Jessie Ware - 110% (and everything else she's done)

Hmmm.

seems fair? many points already made here in fact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDg4tcZpYS8

was just saying on the other thread about this kinda sound maybe already running its course

what other thread?

i like this album a lot. it's bigger splashier moments are sort of wearing thin tho. the overt classy pro soul stuff is not reading exactly as meant to me after a week or so. but the album tracks are getting better. "no to love", "swan song", "sweet talk".

i think at its best there is a grown-up playacting quality to it that is very endearing. i mean, "i'm taking water, my brother, remember" has a little bit of slam poet about it. 27 isn't that young tho...

no it's literally about her brother

really not feeling anything by alunageorge i've heard

I keep trying to get into this, and the first couple songs I hear are very slick and nice and sound good, and then it all just slides away from my ears and I can't listen to it any more. I cannot seem to get through the album in one go. I'm sorry.

I'm not sure we can forgive you.

I'll go boil my head.

no it's literally about her brother

― lex pretend, Monday, September 10, 2012 2:14 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh.

fuck the backlash this album is gorgeous and really affecting too. it's devastating and if it doesn't connect with you, fine, but oh man this is more than just inoffensive dinner music to me. ugh

i wish things skewed more towards the lighter, less bombastic side, like "110%" and the opening and closing track. also there's a few times where it'a bit too much for me... esp "WHO WOULD SAY NO TO LOVE???"

but i'm just nitpicking. this is a sure top 5 i think for me.

"No to Love" is one of the duff tracks yeah

I have to confess a growing unease with romantic/erotic vastation; last year it took a few weeks to love the Marsha Ambrosius, for example. But in Ware's case the cavernous sound is an ideal musical correlative.

"110%" is too cutesy and always throws off the vibe of the rest of the album when it comes on imo. "Running" and "Sweet Talk" are amazing tho.

"running" is the one that hits hardest for me

i like "110%" a lot but it's a bit toooo obvious what she's going for

still haven't warmed to "110%."

On the other hand the title track sounds effective.

the run from sweet talk through to the end is just sublime

^^^ EXACTLY RIGHT!

i've also been grappling w/ the fact that they released all the best songs before the album dropped

that's not all that out of the ordinary surely? esp for pop albums?

'Night Light' is better than most of the pre-release songs.

yeah that's one of the best and wasn't leaked

with the 2 bonus tracks, i have a ratio of 9 great songs out of 13.

I didn't know of her before the album dropped. Besides being sucked in with "Sweet Talk" and immediately downloading the rest, I hadn't heard anything.

Yeah Sweet Talk is great, it's got a bounce to it that's absent in most of the rest of the album.

Still Love Me is the real clunker here I think. That and No To Love coming one after another so early in the record really messes with the album's flow.

the album dramatically improved for me once i realised that those two were the ones to just skip

it took me ages to get round to hearing the singles so the timing, in that they were just clicking with me as i got to hear the full album, worked out perfectly

I like both those songs a lot, esp "No To Love"

"Night Light" hit me like a ton of bricks on the way home from work today. Arrangment, production, melody...shit is HEAVY DUTY.

feel like the singles are the stand outs and there's lot of filler on here. Still relatively enjoyable though. Amazing voice

i find the diversity of opinion re: the quality of the singles compared to the rest of the tracks interesting

five of 11 tracks have been singles now, right? six if you include "strangest feeling".

All these so-called post-dubsteppers, RnB-deconstructivists, indie-beatmakers etc., it's all really some form of (neo)trip-hop, don't you think? Or is that reductionist? It's not meant as an insult.. I like many of these artists, Jessie Ware among them.

To my ears Ware hovers outside trip-hop, closer to Blue Lines-era Massive Attack

I've always considered Blue Lines trip-hop (because of after the fact-categorization, probably, I was 7 in '91) so I guess we agree on Ware, then.

Something about the poses she strikes reminds me of Shara Nelson: mechanized soul with space for a billowy presence.

I really like the title track, can't get enough of it. Incidentally, some of the harmonic stuff and the arpeggio effects going on in it reminds me a lot of "Bloom" by Radiohead.

it's all totally trip-hop revival. it confused me the first time i saw someone use that as an insult.

If so, we're still at the early, warm, Wild Bunch bit of trip-hop, rather than the dead-eyed Sneaker Pimps 1998 zombie incarnation. The latter bit would be the insult.

i actually liked that sneaker pimps album at the time

Having lived with this album for a month or so now I'm pretty sure that most of its faults come from the presence of the dude from The Invisible. There's a sort of damp and dusty worthiness to some of the production.

Ooof, not very good on Later.

Love the album 111% though.

It's like an X-Factor cover, maybe she's just nervous though.

Later last night was the first time I'd heard her. I thought that song sounded a bit like Roxette.

she was better at Maida Vale -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/sessions/2012-10-18_jessieware

i listen to this album all the time. I wouldn't really think to slot it anywhere near Blue Lines, it seems much more straightforward R&B to me. but it's very good.

I'm in love with the Ewan Pearson remix of No to Love

http://soundcloud.com/jessieware/sets/no-to-love-remixes/

Brownstone cover (produced by Japanese teenagers - ?!), Kate Moross video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXJl5Gf05zg

I love both of these things