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

I didn't fuck w/ "You & I" at first but it's really been growing on me the last few listens. Don't get the distaste for "Cruel" that I've been seeing a few places.

stuff like "night light" & "swan song" & "taking in water" off devotion are as throwaway to me as the so-so stuff on this album

― snrub goin up on a tuesday (J0rdan S.)

Taking in Water is my favourite song of hers. Night Light isn't that far behind.

I'm enjoying the new album but it's really hard to see the standouts yet. Apart from Say You Love Me there isn't anything I dislike but everything else is fairy equal.

The reaction on here seems to be quite similar to the second Katy B album. Already wondering how well both of them will do on the end of year poll.

Can't get over "Champagne Kisses". Amazing.

Broadly agree with J0rdan but even the weaker tracks are growing on me fast. Not the drop-off from Devotion that I initially thought it was.

Agree with Kitchen Person that the reception is v similar to Little Red, right down to ppl praising the bonus tracks

I'm actually finding that "Say You Love Me" is much better in context.

"Desire" is kind of a waste of space, but I guess you need to take a breath after "Champagne Kisses" which has almost made me cry on multiple occasions

How I would love to hear an album of Robin Hannibal produced material.

This isn't as big a dip in quality as this thread would suggest. But the arrangements are too fussy and don't frame Ware's voice in a way to compliment her restraint like they did on Devotion. I think the album titles are telling - Devotion suggests steadiness and constance, while Tough Love is dramatic and points away from any sense of delicacy. I'm not against her making pop moves or trying something different but this reminds me of the Katy B album in that the way she's chosen to embrace crossover appeal does nothing to showcase her unique identity as an artist. This is still fairly good with some standout tracks but it's not essential and special like Devotion was.

The Miguel collab was a smart choice but I don't know why there's so little Dave Okumu involvement when he produced almost all of Devotion. It feels like as soon as there's a chance for a big pop breakthrough the regular producer gets sidelined.

oh man "midnight caller" is incredible, a real "if only the album had gone this way" moment

like, we've known she's wanted to be annie lennox for a while, but lennox in her eurythmics days is such a better look than latter-day AOR lennox

stuff like "night light" & "swan song" & "taking in water" off devotion are as throwaway to me as the so-so stuff on this album

― snrub goin up on a tuesday (J0rdan S.), Monday, October 13, 2014 12:17 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

j0rdan considering these songs throwaway p much entirely explains why he thinks this album is comparable to devotion

it's not necessarily that the songs on tough love are bad so much as it's a less satisfying album, much less than the sum of its parts and lacking the stylistic peaks of devotion (and i find "say you love me" and "pieces" much more jarring in context, the former is just unlistenable to me).

fwiw i agree "tough love", "champagne kisses" and "kind of..." are all peak ware. and "midnight caller"! and, indeed, "12"

overall i agree it's basically on the level of little red, and my reaction is similar - i don't think i'd be as harsh or vocally disappointed had jessie and katy not set the bar so high on their debuts. and i'm confident they'll go on to make the greater albums they're capable of.

yes, absolutely

I found Jessie's less disappointing than Katy's though, which hasn't grown on me at all and still feels like a bet-hedging mess.

I like them both, commercial compromises notwithstanding.

see for me On a Mission > Little Red, but Tough Love > Devotion

i've got to the stage of enjoying "want your feeling" in my head but it's always such a disappointment when i play it! i blame that ~tasteful 80s guitar riff

the whole song is basically foreplay until the final 45 seconds or so imo

I think I like the bonus tracks now.

looking forward to hearing this album. just had a gander at spotify and saw that "wildest moments" is her most popular song on there by a long shot, which sort of surprised me (i thought "100%"/"if you're never gonna move" was the main single from devotion, not that it should have been) and sort of didn't (i heard it in a yoga class last weekend). "imagine it was us" still best thing she's ever done, imho.

Wildest Moments has over 24m views on youtube

Disproportionately irritated at Miguel for lazily reusing the Jamie, Johnny and Jack line here.

I'm listening again and Want Your Feeling us actually really great. Pieces feels is really corny though.

eh, everyone does it. It's used better here anyway

Don't have much to add in terms of challening opinions, my take on the album is m/l the same as the consensus here except I think that "Cruel" is one of the best tracks. "You & I"/"Say You Love Me" being two of the first four tracks gives a much less flattering first impression than the album deserves imo.

Alfred hasn't linked his review? http://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/jessie-ware-lydia-loveless/

My attempts on Twitter:
Jessie Ware Tough Love impulse vs. control sometimes a draw, but focus sure can spark, esp. bootheel & leverage of "Say You Love Me." DJs!

Jessie Ware, Tough Love cont. Descendant of Prince, Sinead, Sade, understandably cautious vs candid stream: http://n.pr/1phv7BE
That's NPR's First Listen, so prob inactive when alb released domestically. Really like the title track and several, maybe most others, though overall proximity/familiarity might be less of an impact-buffer if heard as singles, EPs than a whole album at once (though only LP length, which is good)

Like she doesn't want dramatic tension of impulse vs. control, candor vs. caution to turn into drama in the pejorative sense

or even perjorative

Disproportionately irritated at Miguel for lazily reusing the Jamie, Johnny and Jack line here.

― Matt DC, Sunday, October 19, 2014 6:03 AM Bookmark

if Smokey could reuse his Pagliacci line...

rest of album around it + listing of names + the kinda inverted commas plastic cosyness of their delivery (not actually hitting the bottle, just cute songwriting for "i feel sad" vs miguel's original flamboyant dress-up biker blues) somehow gives that line a weird mondeo-pop side effect of evoking 'running in the family' or 'johnny & mary' or something idk

she sings them like she's singing about an old MOR pop group. "crosby stills & nash" or something

like, i knew the orig miguel line but just didn't parse it as that for several listens on this

speaking of, it would feel cruel to bump miguel's own thread, but omgggg his chemical bros collab for the hunger games soundtrack is so bad

hahahahahaha listening now it is badder than i could ever dream

Tough Love samples Little Red Corvette, right?

So far, I think my favorite song on Tough Love is "Want Your Feeling," and yes, I know that is the one cowritten by Dev Hynes.

Share it all and Midnight caller are better than half of the album.

nah, The Way We Are is clearly the best bonus track

"midnight caller" is properly incredible, the other bonus tracks are pretty forgettable (in that i have already forgotten them)

"12" is lovely as well

all in all i think this is probably more of a disappointment than little red, which at least had a pretty good album hiding in a botched package, and one that seemed its own satisfying, if muted, thing - the few genuine highlights on tough love make the rest of it seem worse because they stick out so much

like, the less immediate/hooky cuts on devotion did a really good job of bolstering "wildest moments", "running" etc. calms between the storms but cut from similar enough cloth that it all flowed really satisfyingly. here, cuts like "you & i" and "cruel" are ok, adequate, but between "tough love" and "champagne kisses" it's like, what's the point of these again?

Crossover.

i thought that was the point of "say you love me" (blech) and "pieces". who will "you & i" or "cruel" cross over to?

"cruel" just makes me think of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUH5C_EKYKY

which i guess was also a crossover attempt, although not one that worked

idg the response to this record at all. it seems totally of a piece to me, even moreso than Devotion? (although the highlights aren't as high) "Wildest Moments" sounded more like a crossover attempt to me than anything on this record.

Wildest Moments is the only Jessie Ware song I've ever heard that I don't like.

Everything else from both albums is a keeper.

you're the only Johnny I know that I don't like.

I'm not huge on it, definitely my least favorite of the singles from Devotion xp

it seems to be the least 'jessie ware' of all her songs if you know what i mean but i still like it. anyway this album is a keeper imo.

"Wildest Moments" is as inessential as "You & I" but it's a lot more listenable.

even though i don't think this album is perfect i find it very listenable and it'll still be among my year end favourites. my hope is that she'll be a little bit more adventurous with album 3 given that this second one hasn't set the charts ablaze like maybe she thought it might.