How good is 'American Boy' by Estelle?

I should add "Driter" in too when I say "Sensual Seduction".

at least we can all agree that everything mentioned in this thread is better than 'american boy'

woah @ this dro song, damn.

I'm going to have to hear the Rick Ross album now, too.

yea I think the confusion is that Miami blew up as a RAP crew ie: Khaled tracks

but there is also something else going on that may or may not be influencing that rap crew

where does "i'm so hood" fit in? "the boss"? "we takin over"?

except for "Love in This Club" : D : D : D

oops, wrong quote.

one mo gain

at least we can all agree that everything mentioned in this thread is better than 'american boy'

-- J0rdan S., Friday, March 28, 2008 2:06 PM (Friday, March 28, 2008 2:06 PM) Bookmark Link

except for "Love in This Club" : D : D : D

drove around LA all last week with nothing but Trilla, a Johnny Thunders comp and citizen Steely Dan disc 4...Trilla got some serious burn

HELLA snowing

yeah trilla is gonna be rap album of the summer for me

oh wau "All That Money". Seems the beat is probably more Miami Bass than anything else we've been talking about.

I guess there's some of that in the "Drifter"-through-"I'm So High" strain.

if dro releases "all that money" as a single its going top 10

I would politely disagree with that, but I'll be hoping you're right cuz dro is my ninja

yeah its wishful thinking but it should be number one summer jam imo, and he has name recognition at least

have you guys heard the "touch my body" remix with ross and the-dream? it's massive.

StayGDUp109 (5 days ago) +10 Reply | Spam
u shoulda put a pic of mariah carey not rick ross fat ass lol

I'm kinda tempted to agree with whoever said the trance influence is > than the snap/crunk in R&B upthread even if those two are on the remix, because I have no been feeling this Mariah song....is it a club song?? I don't get it...

dl'ing the remix now though

walruses are hawt

ok crazy trance synths on this but with a weird snap-ish beat...definitely hadn't given this a proper listen

'touch my body' is probably my favorite single of the year

mine too

xps: It's not that snap&b is bad, but that "Touch My Body" isn't exactly a shining standard for it.

taking sides: snap&b vs. trancecrunk

or we could just talk about Estelle "American Boy"

lol we totally derailed this thread.

rolling "Miami sound"

cassie - thirsty

BW: as if the Brits hadn't already completely derailed it.

true.

cassie - thirsty

-- The Brainwasher, Friday, March 28, 2008 4:29 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

somebody send a smoke signal tape store's way

That Cassie song is quite alright.

xp:hahaha

cassie herself is quite alright....

^^^ENLIGHTENING^^^

I do have to lol at Kanye using Briticisms.

round here we say birds, not bitches.

ok anyway to drag this back on topic, here's some even more stupid bullshit:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rupa_huq/2008/03/paint_it_black.html

Then further back in pop time there was the Stock Aitken and Waterman teaboy Rick Astley who legend had it was discovered singing along whil doing the dishes at the record company. Initial releases by him were distributed on mysterious white label 12-inch singles (this was the 1980s). Consequently, he was thought to be an implicitly black philly crooner. When it emerged that he was actually a pasty-faced whiteboy from Warrington, his cred factor plummeted although he still sold well. The incident begs the question, would "safe" Rick Astley have been signed to the SAWmill as singing act, or teaboy even, if he'd have been a different colour? The argument propagated by Estelle suggests that there are double standards at work.

what the fuck is he trying to say about rick astley here? i'm totally at a loss. the accusation that SAW are so racist they wouldn't even employ a black person as a teaboy is presumably actionable.

the last paragraph is really badly worded in terms of making a case -- it uses daily mail language -- "ethnic minorities need only apply" -- to try to make an anti-racist case. and of course it overlooks class.

Wow!!!
This trucker is gonna have hits.
Never heard him but no doubt will.

What are the drums like? Snare hopefully not a soggy peach?

Does it do any sweep picking?

That Astley/SAW piece is pretty silly on a number of levels. One is that SAW worked with a number of black artists, eg Princess, so clearly the answer is yes they probably would have signed Astley if he was a different colour. Two, Astley wasn't 'pasty-faced'. He was reasonably good looking and marketable as a pop star.

It is true, I think, that the initial promo pressing of 'Never Gonna Give You Up' was disguised to appear as if it was an American import, but I think SAW just wanted to encourage the people on the soul scene into thinking it was a proper black American record so it would build up the buzz on the track. It was just stage one in a marketing campaign aimed at getting the record into the charts.

It's funny because Astley doesn't sound black - in the same way that Michael McDonald doesn't sound black. They are white singers singing in a black idiom, but subtleties in their delivery and the tonality of their voices make it apparent they are white. Nor does the record sound particularly American. It's a good record which, although it has some similarities with the style of Colonel Abrams' 'Trapped', nevertheless sounds very SAW.

"Rick Astley, great stuff, I just bought it on my way here. You heard it?"

"Never. I mean, I don't really like singers."

"Not a big music fan, huh ?"

"No, I like music. Just he's... Rick's's too... black sounding for me."

The Rupa Huq piece is bollocks through and through but I'm going to give the Enrique attack dog the benefit of the doubt that he didn't just assume that piece was written by a bloke.

(Meanwhile thank you The Reverend for making the post upthread that I was too restrained to make).

no prob, bro

this thread is so beautiful...I never even saw any of that Brit race stuff until just now wtf

also lol @ banriquit "dragging this thread back on topic" and talking about some totally unrelated shit

The answer to the thread title is... THAT GOOD

man shut the fuck up "preview of the matrix 12"

-- and what, Saturday, 29 March 2008 00:09 (1 hour ago)

It's funny because Astley doesn't sound black - in the same way that Michael McDonald doesn't sound black. They are white singers singing in a black idiom, but subtleties in their delivery and the tonality of their voices make it apparent they are white.

i figured Astley was black when i first heard the song on the radio. like i said above some people out there probably make the same assumption when they hear 'Mercy' and even 'Chasing Pavements' (tho it may be harder these days to hear such artists before you see them).

Nor does the record sound particularly American.

disagree here too! it seemed pretty obvious what SAW were trying to do but i thought they pulled it off well - it may be harder to see that with so much hindsight. let's not forget they fooled a hell of a lot of people with 'Roadblack' too (big support from soul boy purists and the like, oblivious to who was behind it - but that wasn't a colour issue, just a credibility one - there was a difference).

Roadblack

worst freudian slip ever?

lol

i figured Astley was black when i first heard the song on the radio

i was six or seven when it came out -- i honestly don't think this kind of think was part of the way i thought about music. i don't think i had an opinion one way or another, and obviously i had no sense of 'credibility' at that time.

i agree with dubmill that astley was not in any way "trying to sound to sound black", and with the implication that to think about music that way, as huq does, is usually stoopid geirthink. how does it apply to the massive number of bands influenced by dub reggae?

'never gonna give you up' sounds like what it is rly. as does the (significantly worse) 'chasing pavements'.

tbh i think there is a lot of racism in britain -- though not so much of the hyperbolic, psychotic kind brought up in lex's article -- but the state of the charts is one of the last places i'd look for evidence of it.

big support from soul boy purists and the like

Yes, but cloth-eared ones in my opinion. Similarly I will always remember Robbie Vincent raving about Galaxy's 'Dancing Tight' in 1983, saying what a marvellous antidote it was to all the drum machines and synthesizers that were taking over soul music (whereas 'Dancing Tight' is in fact drum machine and synth all the way).

'Never Gonna Give You Up' is a great record but I still maintain it doesn't sound particularly American. That's not hindsight because I remember hearing it on the radio at the time and thinking the same thing. The verse is fine but when it goes into the chorus it's pure jaunty SAW pop (something about the chord progression, perhaps?).

With regard to 'Roadblock', I've actually forgotten what SAW wanted people to think it was. Was it supposed to be a rare groove or the work of American funkers of the time? Either way it's a record I've never liked.