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

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.

shift k3y remixes "you & i forever" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcG1UyziP0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS0c-bE6RWs

predz absolutely duppied this, so good

I love every goddamn song on this album.

same

the rhythm track on the title tune is taken right from "little red corvette"

i approve

whole album is a grower IMO

Sweetest Song was my favorite from the first time I heard it, so much so that I probably neglected really enjoying the rest of the record. When seandalai made mention of Champagne Kisses the other, I heard it with fresh ears and now it's also my favorite. I expect every other song to become a co-favorite before long.

i don't hate any song on this record but idk

"champagne kisses" is wondrous in a very expected way but the one true revelation on this is the title track imo

xp otm :-/

I'll have to give this one another listen but it didn't hold together as a record anywhere near as well as devotion did, for me.

the one true revelation on this is the title track imo

otm

I love "You and I Forever" – the bets Miggy guest appearance since his bit on the Monae single.

i don't like that song at all

"kind of sometimes maybe" was a true revelation for me (good song to listen to loud) & "keep on lying" is a great tune

though you guys reminded me i had never listened to the bonus tracks. i love "all on you"! really precise post-disco approximation

"Midnight Caller"!

was also surprised to find myself liking the romy song this time

title track is the most effortlessly replayable song of the year for me

like it generates no friction so it requires no expenditure of energy to listen repeatedly, lost track of my plays at this point

"Pieces" threatens to turn into Rod Stewart's "My Heart Can't Tell You No" every time the chorus strings bend in a certain melodic direction.

"kind of sometimes maybe" was a true revelation for me

yahhh this is the best song imo

that arpeggio!

the album is def. too long, and it has the same problem as the first album IMO, which is that for all the precise and seductive arrangements the songwriting is often just too thin to sustain as much interest as it should. but she works in a really tricky idiom, and i'm just sort of grateful for what she has achieved. and the title track is wonderful..

this album isn't too long at all!

I have come to like Say You Love Me but still dread the big climax every time it comes around, gives me "community theater production of The Lion King" vibes

it's 58 minutes and 15 songs. that's not inherently too long, but i feel like there are a few stretches where the songs are samey enough that it starts to wear a bit thin.

but i'm sort of a 12-songs-in-40-minutes sort of guy.

you're counting the bonus tracks? the regular release is 11 songs in 40 minutes

ha, i don't think i realized i have the bonus track version!

there are like 2-3 transcendent songs on here for sure and only 2-3 outright stinkers but the trouble is that the rest of it is vast swathes of perfectly adequate, catchy enough songs that i'd enjoy in a noncommittal way if the album was being played in a pub or something but that i really don't care about... "cruel", "you & i (forever)", "keep on lying", blahhhhh

much much worse than the katy b album, which i've seen bracketed into the same "disappointing second album" category, but which actually seems stronger than ever now (albeit with some judicious personal rearranging and deleting, though the equivalent cheating for tough love would leave me with an EP)

each track has some nice little touches in the arrangement that tell you that folks who know what they're doing are in control. that's a genuine pleasure (esp. on headphones, i find) but only a few tracks really take off. again, i put that down to the songwriting. there are too many songs that have very slight melodies, just short little phrases that rather than develop or build just kind of repeat. but i honestly don't think this album is much worse than the first one in that respect. and ultimately i have to say i like both albums quite a bit, not least because her voice is so compelling.

i have to say that although i sometimes wish her lyrics were more /specific/, she does have a really good sense for what words /sound/ good -- and how to sing them with maximum expressiveness without getting remotely florid about it. just the opening lines of "champagne kisses" are so beautifully delivered, with a very smart varying of the length of pauses between words/lines and that lovely scat singing ("do do do do do").