kehlani - you should be here (2015)

oh my god I love this album, I'm looking forward so much to getting to know these songs. I was disappointed when it ended so soon

she's nailed the sequencing too esp w/r/t previously-released tracks (am also happy all the singles made it!)

i think my biggest beef w/ this is the mastering, it gets unnecessarily loud at certain points (esp the choruses for the singles). or like the part where the bass comes in on "everything is yours" sounds ugly to me strictly just from a mastering standpoint, kinda disappointing (tho maybe it was just my screen or cuz i don't use an amp for headphones or whatever!)

'you should be here' was such a... pleasant listen, i think the major label mastering complex kinda fucked w/ this new one a bit

The stream does sound ever so slightly off balance, more than my download copy, but hey so are her relationships.

(by screen i meant stream, yeah)

dub this album onto cassette tape, dub that onto another, repeat fifty times over, place the final tape in your shirt pocket and then jump out of the nearest open window

big fan of how "too much" slows down and reshapes "more than a woman"

faint echo of the "Hit Em wit da Hee" beat too.

also the sample of "if it isn't love" in "in my feelings"

which is like the moment the album looks straight into my soul tbh

yeah I mentioned that allusion upthread – it occurs to me now that "In My Feelings" samples "If It Isn't Now" while much of the album takes its emotional cue from the "Maybe she'll take me back" middle eight.

me at the end of this album: "no thank YOU kehlani"

dont often break out this part of the critical toolkit but lol damn if this isnt the most taurus record ever

this rules, let's make a pact not to forget about it at the end of the year

dub this album onto cassette tape, dub that onto another, repeat fifty times over, place the final tape in your shirt pocket and then jump out of the nearest open window

― r|t|c, Friday, January 27, 2017 10:21 AM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark

come on man!!!!! i just want pop music to sound a little better u_u

but i'd rather talk about how "piece of mind" is a stunning song that should be an R&B standard from now on

obviously she telegraphs the TLC influence w/ the stylizing of the title but i kept thinking that this my fav parts of this abum feel like they could have been on 'fanmail'... "piece of mind" especially

haha sorry i couldnt resist the hyperb by js homage

https://www.discogs.com/artist/237914-Chris-Athens?sort=year%2Cdesc&limit=500

man i cant believe they got this bum in to master it jeez

ayo ma u sure u want that funcrusher plus sound tho? aight word

In Jordan's defense the advance stream they sent out sounded weird to me also. But it sounds fine on Apple Music now. Idk

Pop&oak were heavily involved in this right? Kinda cool to think of the "say it" record having more of a wave than Tory lanez trump like attention span

p&o doing the bulk of the production was kinda my main point of concern leading up to it but the album is a terrifically well considered and vibrant synthesis of old and new

not that i doubt the subtlety of their chops but lesser students of the game than keh sometimes only bang like vehicular

not here for pop & oak slander

not here for pop & oak slander

hey--i really mean it

hey--i really mean it

nice i cracked the double posting code

in a dee-sguise

aoty

the bass on everything is yours m/l gave my sub a nice workout

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22794-sweetsexysavage/

Atlantic groomed her publicly and behind the scenes for cred and stardom, from 2014 mixtape Cloud 19 to 2015’s album-called-mixtape You Should Be Here to heavy promotion at radio.

correct me if i'm wrong here, but atlantic didn't sign her until after cloud 19. we were talking about her here on ILX before she signed

not a criticism of the review mind, which seems more positive than that score which is kinda weak. i shudder to think of what middling PR-driven garbage beat out 7.0

It's a great review Katherine! (as are all your reviews) the score did seem somewhat incongruent tho which is often the case with pitchfork reviews

generally speaking anything 7+ is in the "very good" category

Yeah that was a v good review to be clear

lol I know 7 is "v good" but cmon

I have to agree with deej here. A plain 7 just feels wrong at this point..

her last tape was a 7.4...

quibbling over bloody p4k decimal places does not befit kehlani

haven't been this excited about an album since dumblonde's debut. this is kinda like my r&b pipe dream of the last 16 years or so.

belatedly the decimal places are because I really liked You Should Be Here

http://www.spin.com/2017/02/kehlanis-sweetsexysavage-argues-that-theres-more-to-modern-rb-than-sadboy-jerkoffs/

some nice lines in jord rvw

album is strong and interesting enough on its own terms to not require modern rnb industry 101 crit layups imo, but i get it

agree that empathy is def the keyword. "i kill em i kill em i kill em with compassion"

arguably it's actually a lil bit of a trap to counterpoint this against "acidic r&b at the moment" because it underplays the headstrong advances keh makes to the now slightly stale popular/critical idea of ~relatability~

generally i find myself writing a lot about context, always trying to remind myself to write more about the music... but thank u

on Wednesday when a student asked who some of my favorite singers were and I said "K Michelle and Kehlani" she brightened and we talked about radio for about ten minutes. It felt good to establish a vaporwave-free zone.

I love this record. I gotta hook up with a boy, love him, and face familial resistance so I can make "Undercover" our anthem.

I know we live in an unfair universe cause "Undercover" isn't everywhere

haven't been this obsessed with a song for a while now

head over heels 4 "escape" today

trying to figure out what song that opening guitar reminds me of. some babyface thing I'm sure

big fan of how "too much" slows down and reshapes "more than a woman"

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Friday, January 27, 2017 8:24 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeh its a great homage