Let's Anticipate Usher's "Looking 4 Myself"

It's not clear they need to, though. Many of 2011's most acclaimed and, in some cases, best-selling pop albums were those with deliberate, cohesive aesthetics: Beyoncé's mature and trend-dodging R&B of 4, Adele's retromaniac 21, Drake's moodily produced Take Care, or Lady Gaga's dance/rock/metal fusion on Born This Way

is this writer intentionally attempting to undermine every point she is trying to make or is she deaf

haha Beyonce's album being held up as so much more cohesive than these others is insane

Beyonce's anti-trend-dodging album with its "Pon De Floor"-based lead single

er trend-chasing, I'm tired and hungry

'run the world' was a misstep and is irrelevant to the fact that 4 is a cohesive album despite the genre shifts on the face of it

the nature and future of what can constitute cohesion is precisely the issue at hand

hahaha wait, are you seriously trying to play the "I'm going to pretend the song I dislike doesn't exist so that my argument makes sense" card?

can we return to discussing how good "What Happened to U" is

no all i'm saying is that distortively painting an album out by its one wild abberation is a very different thing to the other big grab-bag albums being discussed

djp waving his dull little blade in the middle of the gunfight as usual

So yes, you are playing that card.

tha fuck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUQoo-F5OLA

haha whut

dude plays bass and this is how he chooses to show us?

ya rly

http://www.thefader.com/2012/06/12/usher-high-note/

I fucking hate that we didn’t have a camera rolling when we created it, because it was so cool how it happened. Redd Stylez [another “Climax” co-writer], myself and Ariel, we just kept talking about it and I kept throwing the melodies. And then we started jotting the lyrics. Second verse I didn’t even give anybody no time to say anything. I said, I got it, I got it. Instantly. It was a little bit of Coldplay that I pulled from.

How do you translate Coldplay into “Climax?” I never would have heard that. I told you, you never know when it’s gonna be useful. That’s naturally where I went. I don’t know how it worked, but in my vast library of stored musical references, I kind of flipped through and found that one like, Yeah, this would be perfect there.

"vast library of stored musical references" is pretty funny. Album is pretty great

everyone in the R&B and hip-hop world owns Coldplay records

he doesn't even have to own them man

I apologise to all the indie fans of Foster the People that enjoy skinny chinos and drinking cider in the park with your t-shirts displaying a whitty remark but this is good. 1. He is playing bass, in the interview after this he spoke of learning to play the bass at about 13 and how it influenced a lot of his music. 2, it is a cover, so he can do what he wants with the song. The heavy guitar rifts work so well with the gospel type keyboards and 3, Usher is some top bloke. xox

chormeholmes 6 hours ago

heavy guitar rifts work so well with the gospel type keyboards

I'd never thought of it, but yeah, those elements are always an a+ dope combination.

This is far from embarrassing. Depends on what place "Pumped Up Kicks" has in your heart.

Hi. Finally registered:

- Re: Born This Way — I am on record as liking the album more than most people (check my ballot), but for chrissakes, the last thing you can argue about it is not having a coherent aesthetic. (If your point is that the sales figure was inflated, it wasstill unquestionably one of the largest albums of the year.)

- Re: 4 — If this had come out in 2012 you’d have a case for “Run the World” being trend-jacking, but it was released right on the cusp of Diplo becoming the go-to producer for everybody. Plus, as was said, it’s one track (the last track) and thoroughly unrepresentative.

- Re: Up! — Even if this weren’t such a bizarre special case (two “separate albums” in three “separate styles,” though in practice they aren’t all that different), it’s not really what I’m talking about. The red disc and green disc (and blue disc) were all coherent enough in their own ways. To be comparable, Twain would have to have released one album with a couple red and green and blue tracks coexisting unhappily, with yellow and orange and, I dunno, ultraviolet ones elsewhere. Same goes for Private Dancer — charting on different formats is an effect, not a cause. I mean, “Rolling in the Deep” charted everyfuckingwhere, but that doesn’t mean 21 isn’t a coherent album.

- Re: my being dull-minded and predictable and deaf: Sorry.

Wow, this title track is really Empire of the Sun-ish. I would not have recognized this as Usher. Don't think it suits him really...

ha welcome to ilx, katherine! i liked the piece, sorry you had to come and post just because you were getting beat up over it.

Wow, this title track is really Empire of the Sun-ish

THAT'S who I was trying to think of!

Yeah, I liked Katherine's piece as well. I think the point she's getting at with cultivating multiple audiences simultaneously through different production and music styles makes sense if you've been following these dynamics closely over the past couple years in pop, r'n'b and hip-hop as a fan. The argument might be a tricky to grasp otherwise since, as she points out, eclectic genre-jumping within major releases is certainly nothing new. But somehow with this development, each song stands so independent of an overarching album that the entire thing seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts.

In any case, one of the strengths of the article is that this isn't just reduced to the MP3/Spotify-era of listening (although that's a part of it, certainly). Maybe it's just that all these changes with consuming music have set off a deeper set of dynamics now. I have to say that Usher getting inspiration from Coachella to make a record this way strikes me as weird.

i dunno i can totally picture Usher going to some big rock festivals and raves and being like "what? there are people in the western world who care about music besides Usher's music? something must be done!"

lol

Wow, this title track is really Empire of the Sun-ish.

Luke Steele is his partner on the track, so that makes more sense than you realize.

i would have absolutely no idea of Empire of the Sun's existence if that dude didn't work on a huge US pop album every year or so

i'm confused as to why he does so in the first place

really liking this album. climax is still my favorite thing on it but i'm actually pretty pleased with most of it. the only song that really kinda disgusted me was "can't stop won't stop" (which had me scared for the rest of the album since it was the first track). really liking the danja and jim jonsin tracks in particular.

also prob an unpopular opinion but i don't mind "scream" at all, usher singing max martin isn't great but it doesn't get on my nerves either.

what i'm saying (xpost)

I'd love Usher singing a decent Max Martin song.

Where does that main synth theme come from in "Can't Stop Won't Stop"? It's from another song or film score or something I've heard before.

Oh wait...

It's like some doo wop song...

Oh, I'm fully aware of why Looking 4 Myself sounds the way it does. I guess I was expecting it to be not so explicitly that sound. But it seems like they asked him to specifically reproduce it for Usher. I'm guessing the lyrics are written by Luke Steele, as well. Phrases like "way better" strike me as really Aussie.

Shit. Is it Uptown Girl? xp

I'm gonna throw down the gauntlet and say that Here I Stand might've actually been better than this album.

Phrases like "way better" strike me as really Aussie.

"Way better" is something I hear all the time in the US.

I knew I picked up on that. Probably just me projecting then :)

It's "Uptown Girl," yeah.

i was glad i didn't read maura's article before listening to the album so i could experience the smh surprise in real time

anybody get a Raphael Saadiq vibe from "Twisted"?

no, it just sounds like the same flimsy lounge-funk that pharrell has been doing for half a decade now

Saadiq at his least interesting records flimsy lounge funk

oh, well then yes!

I'm gonna throw down the gauntlet and say that Here I Stand might've actually been better than this album.

I haven't heard this yet and therefore cannot throw any gauntlets but I'm glad to see someone else stand up for Here I Stand if that's what you're doing

here i stand up for Here I Stand

my favorite Here I Stand-era joint wasn't even on the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgZlZC-Q3A

still havent listened to this because in my limited free time i just keep putting "IFU" on repeat. thanks a lot, rtc