Rolling R&B Thread 2007

yes.

more importantly tho dudes, high heels or open toes?

compiling rnb shoe songs at 4am = it is so time i went to bed.

I am even more madly in love with Janelle Monae than before.

Megan Rochelle's "My Mistake" - so pretty.

"My Mistake" is absolutely gorgeous indeed. thanks for the tip!

not liking "High Heels" at all, but "Where Did He Go" was one of my favourite tunes of '06 so i'm still kinda hopeful wrt forthcoming Keri material.

i know this is not quite the thread to bring it up, but ILM in general is not the place to rave about poppy funky electro house anyway so what the hell - i'm enjoying Delio D'cruz's remix of Kelly R's "Like This" a lot at the moment. it's like Bodyrox feat. Kelly Rowland & Eve!

who ever remembers the "you could mean everything to me" kicker in the og

i always do! that's like the song's beating heart. i like the reggae mix but the original really has been soundtracking my life a lot recently.

i choose open toes!

woah janelle monae. i like the songs on her myspazz. her craziness could either go down the grace jones road (good) or the outkast road (bad)...

Member Since 26/12/2005
Band Website janellemonae.com
Influences Google, Apple, Itunes, and YouTube.
Sounds Like A runaway cyborg.

is ciara the best singles artist in R&B of the past 2 years or so? get up is so brilliant. one of my favourite singles this year. i prefer her singles to rihanna or ameries.

i love janelle monae (her song on idlewild was so good) but that song supposedly done with dre3000 is more of a rock song than an R&B one. not that i have a prob with that but id like her to do some great soul/r&b tracks.

has anyone heard of tiombe lockhart? i was never that big a fan of hers but her songs on wajeeds the war lp album are fucking IMMORTAL.

"i know this is not quite the thread to bring it up, but ILM in general is not the place to rave about poppy funky electro house anyway so what the hell - i'm enjoying Delio D'cruz's remix of Kelly R's "Like This" a lot at the moment. it's like Bodyrox feat. Kelly Rowland & Eve!"

I will track this down - ever since Faith Evans' "Mesmerised" it seems R&B mixes have dominated the quality end of poppy funky electro house.

One Chance's "Look At Her" features Bobby Valentino, Trey Songz and Lloyd, which makes it kinda like the pixelcloud-R&B (copyright rtc) equivalent of "All For One" or something. It's got the trademark amorphous puff-clouds of dreamy moondust in the background but it's a lot of ethereal smoothness in search of tune.

Actually, that's the remix, the original "Look At Her" was just One Chance with Fabo from D4L. It's one of those remixes that has barely any relation to the original song besides the title. It is pretty good, though, I didn't realize that those 3 singers have such distinct individual voices that I can listen to them all on a posse cut and tell the difference, and all their verses seem tailored to their strengths.

I'm completely scoffing at the notion that Ciara is "the best singles artist in R&B of the past 2 years or so." I came around to her with "Get Up" and "Promise" but I still think most of her songs are ass. Does anyone (besides The Lex) really want to defend "And I"?

Okay, so Bobby Valentino's "Rearview Ridin" is restoring my faith in pixeldust - painfully slow kicks and swirly fizzy keyboards, and Bobby in his most overwrought pose.

thank god he was able to restore your faith in the genre you just made up an hour ago.

"And I" is alright. Not her best single, but I can't see any reason to dislike it.

"thank god he was able to restore your faith in the genre you just made up an hour ago."

See rtc's post way upthread about "Anonymous".

But actually this genre started with "Slow Down", "Ur Behind" etc. a couple of years back.

And goes back even further if you count prototype examples like Janet's "Empty", Aaliyah's "It's Whatever", Mya's "It's All About Me", Ashanti's "Voodoo", Tweet's "Drunk". The best mix-cd I ever made was a collection of all this stuff.

goodies, get up, promise, 1-2 step... all modern R&B classics.

It's interesting how this hyper-lush sub-genre has become so predominant this year - but the only ones i've really loved from this year prior to "Rearview Ridin" are the Lloyd singles.

where can one hear these remixes you guys are talking about?

i agree that ciara is the greatest popstar of our times obv, and i think picking on her one half-assed ballad (which i didn't even realise was a single until now) is totally lame. i think of 'hotline' as the 4th big cut off goodies in any case, was really expecting that to be a single. the high end! not sure her marketing strategy over here for the evolution is all that though. titchy did you leave out 'promise' on purpose or have you not heard it?

also to hear that one chance remix, google "one chance" site:zshare.net. is d/lding for me as i type.

AAAANYWAY i came here to a) say that i have changed my mind on 'open toes' v 'high heels' - i think 'high heels' is potentially more interesting, it's just a crap mp3. the lyrics i half-heard make it sound like she's a prostitute complaing that her pimp is making her walk around in uncomfortable shoes. 'open toes' is a great song, really fun, and nice post-'promiscuous' production too - don't know anything about katharine mcphee but she doesn't exactly sell it. a/c to wikipedia it's a total bizarro collab anyway - danja handz AND kara dioguardi (of ashlee fame) AND the clutch?

AAAAANYWAY what i ACTUALLY came here to say is OMG LISTEN TO THIS: Tanya - I Know I Love You

probably should go in grime thread but who can be bothered really. the other songs on her profile are a lovely thing on the ever-gorgeous wifey riddim and uh a big evanescence-type goth piano ballad - but omg the big drums! and the twinkling synths! and the "huh-huh" backing vox! so pretty, i adore this.

(and it totally coincidentally fits into the hyper-lush pixeldust genre tim was talking about! meeting of minds &c)

If the question if whether someone is "the best singles artist in R&B of the past 2 years or so," then I think it's more relevent to bring up a dud single than a good album track that you simply imagined was a single. Anyway, I've liked almost everything Ciara's put out since her first album (except for "Lke A Boy" which seems like a surefire hit concept trapped inside a non-hit record), so if she keeps up the consistency maybe I'll be swayed.

I liked McPhee on American Idol but "Open Toes" doesn't seem to suit her at all. I'd kind of assumed it would be some breezy little confection but it's really lumbering and overbearing. Even worse than her single that sounded exactly like JoJo's "Too Little Too Late" with the chorus changed just enough to completely suck and barely function as a chorus.

Who would you say it is, Al? (Note: I don't necessarily think its Ciara and haven't really thought about this much, but she's as good an answer as anyone helse.)

'and i' was never a single in the uk.

it's a bizarre choice, if they wanted a slower single off goodies why not 'next to you'? that was gorgeous.

I dunno, Reverend. As much as I hate to say it, though, maybe Beyonce, if only because her last album had like 8 singles and I liked most of them. Or Ne-Yo? Or someone much less popular who's only had a couple singles in the past 2 years but were both very good, I guess.

al, i think simple statistics fall by the wayside when there's very creative, very individual game-changing (do not pull me up on gamechanging kthnxbye) classics out of the blue like 'goodies', 'oh' and 'promise' in the reckoning. beyonce sure does churn out the hits, but it feels kinda more about the wider rnb machine with her too - the hint of ciara's auteurism is what people are responding to here. *and having favourites is a part of pop music too, after all* ding ding bleh

(ooh see , that last line is almost teenpop-crit level condescension! and since i'm here and all-

Unlike Tim F, I don't think there will be anything "secretly" good about this whatsoever. Cindy Mayweather cannot fail, any more than an adorable android child could go crazy and try to cut mommy's hair while she's sleepi--uh oh. (MyTropolis)

-- dabug, Monday, May 21, 2007 10:01 PM (2 days ago)

SCREW YOU AND YOUR MEALY MOUTHED KOGANEERING DUDE)

(i love a good turfwar!)

anyhoo i don't think i can really endorse this brave new pixelpop genre i'm charged with creating; its curatorial desperation seems reynoldsian at best, frankly, and one finds little evidence to support it. more importantly there's no real cognitive pleasure in using it! cos most of the songs brought up sound to me like only the results of the most gentle and glacially natural of evolutions of various rnb trends spanning the last decade - the tim&bob fad was just the re-lukewarming of vague old timbaland easternisms, surely (proof positive is in the sheer second-rungness of the artists involved, because fake tim is and seemingly always will be the first refuge of the budding rnb scoundrel) - and it seems unremarkable to separate something so well woven in by now. no?

having said that, noting that more and more people expect FX to validate moaning n groaning and zero actual songwriting is fair game. it's pretty much my whole beef with bobby v.

also 'wreck' was cool, how comes that didnt make the cut

lol "koganeering"

kath mcphee has loads of danja beats on her album - 'love story' is the next single i think, and takes the unlikely form of a ronson-soul bosher for some reason. also i might be wrong but keri hilson is or has been part of this clutch lot?

frank fauxgan is also up 4 grabs deej

oh yeah and that meg rochell/r-les really is nice - see now, New Sweet Amateurism on the other hand is something i can get behind!

my decision regarding the raging toes/heels furore is as follows (as if i gave the slightest toss originally, but hey if i must be taken seriously) - OPEN TOES because i am less interested in keri's use of shoe as vector into relationship issues and more taken with kath's delightfully bland ruminations on the day to day of lady life:

I'm lovin' these sling-back shoes
I like the way they stay loose
I could wear them all day
And listen to the click-clack
Shoes like this make me hate flats.

no doubt!

Yeah, point taken about Ciara's auteurism and all (even if it generally translates to = bogging down her album with fucking monologues). My inner pedant is still very tempted to challenge the definition of "Goodies" as a "game-changing classic(s) out of the blue" though, shit sounded exactly like "Freek-A-Leek" which sounded exactly like "Yeah!" I have to give Ciara credit, I did not expect her to become a multi-platinum franchise on the back of Lil Jon's hit parade, and she definitely succeeded (commercially) where, say, Brooke Valentine and Nivea failed with similiar attempts. But that song was gonna happen with or without her. "Promise," on the other hand, yes, classic, and I hate "Oh" but it's unique enough that I'll give it a pass.

no yeah i do forget that i was fairly ambivalent to goodies at the time too (and still am really, cos i dont reckon ive heard it again since tbh) - maddeningly, stiflingly static in the same way as natasha's 'so sick' i guess, lex's manful extolling of which i still like to resist - but the way it totally purified what u rightly pointed to as its incremental forebearers in one fell swoop is kinda the essence of ciara's popstar/singles artist power.

in a way it's like the classic poptimist strategy of waiting for madonnna or whoever to neatly distill whatever trends are in the air in one go - except that largely ciara's trends in her singles are her own invented ones, like 'promise' and 'oh' (which i kinda love you for being nutty enough to hate), or ones she's laid full claim to herself like the '1,2 get up' thing. and there's the dancing too obv, which no one else is doing. so it all creates this clear, decisive brand that intoxicates people so.

blah blah.

so

- who will make a case for chris brown's single

- mario & neyo together again for 'how do i breathe' = am i suckered again, apparently so!

- also kinda love mario's 'kryptonite' w/ rich boy just for literally jacking all of 2007 in one mouthful

- am about to listen to carl thomas' album, i think it will be good! anyone heard tank's?

SCREW YOU AND YOUR MEALY MOUTHED KOGANEERING DUDE

No, Kogan is the Koganeer. I'm more of a Koganette.

Anyway, that wasn't condescending at all! I'm just excited about it and thought if I posted that here someone might tell me to fuck off. Which is what happened. Mostly I just think "Metropolis" is cool! Almost as good as "AI."

(And I know y'all aren't going to let the teenpop thread have that new Rihanna album...even tho it's probably closer to teenpop than R&B.)

(Don't mind me being idiotic...R&B and teenpop != mutually exclusive. Shouldn't really be much of a turf war!)

- mario & neyo together again for 'how do i breathe' = am i suckered again, apparently so!

Actually, apparently it's just Stargate but not Ne-Yo, Mario co-wrote the tune with some other cat I can't remember the name of. Baltimore radio's had the song since like the middle of last year, I guess cause he's from here and all, but it never seemed to take off, and once he started leaking other songs like "Kryptonite" and "Crying Out For Me" I figured he'd moved on from that song. So I was kinda surprised in the past few weeks to see that "How Do I Breathe" was going for adds and getting a video after all and I'm kinda reassessing. Still feels like a weak retread of "Let Me Love Youth" but it has its charms nonetheless. I kinda wish he'd go back to the exciteable uptempo vibe of "C'mon" and "Just A Friend 2002," though.

haha is 'let me love youth' some r kelly b-side i missed

lol

"He didn't really come with anything for me in the direction we were going in. We got that 'How Do I Breathe' song, which is more like the style of writing that you would hear from Ne-Yo," Mario told SOHH exclusively.

this guy doesnt just look retarded huh

ouch!

I went to the Scream Tour when it came here a few months ago, and Mario was billed to perform, but instead he came out at the beginning of the show to announce that he wouldn't be performing. Ever since then I've regarded him as an enigma.

i quite liked his brief artistic struggle trying to decide whether he should become 'mario barrett'!

also hold on, i've got this mario song here called "what is it gonna be" and nonwithstanding the obv stargate beat the opening line is

"i think prince might have said it best / when he said the beautiful ones, they hurt you every time"

and if that isnt neyo's corny-ass handiwork then i will eat every hat i've ever laid eyes on. oh well.

anyway yeah i had thought 'how do i breathe' only sounded familiar cos it's a total rip-off, but if theyve been holding it back then it's probly been timed just right nostalgia-wise. everything else i've heard apart from 'kryptonite' has been rubbish. especially the neptunes one where it seems like pharrell's trying to corrupt him like he did omarion on 'touch'.

"Touch" is the best thing Omarion's done.

Reading todays posts on this thread makes me realize I'm like a month behind everyone else.

Re: "Touch": All middle eight & pillow talk + cool progression = awesome

The fact that "Anonymous" has become a hit and "Wonder Woman" hasn't is fucking criminal.

I don't really think either is much of a hit yet, they both still seem to be climbing the charts. "Anonymous" is higher now but I've heard "Wonder Woman" a lot more, for some reason. I still can't get my head around "Wonder Woman," it seems like kind of a mess.

Agreed on "Touch," though. I despised it at first and then grew to love it.

Fantasia's "When I See U" might've just become my favorite R&B single of the year so far.

"having said that, noting that more and more people expect FX to validate moaning n groaning and zero actual songwriting is fair game. it's pretty much my whole beef with bobby v."

Yeah this is what I meant. What I like about "Rearview (riding)" is that it's the first Bobby song apart from the three big singles on the first album to do fx X songwriting properly.

rtc you're probably right about the desperation involved in championing this stuff. In my defence I've always loved this style even before it was a style as such. It's def. not a radical new thing.

Hmmm. "Anonymous" is getting quite a bit of airplay here, whereas I haven't heard "Wonder Woman" out at all. I think some of the messiness is what I like about it. There's a lot going on.