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

none of jessie ware's singles have done well in the uk (her best showing is "tough love" which just barely snuck into the top 40). she's one of them 'albums artists' we still occasionally hear about sometimes (devotion went top 5 on the albums chart and is gold-certified) so i would doubt that she's reviewing her singles chart stats much for inspiration on where to go next.

lol she's a pop singer signed to a major label to suggest that her music is made in a context completely removed from "is this going to be popular on a mass level" is absurd

if she herself isn't thinking about it i promise you 15 other people who have input on her music are

zzzz i'm not contesting that, i am saying that the singles charts are not exactly the most relevant metric that she or the '15 other people' are likely to be looking at considering that her previous success was all despite basically all of her singles charting poorly

well i think the presence of "say you love me" sort of refutes your entire point

"we're not concerned about chart success but hey let's see what ed sheeran's can cook up"

I think it's trite to suggest that Ware would have changed the direction of her singles according to the performance of "Imagine It Was Us", given that really it performed about as well as any of her other singles did, most of which have been ballads. "Say You Love Me" is a bit more hackneyed than most of her work and can probably be parsed as an attempt to get that Sam Smith $$, but you can probably substitute any of her singles into an "Well, X song didn't work with the charts so now she's gone Sheeran" argument.

i didn't suggest anything like that, i only made the point because people itt keep harping on "imagine it was us". i was just pointing out that it wasn't a hit or anything so perhaps that is why she didn't return to that well.

i don't see why that's so controversial.

Well, I mean, that could be true, but my point was that none of her songs have been hits so you could make that same argument using any of "Wildest Moments", "Running", "Sweet Talk", etc.

she has 3 top 40 uk singles (more or less), imagine it was us didn't even break the top 100

maybe it has nothing to do with it. i'm not saying it's exactly what happened. i just suggested the possibility & immediately multiple people were like "jessie ware would NEVER think about the charts"

that wasn't what i was saying, i was saying that viewing every pop song solely through a chart prism is really fucking boring

can we have some critical faculties beyond "was this a hit y/n" and "will this be a hit y/n"

it's just considering the full context of the art

i'm on board with everyone who wishes that she would do some more "imagine it was us"-type songs but i don't know how you can discuss why she didn't (which is what we were doing) without at least bringing up how that song performed on the charts

it's mind-reading though

hey y'all, she pretty much played the whole record during her itunes fest set

you guys with promos probably can't say much but are you happy with the album on the whole? and i'm guessing there's no imagine it was us pt. ii?

― uxorious gazumping (monotony), Wednesday, September 17, 2014 7:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah p. much -- what I will say is large swaths of this discussion baffle me in a "are we hearing the same thing" way

I don't think j0rdan is wrong in bringing chart positions in if we're gonna discuss possible reasons for why she didn't pursue that sound further. It's all speculation at the end of the day and his response is no less valid than any other. Mentioning that a major label artist's artistic decisions might have been even partly influenced by commercial expectations placed on them isn't "viewing every pop song solely through a chart prism".

that's prob a reference to the ariana grande thread but i think especially in the current climate considering pop artists' motivations is necessary

btw my suggestion is no less mind-reading than people who are rejecting it

we're all speculating

"Imagine It Was Us" always seemed like more of an outlier than a new direction anyway

And the real question is does the new album have anything as good as "Sweet Talk"?

"sweet talk" has been my #1 driving at night jam since I first heard it

I am confident "Champagne Kisses" is gonna be a gem and lex's cosign has increased that confidence.

Oh shit, there's another song with Miguel.

i really love the dreaminess of "tough love," the way the bridge builds and the chorus dissolves, as if trying to grab something just out of reach. feelings about this are probably amplified by the video

at this point i'm obviously not going to get it but i kind of want a whole album of that smokiness

seconding brad. that song is easily my favorite track off the record, exactly the kind of shit i eat up

Mentioning that a major label artist's artistic decisions might have been even partly influenced by commercial expectations placed on them isn't "viewing every pop song solely through a chart prism".

― Greer, Thursday, September 18, 2014 11:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, and i'm aware that commercial expectations play a huge role in deciding major label artists' decisions (obv), but...idk as critics/fans shouldn't there be a way to talk about whether those decisions work without constantly being so reductive? i feel like the "obviously jessie ware cares about chart positions" line is a way to justify music that's underwhelming in comparison to past work (and both here and elsewhere, i've seen it implied that if a song/artist isn't as successful as expected, who cares about whether their music is good?)

"tough love" a) did not sound commercial at all on first listen b) is her biggest hit to date c) is still not that big a hit b/c as monotony pointed out, she's never been a singles artist, and if her idea of trying to be one is making bullshit like "say you love me", maybe it would be best for her music if she didn't try to become one

(it also feels a bit like a red herring leading into the album)

"say you love me" gorgon city rmx is pretty pro forma but good https://soundcloud.com/gorgon-city/jessie-ware-say-you-love-me-gorgon-city-remix/s-A9Pqk

90 sec clips for every song are now up on iTunes.

was this posted - http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/jessie-ware-and-miguel-sound-wonderful-together.html

biggest change on this album imo is the sense of restraint - no full-blooded booming passion à la "wildest moments" or "running", except on the couple of tracks where she goes for the aor disney ballad market. it's a more low-key album which isn't always a bad thing but cumulatively it feels rather...penned in

I just watched her iTunes Festival show and yeah, "Champagne Kisses" is phenomenal, can't wait to hear the studio version

A little disappointed by the other song she co-wrote with Miguel though, "You & I (Forever)" is kind of….uhhh…..

this is grammy material. i predict a solid 8/10 from the pitchfork boys

'nother new one https://soundcloud.com/jessieware/jessie-ware-pieces

Is she just going to release the entire thing track by track

or rather... in pieces

until she gets 110 percent of it out

album is out there

!!!!!!!!

biggest change on this album imo is the sense of restraint

this seems like a weird thing to say since i found her first album pretty but almost objectionably restrained

i predict a backlash considering the album definitely indulges in jessie's clear love for MOR but idgaf tbh. was bopping to "Cruel" on my commute this morning.

am, is "restrained" pejorative? The first album was influenced by a kind of female R&B -- English-inflected to be sure -- that you may or may not embrace.

clear love for MOR

yow yeah

i don't like "cruel" at all but i'm basically down with the rest of this

"champagne kisses" is fucking unbelievable

i'm definitely feeling this in a smoke weed listening to sade way

i was feeling oddly defensive about it last night i guess but after a few listens i think this is both kind of slight and kind of a mess

there are def some odd choices individually and just generally speaking the direction of the album is questionable as has been debated ad nauseam in this thread

there's still some really exceptional moments on this album, esp vocally -- the vocal arrangements of "keep on lying" are great, even the climax of "want your feeling" really opened up for me. obv "champagne kisses" is beyond reproach, and her vocal performance on "say you love me" really makes that song imo (esp second verse).

i'm not really messing with "pieces" (too loud) and "you & i" has a weirdly wack chorus for verses that sound great imo. "cruel" is *okay* but the strings are a bit much, it feels super '70s and kind of out of step w/ the rest of the album.

i'm more or less on board though, she really does "suspended in air" well as an aesthetic.

not as instantly gripping as Devotion but i have a feeling it will grow on people. "say you love me" is the best love song released this year, byyyyyyy far. "pieces" and "champagne kisses" and "want your feeling" also own.