Rolling R&B Thread 2007

xp

Promiscuous #3
Maneater #1
All Good Things (Come to an End) #4

US

Promiscuous #1
Maneater #16
Say It Right #5

MEXICO

Promiscuous #8
Maneater #1
No Hay Igual #1

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MIx2u4vBL1Q

I remember reading something about them falling out but I'm not sure... I just assumed so.

xp

will do. what is the swizz album like? obv never released over here

Tweet's "Give It To Ya" is great

Uh, what?! Rihanna is a SHIT vocalist.

also if yr name is natasha please to use surname as well if u want to be a recording artiste

it's def the most richcraftian of darkchild's new look, but in this case that also means it shares in a lot of the predictableness of the doldrums richcraft's been in since amerie innit. i'm really really overexcited about the other stuff he's done in this vein though - 'deja vu' grew into something peerless while everyone wz busy getting sick of 'irreplaceable', and megan rochell's 'heartbreak' is just ridiculously sick, a '1 thing'-level classic in the making. dchild's live basslines on this stuff are killer killer killer

can't stand deja vu? dude, srsly?

(googling supload is an easy way to find stuff btw)

to be blanket statementy for a sec (yes ha ha shut up) a thing i found with icebox and most if not all timberland prods in 06 was how vaccum packed hermetically sealed they came across; what am i supposed to do with robot voice going I'M SO COLD SO COLD BRR over some barren soundscape besides, i dunno, nod sagely? i know that sounds unfair but i know i've given that track more than a fair crack of the whip as more and more people gushed over it. keri hilson gets mentioned at the top as a tim protege, but her only good track by a million miles is noncoincidentally the only one where tim's not involved: 'come clean'. tell me that's not a proper tune!

mind expanding on that? there is something vaguely...constricting about the JT album (and yeah 'ice box' too) but i can't quite put my finger on it, and i don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, and it's not on the furtado album, and it may even be the same thing which gives the album its coherence.

also what has happened to spizzazzz lately? internet is telling me it doesn't exist.

yeah it is a def a very vague feeling, certainly one that's easier to insult than explain with any satisfying accuracy. i mean, it goes without saying there's a billion great bodies of work with a strong, complete vision thruout (maybe every good album ever in actual fact), and 'icebox' aside even omarion's one kinda has a good thing of its own going along the 'entourage'/'electric' axis. (nothing special in the end tho.)

quite why timbaland's ones grate on me so is hard to say, and particularly so since it's not like him and his stable wrote every song on every album he's touched lately. (i'm assuming?) the nature of exec producing vs just producing i guess. but i dunno, i often feel like what i'm hearing, every nuance of the songs, has already been vetted for my consumption, and that what i end up feeling is what i've been told to feel. even something as apparently ambiguous as 'my love' is really all for show, it's incredibly self-aware, to the point where i just can't get into it, make it mine. tunes ought to get a life of their own once they hit the airwaves no matter how tightly auteured they've been, but timbaland's 06 ones never do really. shrug.

it's true that furtado's singles didn't work like that; however, saying that, the album wz a deeply empty experience for the most part. (and u know i ain't saying empty txtbook rockistically, c'mon.) maneater/promiscuous were great but in retrospect anyone could've been singing those songs. anyone! that album is completely faceless, and it's hard not to see it as a cautionary tale now cos we all sold a really great, real artist in exchange for some magic timbabeans, and you know it. who wouldnt rather hear something like a 'powerless' again? everybody now -

paint my face in your magazines / make it look whiter than it seems / paint me over with your dreams / shove away my ethnicity / burn every notion that i may have a flame inside to fight / and say just what is on my mind / without offending your might / cos this life / is too short / to live it just / for you

haha soz

haha i will go with this

I have the opposite reaction to Timbo. With some notable exceptions, most of his late 90's/early-00s R&B productions that everyone here seems to go ape over are really flat and unappealing to me, (though I guess I find R&B of that time period flat and unappealing in general) even when they're trying very hard to be interesting. But I love his new stuff.

to the point where i just can't get into it, make it mine

i...kind of agree with this, yes. it struck me recently that FS/LS really is a very self-absorbed album - it's not about you, it's not for you to identify with in the same way that 'cry me a river' could have been despite its obvious tabloid subtext, because it's all about justin. it's all about him and his auteur/dork/sexmachine persona. (the xtina album ultimately works/doesn't work along the same lines too, apart from 'ain't no other man'.) i guess that means you have to agree with him, and buy into it, to be able to get into it, and for me it succeeds because he convinces me of it. nevertheless "DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT ANYTHING BUT YOURSELF?" rings ever more true.

(i seem to be holding justin more responsible for this than tim! but it is in the production as well. hmm. maybe this is just danjahands' actual style.)

we all sold a really great, real artist in exchange for some magic timbabeans

i think the real furtado is there, still, and even better than before, in 'say it right' and the coldplay ballad, and the awesomely bouncy 80s-madge tune which timba ripped off from that finnish dude.

also there's'unfaithful's forgotten ne-yo cousin - 'gallery' by mario vasquez! "you're just another priceless work of art / in his galleryyyyyyyyyyyyyy"!

letoya reminds me that i didn't mind big kuntry's new single feat trey 'cheaper than lloyd' songz

http://www.zshare.net/audio/5116057d9e0820/

it is somehow much better than the timbahandz biting it betrays?

lol "cheaper than lloyd"

it's funny 'cuz it's true.

omg those janet comments are hilarious. as for the song, it's good but that's about it. it is pretty fuckin britney.

it feels like she's trying too hard to sound like something else. i just read something about how the hype will be that she's the competition for the new mariah and beyonce records. and just the sound + the sound of her voice come off rather contrived to me.

ironically you could have said the exact same about her rank hype single before the last album - 'lookout weekend' cover i think?

or Call On Me or whatever the fuck that was called

yeah, 'u got what i need' is great (if that's the one you're referring to). shame that they fucked it up for the album

xpost

yeah, this is pretty much janet's last shot so it does come off as a bit desperate.. but I think this song will do well as a warm-up, the second single has to be HOT HOT HOT. LA Reid exec-produced the album and there is going to be a really big push so I think she'll pull it off. Hopefully MTV is no longer boycotting her and the song has a great video...

and yeah I'd rather the britney train than whatever train she was on when she thought "call on me" was a good idea.

what was that song that started with a sample of some old school rNb female voice singing "boy" a few times, that's the one that -- i mean it sounded good and all, but just so canned

i'll find the title

'u got what i need', that's the one.

janet is pretty much in a no-win situation these days no? 20 yo wasn't all bad really, ppl just got mad irritated by that 'rockit' horror straight away. 'do it 2 me' was great, 'take care' was lovely, even the nelly/jd song is still pleasant. i heard worse albums that year.

wonder what polow would do with her (that he hasn't already done with ciara).

oh haha i forgot it was called 'call on me' while you guys were slamming it

i like it!

here's do it 2 me btw

yeah i actually don't mind "call on me" all that much -- what i meant to cite was "u got what i need," which is so easy to like, but still missed for me.

i guess she is in a no-win thing. i just wish she'd stop trying to BE 20 years old and go for a more mature sound. i mean talking about menstrual flow in a song IS kind of weird, no?

what do you mean by mature though? like what "mature" direction could she possibly go in while reamining commercially viable?

('u got what' was in ref to letoya tho!)

nope wrong again -- what i was actually talkin bout WAS "do it 2 me." i just clicked on that link.

i LIKE it, but i still don't completely feel the need to put it on. it's like trying to be too hot

right, thx, i hav no idea what "u got what i need" is. hehe

well... to be fair, i haven't heard albums, only singles. from th singles, i want a little more harmony, lush texture stuff and a little less sexy spring chicken stuff.

90s janet remained more fun and bubbly than badass and dirty, which i liked.

Saying "Janet" and then "LaToya" made me think you were talking about LaToya Jackson. I was quite WTF.