Rolling R&B Thread 2012

Ha, Bobby.

man i'd kill to see a bobby v/miguel bill

practically every other act miguel has toured w/ lately has been better though

who? (i don't know)

he was just here w/ 2 chainz and is coming back with trey songz and elle varner in a few weeks

lol RCA has been buying up 5-minute blocks of airtime on a couple local stations to play Brandy's new single -- is this that smart marketing campaign that created big expectations for the LP?

ha; I stand by my smart marketing campaign comment. There was more excitement and anticipation around this Brandy album than there's been around a Brandy album in a long time. Largely because it had a cool lead single, yes, but I like the way the LP was teased as a comeback LP of sorts, without the desperation that usually implies

brandy album's gonna do aight tho

people missed brandy - a reasonably reliable artist - and the r&b game is garbage right now. there was nothing else at play

way to pretend forget about that brandy/monica reunion abortion too

haha yeah lol @ that

brandy had more tastemaker hype than most older trad-r&b artists too - even with cut-up r&b vox being so dominant in hipster dance last year it still seemed like every second big track sampled brandy specifically

plus there's a weird residual affection for her among 90s kids that i think might stem from moesha

(like i'm not sure if, say, mya or ashanti or even ciara inspires quite the same affection as brandy)

ashanti & ciara were later

have we not done this keke palmer tape, it's pretty great for nowadays standards

did not expect frequent overwrought meandering straining against skyscraper beats drama, v baby dawn richardesque indeed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJrb9_zSnL8

this the best though

'so uncool' was a great teenpop&b album. glad to see she's still making music.

yeah i need to listen to that again, vaguely remembering 'game song' now and maybe some mini dawn richard was always kinda in her but underproduced

iirc the really disney teenpoppy stuff on there felt kinda tacked on, there was this kernel of truth with her and whatshername... tiffany evans where they seemed pretty much more grown up than most "adult" r&b at the time

actually haha wasnt it tiffany evans who later kept popping up deploring the whores of r&b babylon or whatever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE2XfyVbc0c

i think this was my fave cut on that, perhaps somewhat embarrassingly

so dramatical though!

I like the new one alright, "baby dawn richardesque" otm

She may have broken the record for body rolls per minute in this Dance Alone video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqgiI5_NRXI

oh that video makes me like the song less

i wonder if beyonce is the culprit that anyone else dancing looks so passé http://i.imgur.com/S6udB.gif

Video is super lame.
Maaaaybe to your second point, Janet before her?

huh i never thought of keke in the dawn line previously - she's always seemed fairly chameleonic to me, from the ultimate summer jam that was "keep it moving" to the lil baby like a boy outrage of "the game song" to jumping on the brief jerk wagon (to tremendous effect) with "superjerkin". i quite liked "show me" from last year, don't think it ever got released but i got some scherzinger vibes iirc. anyway i like "dip 2nite", haven't listened to the rest of the latest tape though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-CNKdysXpo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1rlrwq3_OI

>>>>

hurt me to my heart to find out the origins of that beat

Yeah that song is way better. New tape didn't impress me much overall.

neither of those really grabbing me

Ne-Yo made an r&b song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFB6eyNHz0A

real nice

new dawn : http://cosmicmediaworld.com/qdcey66korv8

there are two songs on the radio right now about diving into vaginas

i definitely fuck w/ the kelly/wayne redux

'too close' and 'turn on the lights'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQHhccp24Bk

^^^baaaangs imo. "name on it" was nice too

finally listening to the Brandy album, not bad. weird to realize that the ballad off her '08 album was one of the earliest (maybe first?) charting writing credits for both Bruno Mars and Jeff Bhasker.

angie stone released an album a couple of months ago apparently, did no one notice? it's quite nice, gets better as it goes on and settles into its groove

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PsFG2GJYAs

"i can't take it" is another standout, not on youtube

i've never had a reason to notice Angie Stone before, tbh.

listening to the Ne-Yo, lol @ him opening the album w/ would-be title track "The Cracks In Mr. Perfect"

hahahahaha spoken word outro "find the beauty in your cracks...enjoy the album"

find the beauty in your crack

exactly one (1) dance song on the Ne-Yo besides "Let Me Love You." it's an R&B album, and a good one.

haha i said that as the last song started downtempo, and then right after i posted the beat picked up

i am OK with the thing this and the last Kelly Rowland did of letting the album end w/ 2 dance tracks as its own distinct thing, though. as long as it's just 2 and not 8 or whatever like the Nicki album.

Haven't heard the new one yet, but there was only one (1) dance song on Ne-Yo's last, otherwise very delightful album, and it was enough to almost fuck up the whole thing

this album >>>> libra scale imo

My problem with post-Gentleman Ne-Yo is that he no longer sees any continuity between dance music and R&B. On YOTG he wove dance music into R&B, but since then he's seen things only in black and white. Every song is either all seduction or all glow sticks.

(and it doesn't help that his dance songs suck on their own merits, of course)

"let me love you" feels like a relatively graceful fusion to me, if not as convincing as "closer"

been listening to the radio more the past few weeks than i have in a long time and i haven't heard "let me love you" at all. small sample of course but it's crazy that he's almost totally a pop artist now.

oh yeah, that song wasn't even sent to R&B stations, I'm just saying musically it's got enough R&B for me. the problem is more that "Lazy Love" isn't remotely as popular w/ urban stations as "Let Me" is w/ pop stations.