Rolling R&B Thread 2009

lol hence the title

damn, not sure I like the Anthony Hamilton as much as Matt does, but it's v. good

hilson at 85 on the hot 100, dream enters at 95 - maybe we got some albums coming out finally...

Keri Hilson is about as famous as anyone pre-album now right?

Seems like a good time

hilson actually seems oddly un-famous, despite her songwriting rep and presence on bona fide hits. can't think why this wasn't put out sooner after 'the way i are', though as much as i like some of her songs, she seems a bit too chameleonic to be an easy sell as a pop star...jill of all trades, mistress of none. ie, you can hear she's a songwriter.

yeah, for a long time I think was way more into the idea of her -- beauty n brains, hot girl who can write good songs -- whereas now i've heard her voice more and gotten used to it, but still not crazy about it or convinced that she has 'star quality.' still really wanna hear the album before i make up my mind about her, though.

I think she'd be way easier to sell as a Santogold-type pop know it all

i dunno, like to sell her to Santogold's actual audience? do skinny jeans kids care about contemporary R&B formalism?

Maybe not exactly, but I definitely think that she's more marketable to an older audience than the average top40 R&B

I don't think the audience for Keri Hilson really exists. otherwise Teedra Moses would be huge.

The Santogold audience can stay well away though.

i feel bad for Keri because if you watch her videos on youtube, 90% of the comments seem to be "she's trying to be Rihanna"/"that looks like an outfit Rihanna would wear"/"so much better than Rihanna!!!"/etc. so there's a real image problem out there with the kids.

Ironic that Rihanna is now the standard given when she started out she was like this r&b/dancehall fusionism offsider.

yeah i don't think she's gonna pop off anytime soon but i certainly don't think brooklyn vegan is the answer

I never would have thought to compare her to Rihanna, but now that that's said, her vocals on the verses of "Turnin' Me On" do kinda sound like Rihanna.

lex's reasoning re hilson is interesting too tho idk if it's exactly right or not

I feel like there's nothin' but goodwill for her though and actually now that I think about it doesn't she (and R&B in general lately) have a bit more hipster cred? She was on the cover of Fader (split with Santogol lol) last year

yeah I don't think she's really that much in the same lane as Rihanna, in terms of voice or talent or musical style, but obviously w/ the 12 year old youtube-commenting masses that for better or worse represent the audience that can make or break her, she's already being seen as some kind of derivative also-ran to a more established artist.

xpost - yeah i mean she has a decent about of hip/crit cred, but it's not like that really counts for anything in sales OR serious crit interest unless a record is a big to-do like New Amerykah or something

I dunno, isn't there avenues of working that into mass success. I kinda feel like there's a lot of people behind Hilson who really want her to succeed.

yeah i doubt that santogold has even moved 200,000 copies. hilson is a major label songwriter i think she's probably aspiring to more. don't think the label could make much off of that either.

i think they have the best strategy right now. she's penned a bunch of r&b hits in the past and i think they need to keep floating her songs to radio in the hope that something will catch on. i think she's just had a run of bad luck. there's no reason why her wayne collabo or chris brown collabo should both be flopping right now.

I hear that Chris Brown one on the radio all the time and I don't even own a radio, I had assumed it was doing well!

and yet wikipedia says it only got to 15 in Ireland

I hear that Lil Wayne one on the radio all the time, I had assumed it was doing well!

yall both wrong as fuck - but RETURN THE FAVOR HAS PEAKED AT #5 in the CZECH REPUBLIC, no joke

I have no idea what you mean in any of that post at all

Czech her out

sorry

yeah of course the song that's too eurocheesy for even a eurocheese-mad US urban radio climate would do better in the czech republic. but my constant assertions in the '08 thread that "Turnin' Me On" would be bigger than "Return The Favor" are still correct.

I didn't realise that was actually her in the Love in the Club video, I just assumed it wasn't because surely she'd have a bit to sing if it was.

yeah maybe it's a problem that to a lot of people she's just the random hot chick from a bunch of videos (Love In This Club, Throw Some D's, Miss Independent, etc.)

youtube is being really slow for me today

I don't see how "Return the Favor" is any more Eurocheesy than any number of things that have been huge hits. I would think of it as less Eurocheesy than "Love In This Club" or "Closer", to pick two disparate examples.

"Love In This Club" is Eurocheesy?

yes

tremendously

yeah, true-ish...but "Love" and "Closer" were both lead singles by established artists so there was a lot less friction in urban radio accepting it (although "Closer" took a good while to catch on) and I think ultimately they're pretty bass-heavy tracks that work in that context. "Return The Favor" just feels really tinny and lightweight to me by comparison to those, or even in comparison to "The Way I Are" (which was not really big at all on urban radio, and again had the momentum of someone as big as Timbaland being the main artist to put it all over pop radio).

xpost

"Closer" is Eurocheesy?

"return the favor" reminds me more of the cassie single than those other two - i like return the favor a lot and a hell a lot more of "love in this club" but it doesn't jump out at you the way those other two do. ship's right in calling it "tinny and lightweight"

lol ship

i jam 'return the favor' lots but really to any audience which isn't a priori interested in keri hilson, it's either a) diminishing returns on 'the way i are', or b) 'official girl' without any resonant lyrical hook, ie a less interesting version of a cassie hype kru track

a horrible way to dismiss a song i genuinely like a lot but i totally understand why it's not catching on

i could've seen hilson as a lady gaga figure - if her PR had really gone hard at the songwriter angle and if she'd babbled endlessly about artistry in her interviews (and unlike gaga she actually possesses some!), say. but all of her songs sound like they're written for established artists, not to break an unknown. still think her best moment is that sleazy mixtape track from a few years ago, 'hands & feet' (which was so obv a nicole scherzinger demo) (wait come back)

(ha ha)

Oh plz not Lady Gaga angle. I mean why don't we just say Kelis in that case. Except that Keri can't push the kooky space age angle even that much.

It seems odd that hook-chicks don't seem to break through any more. I secretly suspect the problem for Keri is that her career path was previously laid out by Mya, Christina Milian, Ashanti... All of whom seemed younger / fresher when they broke although Keri def. is hot.

Whereas Keri has this air of maturity around her that makes it seem like she must have been around for quite a while. Only no-one knows who she is. Which makes her seem like some sort of b-grader who's been hovering round the edges of consciousness and so doesn't qualify as a "hot new talent" (tho. obv this is not true).

lady gaga angle is apparently the only one which works now! i'm just playing PR here, i dislike it/her as much as anyone

also hilson's backroom status sets her apart from the ashantis and myae of the world (or er should - she seems to excel at writing generically catchy stuff without ever owning an aesthetic)

Well that's the thing - Keri's not nearly idiosyncratic or even distinct enough for her backroom status to mean anything, really.

Mya's a better songwriter anyways - Keri hasn't written a song as ace as "Why You Gotta Look So Good" or "Late" yet.

And while we're on this:

There's not really that much overlap between Lady Gaga and R&B audiences though, is there?

My sense is that the people who like Lady Gaga are basically into a broad swathe of "personality" driven white female pop - Pink, Gwen Stefani, Madonna. Not coincidentally this type of listener is much more likely to be comforted by protestations of artistry even if there's no evident connection between said protestations and the actual music in question.

My sense is that the people who like Lady Gaga are basically into a broad swathe of "personality" driven white female pop - Pink, Gwen Stefani, Madonna.

Call them the Feisties. And now back to the R&B.

Not sure what Feist has anything to do with anything being discussed here, including the pdwfp-ers, although I'm sure there's some overlap in audiences.

I'm drawing blanks as to who has successfully filled a Keri niche lately, Mya is the closest I can come, but that's not right. Aaliyah had the "pretty AND smart girl" thing going on, but didn't have the behind-the-scene bonafides and wasn't anywhere near as cheeky.

It seems odd that hook-chicks don't seem to break through any more. I secretly suspect the problem for Keri is that her career path was previously laid out by Mya, Christina Milian, Ashanti... All of whom seemed younger / fresher when they broke although Keri def. is hot.

this probably isn't really where you were going with this comment, but there is kind of a lot less going on for those kinds of hook chicks than there used to be, isn't there? I feel like maybe the whole new circuit of T-Pain/The-Dream type dudes has begun to almost completely occupy the lane that girl singers used to have to get exposure. now it's more like girls like Ciara and Rihanna don't start doing hooks on rappers' songs until they're already platinum.

the 'swedish mixtape cartel'??

ja, undt ve are so icee mit da schväg ja
shmorgy shmorgy shmorgy

no that's german

tell that to these ballaz
http://www.funnypictures.net.au/images/celebrities-and-muppets-dr-phil-and-swedish-chef.jpg

anybody wanna start a '10 thread?
anyways, this sounds like the weakest Usher track yet, kind of a take on 'my life would suck without you' from an asshole's perspective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wPWXR5SP8Y

Rolling R&B Thread 2010

"how does it feel" is an all-time masterpiece, thank you miss keri