Kelis in 2013

I quite enjoyed this in a superior quality retro soul way but I feel that Kelis gets less, not more, interesting with each subsequent reinvention.

she's getting old and has clearly been all about the domesticity for some time, this feels like the "right" album to have made at this point in her career. whether the styles she goes for at any point interest you or not i think what becomes increasingly clear is how thorough and non-obvious each reinvention is. over 15 years five of her six albums have worked incredibly well and distinctly in terms of mining a particular aesthetic (with record label fuckery responsible for the one that didn't, and even that had enough great material in its random grab-bag to be satisfying)...feel like her absences in between might prevent her from getting the credit she deserves as a career artist/reinventer (as opposed to a purveyor of lots of great singles)

Yeah, I remember it being later that the Neptunes were recognized as producer-auteurs. Kelis was used in the list of artists they had worked with to support that narrative (along with Noreaga, Old Dirty Bastard, Jay-Z, Ludacris, Mystikal), but that wasn't until around late 2000, early 2001. At least in terms of my knowledge.

I always liked this story from S/FJ's 2004 piece on both Timbo and the Neps coming up at the same time from Virginia Beach:

The studio was called Mastersound in the 90's, when Timbaland and the Neptunes sometimes worked simultaneously in the adjacent rooms. ''There was a great moment here,'' Andrew Coleman, the Neptunes' longtime chief engineer, recalled not long ago. ''It was 1999, and Missy and Tim were working on Missy's 'Da Real World.' Chad and Pharrell were working on Kelis, and they were doing 'Caught Out There.' '' They especially liked the song's chorus, Coleman said. ''Tim and Missy could hear Kelis screaming, 'I hate you so much right now!' They had their ears right up to the door. They loved that song. Tim was like, 'That's crazy.' Then they went right back to work.''

Making filter disco Guetta-pop in 2010 and indie-friendly retro-soul in 2014 feel like the most obvious moves possible for their respective years. She's got a vastly superior take on both sounds but records were totally on-trend.

Making filter disco Guetta-pop in 2010 and indie-friendly retro-soul in 2014 feel like the most obvious moves possible for their respective years.

Funnily enough if she'd done this in reverse it might have seemed sightly belated in each case.

Is indie-friendly retro-soul on trend right now? Who are you thinking of?

she was def ahead of the curve w/ flesh tone

Indie-friendly retro-soul - this is something that's always around, always "slightly belated", isn't it?

btw enjoying this record on the morning tip!

That's kind of what I meant, yeah. It's just the specifics of what it would be compared to that change.

It's definitely more forgiving to be competing with Adele than Amy.

that this album has really not very much in common with either sorta proves my point that kelis is doing something non-obvious in a non-obvious way

I haven't had a chance to listen but I assumed there was going to be more of an afrobeat bent based on "Jerk Ribs"/Dear Science.

Yeah I don't think Adele or Amy are particularly relevant to this discussion, their records were aiming right at the mainstream whereas this has a kind of domestic-bohemian thing going on. There's none of Adele's stadium slush here and none-of the hip-hop influence of Back In Black. Actually the audible influence of hip-hop is conspicuous by its absence here - it's all very 1970s in its arrangement and production choices (those horn sections!)

I feel like getting Sitek in to produce an R&B record and by extension aiming it at a very particular crowd is something that would have been considerably less likely pre-Weekend/Frank Ocean. Like there's something very second-hand store about this record's entire aesthetic but it's definitely a superior quality second-handness if that makes sense. I get the sense that all concerned were trying to make the kind of awesome psychedelic soul record that makes crate-digging worthwhile, with all the attendant baggage that comes with that.

Got to say, this is really working for me on a Sunday morning. The sound is really thick and rich in a way that suits Kelis's voice well (and it's a huskier voice these days). It's like really good quality comfort food.

Err, Back TO Black. Sorry, it's still early for me.

I've heard it twice. Sometimes her voice is too chalky and intractable for the arrangements, or the arrangements are too fussy (I like how "Cobbler" acknowledges the former). I like it though.

I was asked to write about this record for The Talkhouse but I'm gonna have to pass, this is beyond my ability to write about. I have a running theory that men and women who can sing, like, can really sing, they're encumbered, rather than gifted, as record-makers. A song written for a golden-voiced singer will more-often-than-not be written to showcase That Voice-- all melisma and emotion-- voice placed hot and sharp in the mix-- moment to show off the falsetto-- listen to that lung capacity-- a four-octave range?

I was gonna try and frame Kelis and her half-woman half-horse voice as proof of theory, how it always felt she was struggling on those first two records and flailing on Tasty, but that the struggle itself was so musical, created such great records. I remember when "Milkshake" was a hit, and I was playing "Trick Me" every morning, it was always being said by my roommates etc. "she doesn't have the voice," but I was always so into it, her clumsiness on "Bossy", the braying of "Lil Star" and best/worst attempt at vocalise at the end of "Marathon", omggggg!

In catching up with Kelis though I listened to the EDM record and hated it, beyond hated it, and was surprised that there was love for it here, and realized that a) Kelis toes the line for me in terms of what it expected of an artist, vocally, and is failing more often than succeeding on this one; b) other people think she's a great singer! so my argument is faulty anyway.

her voice is really interesting because "half woman half horse" is actually accurate but it's like suspension of disbelief, there are only ever occasional flashes where you go "actually...your voice...what?" because she acts and sings as though she has a conventionally excellent r&b voice

OMG that is so spot on.

In my experience she can't really sing in tune live, but I love the timbre and texture of her voice. You only really notice its limitations when she's trying to sing high, her lower register sounds great.

One of the reasons I initially recoiled from Jerk Ribs is because her voice and the backing don't really seem to fit well together - that cycling high-pitched bass guitar feels like it's from a different track to the vocal altogether, and that only really resolves itself when the arrangement fills out.

But there are moments on this record, particularly it's softer moments, where you can tell that real attention has been paid to how the vocals and the music *sound* together - I think it's on the chorus of Floyd where the horns and the voice blend together and the specific way they've been mixed just sounds gorgeous together.

There seem to be a lot of cases of artist/producer symbiosis recently: Ferreira/Rechtshaid, Cherry/Four Tet, Kelis/Sitek.

she acts and sings as though she has a conventionally excellent r&b voice

Yeah otm!

I love Sitek as a producer, really love him, not a TVOTR fan but he's always approached his productions with taste and class

videos of her 2014 live show look amazing

I feel like the main thing that keeps this from sounding too retro is that the low end has a very modern thickness to it.

THAT makes me want to check this out.

this album is some boring urban lumberjack hamburger blogger shit

THAT makes me NOT want to check this out.

overcompensating, this album kicks

this album is some boring urban lumberjack hamburger blogger shit

― r|t|c,

it's an ok album but a little too languid for me. i'd be more into her going back to serving milkshakes rather than coffee

No this is totally urban lumberjack hamburger blogger shit but I am okay with that in small doses and this is a superior quality example of it.

Also I would much rather hear Kelis do this sort of thing than one of the usual mumbling feebs.

word

Ok having listened to this again, I'm not really sure the tunes are there. And it's really samey. There's no reason "Bless the Telephone" should sound like as much of a respite as it does.

I put on the Lady album from last year right after, and despite the fact that it's way more period-retro than Kelis' album, it manages to do so much more, and the production sounds better to boot. Kinda funny that this is where Kelis and Nicole Wray are at tho. Who would have guessed this in 1999?

I get "samey" as the single-producer thing makes it sound uniform in the way rock records (usually) do, but I don't think it lacks for tunes at all.

There's no reason "Bless the Telephone" should sound like as much of a respite as it does.

otm x 1000. It was like a cushion.

I'm not in love with this album but I'm willing to bet I'd like it a lot more if I heard it performed live.

Lots of single-producer albums have variety.

recommend listening to this album while walking around outside once spring descends

i need to check out that lady record though

oh jeez louise this album is SO MAGNIFICENT

this album is some boring urban lumberjack hamburger blogger shit
― r|t|c, Saturday, March 22, 2014 1:11 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha that is so cruel and arcane in a way but I know precisely what you mean

good on ILM

all I got after googling "urban lumberjack hamburger"

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qiIUvNfQSR4/Swd8Dal5nsI/AAAAAAAAGOs/MxPDmQ3hiVM/s320/Pound+Burger+2.JPG

Finally listening. Kinda agreeing with everyone? In that I can enjoy it but I'm not overwhelmed, but the details and edges, in both her singing and the arrangements, keep me gently engaged. Rather like the extended elegance at the end of "Floyd."

Kelis makes an Ann Peebles album is something I should be excited about on paper, but holy hell this is dull

^^nonsense

not nonsense: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/magazine/what-kelis-and-paul-newman-have-in-common.html?smid=tw-nytmag&_r=2

You had a hit song with “Bossy” in 2006. Recently, Sheryl Sandberg started a campaign to ban the word. Do you think that word is bad for girls? Bossy? Give me a break. Obviously there are a lot more sensitive words that I can think of that I’ve been called. Bossy, to me, is not one of them. But to each his own.

You collaborated with Too $hort on that song, and he’s not exactly a feminist. Have you gotten pushback from women’s groups? Never ever, like literally never. I don’t make campaigns; I just say what I say. I believe it, I live it and no one’s ever had the gall to approach me with something so ridiculous.

Your ex-husband, the rapper Nas, put your wedding dress on his album cover. Why did he still have the dress? It’s not even the dress. The joke behind that is that it’s the slip to the petticoat to my dress. I think when I moved out I just left it. That’s all he had, poor thing.

Did you know that was coming? He gave me a heads-up like two days before it was released.

Do you know why? All kinds of ideas of why, but I don’t really care.

But it brought up a bunch of stuff you were probably hoping was in the past. Maybe for others, but not for me. I don’t really listen to his music anyway.

BURN / BURN / BURN / BURN

amazing

haha, fuck

Excellent interview.

Blah album.

there isn't a song on this album i don't love. it's probably my AOTY of 2014 so far, only toni & babyface comes close

This album reminds me of Spiritualized