Katy B - On A Mission (4 April 2011) - hype, anticipation &c

Katy B isn't really very "stadium" though, the last thing I want is a load of singers fronting awful sub-Chase & Status type productions.

but the only guy who seems to be consistently good at making songs is geeneus. benga and skream seem a bit hit and miss (still dont like on a mission thaaaaat much). if theyre gonna be some sort of hit factory theyre only gonna be as good as the talent theyre producing. cos katy b is the one who can write songs it seems, not that lot.

cos katy b is the one who can write songs it seems, not that lot

yes, so glad someone said this - imo automatically going producer-centric is entirely the wrong way to be assessing katy b (also any attempt to make her a genre figurehead)

well its obv isnt it. those guys still cant write songs. just listen to that awful magnetic man album!

and not being producer centric i think is a good idea. that sort of thinking is what leads to so many american R&B duds.

i think it goes against what i think the important thing about katy b is, this sense that she's not going to get bogged down in genre wars or boundaries - whenever she's been asked about "dubstep" or "funky" or whatever she's consistently answered that she doesn't want to represent those genres, and her thing is rather versatility over any sort of beat, from house to r&b.

right, which is good for her in the long run, she wont be tied to any one scene or genre. in a few years she will therefore be able to make big fat ballads without much duress.

it's also the total opposite perspective of the nerd boy debate that's often bogged down these scenes.

OTM. This is what I like about her (even though I think the album's solid rather than great).

ive a feeling the album will be just average, if only cos they want to make her a pop star in 2011, so are therefore inhibited from really doing anything too different.

I don't see the logic in that. They obviously won't do anything 'too different' from her hit singles, but the singles are her sound and what's good about her, if you like her.

I do love this girl but it makes me feel sad for Kyla.

i really fancy her too

producer vs singer/act is always a tension in this stuff

e.g. I totally adore Mis-Teeq's R&B work whereas ultimately their amazing early UKG remixes were more about the remixers than the girls (the only real exception being Alicia's amazing work on the "B With Me" remix) - i.e. to some extent the music "working" as UKG was inversely proportionate to it feeling like the product of a coherent girl group.

Though maybe that tension was exagerrated in UKG (vis a vis uk funky or dubstep or house or etc) because the tempo always necessitated speeding up the vocals.

To be clear though it never bothered me that Mis-Teeq moved away from their roots as they were excellent R&B divas too, and I actually prefer their second album over their first (though that is ace also).

I do love this girl but it makes me feel sad for Kyla.

ny is the one that really should be attaining equal or greater success - such a good songwriter

ny was/is great. though i dont know much else apart from fallin (which was amazing). but id rather katy b than miss fire. no idea what all the web fuss over her is about. sounds like amateur hour.

kyla obv has a lovely voice but apart from do you mind i sense shes only as good as whoever shes working with.

Been listening to this a bit more. The lyrics are really straightforward and kind of charming, a bit like Mike Skinner or Lily Allen, but without the hard manning of either. She comes across rather sweet on the few tracks I listend to on the way into work this morning.

I also really liked the original of Addictive's "Domino Effect", those poor girls never really stood a chance though.

Does the album have a Weak Become Heroes-style consciously euphoric-communal moment? Feels like it should have one.

No, but it does have a long list of thank yous at the end of the last track, which is quite endearing even though I never want to hear again.

xpost
Haha, I'm yet to delve that deep. But there is a song about getting chatted up in a bar followed by a fairly reasonable shopping list detailing what she looks for in a lad.

xpost endearing was the word I was looking for, thanks DL.

(PS I sometimes think your posts are my posts and it gets kinda confuse)

Oh damn, I didn't think about that when I picked a new display name.

But there is a song about getting chatted up in a bar followed by a fairly reasonable shopping list detailing what she looks for in a lad.

starting to sound like the street/danceable kate nash ppl on here were talking about last year.

If kate nash wasn't so risible people would make that comparison much more than they do.

still need to hear this album

(PS I sometimes think your posts are my posts and it gets kinda confuse)

lol

(took me a couple of days after DL's name change to figure out why he didn't sound like dog latin)

who is DL originally btw? I can never keep track of name changes on here. Even that thread supposedly explaining them all is like a labyrinth.

I was Dorianlynskey and then I got increasingly tired of seeing my real name on screen but have never been one for online aliases so I went for the prosaic and (ha) unconfusing DL.

i didnt know it was you.

Really? I forgot to apply my new password to my laptop so I think there are some threads where I'm commenting first as DL, then as my real name, and then as DL again. Internet anonymity is wasted on me.

xposts ah right, it all makes sense now :-)

I've been wanting to ditch the "dog latin" name for ages now. It's a handle I threw together when I first started using the Warp Records messageboard back in 1999 and it just stuck with me. I still use it when I DJ, yet it's one of the uncoolest DJ names I can possibly think of.

why is there a song tagged "witches brew" on the katy b album. seriously. is that a brew made up of witches? is it a brew belonging to witches, plural, in which case where is the apostrophe? is it a brew belonging to one witch? if so that grammatical disaster may cause me to go on a rampage. THIS IS THE KIND OF THING THAT BOTHERS ME.

The witches are brewing, it's a verb.

Also yeah Miles Davis.

hang on i never noticed that about the miles davis album before - it IS meant to be "brew" as in a verb there, right? or a brew made up of bitches? right? right?

i don't think i can cope otherwise

i dont think he was saying bitches like to heat things up from time to time. its meant to be bitches' brew.

you should prob stay away from urban music. rap esp. you might hurt yourself.

i dont think he was saying bitches like to heat things up from time to time. its meant to be bitches' brew.

whyyyyyyyyy has this been permitted to happen, why in nearly half a century did no one think to step in and quietly add the necessary apostrophe???

an apostrophe would look unsightly.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Xl5E86Y3L.jpg

i hate the world

Lex I really liked your FACT review of the album - struck the right tone between setting Katy up as standing for a concept in dance/pop music and but also letting her just stand for and as herself (though maybe this is tautological insofar as the latter is also exactly what she stands for).

thanks!

it really struck me as i was relistening to the album - which is vv good indeed, and gets even better on repeated listenings, though i think the lightness (and housiness) of the beats has thrown a few people - how singular a figure in pop katy b is. i feel like i go on about this a lot - the best way to essay an underground/mainstream crossover, or to erode the boundaries between them (which is what katy says she wants to do), or just to help underground ideas become part of mainstream pop, is with this kind of identifiable feminine frontperson - it's frustrating that british dance music has been written about in such a tediously blokey way for the past decade plus, given that its form is so conducive to this.

anyway my favourite non-singles here are "power on me", "witches' brew" (it has the apostrophe on the actual cover SO RELIEVED), "easy please me" and "hard to get" - can't believe they've actually done the hidden track thing in the itunes age though smh (it's really good though)

'Easy Please Me' is the most interesting track on here as far as I can tell. On one hand it's kind of a Lily Allen/Streets-style diary entry about a night out - a device she doesn't tend to rely on too heavily on other tracks - but it also says the most about Katy B as a person.

The album might inhabit a twilit world of clubs and bars, but I couldn't imagine Katy stumbling out of Funky Buddha, flashing her bits at the paparazzi before stumbling into a cab with a premiership footballer. That's not her style, she's much more guarded and self-aware than that, coming off all the better for it in the process. No wonder she seems to get approached so often - she's a popstar with humility, the kind of girl you'd happily take home to your mum for tea and then go raving with all night.

So while she's out to have a good time, she's very much aware of the people around her. She has a kind of passiveness in wanting to please others but really wishes to find the one true person she can help to please. But until then she's politely fending off suitors, with maybe the odd polite flirtation here and there. And this is reflected in the way she approaches her music - not tying herself to any particular genre yet still embracing each one in the same genuine and endearing way. She's as comfortable with the underground as with the mainstream, like so many mumsy teatimes and all night raves.

And don't you just love the internal rhyme of "I was at a bar with my friend Olivia"? Also love those dubby synth sounds that come in during the chorus.

Yeah Lex, I just read your review. Really nice!