'm your sex-a-saurus baby

only 25 tracks, INCLUDING guest spots? this is gonna be tough

Prob won't make my Top 25 but glad sd brought up "Hook It Up" - I kinda failed to appreciate it following "The Zoo" into "I'm A Flirt" into "Same Girl" into "Real Talk"

going to finally check out the post-Double Up albums for this poll (the singles never did anything for me) though at 25 it's pretty unlikely something's going to blow me away

it's a shame the 3rd single off Double Up was the Kid Rock collaboration, so many other songs that could've been actual hits xp

Cavs jerseys really are nice. Wish LBJ had those during his time there.

lol wtf wrong thread on that last comment.

Anyway bummmmp and also here to extend this until next Friday the 15th cos I need the time.

and after the poll is the after-poll

Damn I just saw this thread. Still wanna big up this one:

(skip to 1:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4J16UhY5qk

not as bad as "Hair Braider" but the abortive singles for Twelve Play: Fourth Quarter were a nadir imo

20th anniversary of 12 Play's release today btw

Ha that's awesome. My band is called Archaeli and we have a show tonight. We'll have to pay some tribute.

Perfect timing.

Ahab are you gonna do a ballot?

I was ready turn in a "25 great songs, square and true" that was low on collabs and off-album remixes, but with the extra week I might slip some of that stuff in

xp spottie yeah i will but it'll be tomorrow sorry. gotta practice all day.

No worries! By next Friday is the new deadline.

ballot sent (by me)

Got it!

I love the opening of 3-Way Phone Call:

- how you doin'?
- fine. What's going on with you?
- oh, nothing much

As it turns out it's all perfectly in character, but the first few times I was cracking up, thinking it was absurd verisimilitude. I see now why in the movies they always hang up without saying goodbye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug3NNWvt5IA

reminder for Friday ballots (will accept up through Saturday at midnight so I have a day to compile for monday kickoff)

Big fan of Love Rehab even tho its kinda just a lightweight 'I Wish'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHEiXpe9gIQ

I'm in love with "Sweet Tooth" atm

Alfred are you planning on doing a ballot? dooooooo it

and yeah sweet tooth is great. always a sucker for that 112 'cupid' water drop noise.

I probably am but nervous because I don't own a couple of the early 2000s albums.

don't even sweat it! I got one ballot sent to me with only five songs so you'll be fine. I had a couple gaps too. Could be wrong but I don't think there are as many like dyed in the wool Kellz super album cut fans on here as other artists.

oddly enough i realized lots of my fav kells is from the loveland tracks just because they coincided with the point in my life where i was living in chicago and building out an mp3 collection so they ended up in heavy rotation and only now do i remember they're relative obscurities.

also i don't think the full trapped in the closet counts as an album b/c it just saw an official dvd release afaik?

yeah I'm all about just not including any of it at all in this poll

No idea what counts as a deep cut and what doesn't, outside the super-obvious hits, but this guy's catalogue is so strong I'm picking up contenders all through everything. I've been so impressed doing this.

Can I quickly intrude and ask if the whole Happy People/U Saved Me record is worth hearing in full if you love both title tracks?

I listened to it for the first time pretty recently and found it to be a slog personally

I can't tell you how often I outright forget it exists and think of TP3 as the follow-up to Chocolate Factory

I think it is. It's quite unlike his other stuff in mood, and is I presume where any Marvin Gaye comparisons come from - its not very nasty but I like it. Can get that it might come across as a bit bland taken as a whole though.

the first half just feels like Step In The Name Of Love on repeat.

recently remembered how much i love this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ASAwyH-uw

thats a sleeper. some good lines in there

holy shit "be my #2" is amazing, thank you based ship deep cuts playlist

somehow whittled it down to 25 tracks but fuck if i know how to rank this out

Can I quickly intrude and ask if the whole Happy People/U Saved Me record is worth hearing in full if you love both title tracks?

i'm definitely voting for "Red Carpet (Pause, Flash)"

ugh, finally got to the point where dropping the current #25 for a song i'd forgot HURTS

decided to exclude any guest verses cuz it's already hard enough - sorry, sparkle

in another man's hands this type of song could come across as seeming callous, but there's a kind of unalloyed, heartfelt sincerity that R delivers here that sort of kills me. strange sort of pathos in some of the lines ("don't know what's on my mind"). one of my favorites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXBRV6K6quA

put on some clothes and let's go to the ihop baby

lol Spottie, good looking out

hope y'all enjoy this, I will respectfully recuse myself

lol was wondering if you'd make a cameo in here :)

kyen otm Im def voting kkn it w ur gf

going through Ships list again and whole thing is gold.

Kellz has I think four quality tracks w Twista

'Step in the Name of Love (remix)' is one of my favourite songs ever, if only for how big the grin on my face is every time I hear the 'cos it feels so good dancing to this remix' line...pure, pure joy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJn_6HAIVTc

just for the record i'd like to point out that "not feelin' the love" is literally perfect

BALLOTS DUE TODAY EVERYONE

(I will accept them until Saturday night tho) rollout planning to start Monday.

ballot submitted

submitted!

got em both

the affection for "Be My #2" and "Not Feelin' The Love" and "Hit It Til The Mornin" itt so beautiful to see

Submitted! that was fun

Voted!

sent!

Got em. About 12 more hours to get ballots in.

gonna send a second ballot that has more than 5 songs; didn't think I'd have time to think about this but I wanted to make sure I got something in; but things done changed

man "Religious Love" is such a jam, g funk line + synth washes + Kells praying
think I like his ballads more than his singles, wonder how that's gonna come out in these results

was fun remembering how sweet his 2007 Usher collaboration was.

"Same Girl" is fantastic. the remix is hilarious too:

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

Ah that's great. He is so damn talented.

another slept on remix, for "Feelin' On Yo Booty," which was 100% the blueprint for the "Ignition" remix:

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

great remix, great song!

that "get yer ass in this tuuuuub" didn't make my top 25 is a big reason i'm bummed the ballot wasn't for 30 if not 40

sorry groupier!

I kinda planned on having a low poll turnout and 25 tracks is less daunting for the fence sitters.

Booty remix is awesome, never heard that. His yodeling booo o oo oty is just perfect.

sent in a hasty ballot, very few deep cuts, wish i spent more time on it

cool! appreciated

alright, I started compiling last night and won't be able to wrap up tip later today so if anyone else wants to throw a ballot together real quick THERE'S STILL TIME for you (calling jordan)/. I'll give it 5 more hours til I cut it off.

*til

POLL IN THE KITCHEN, OVER BY THE STOVE — R. Kelly artist poll RESULTS