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

pro tip: this song is amazing

http://soundcloud.com/jessieware/jessie-ware-110-1

it could totally be on 'velvet rope' right??

i'm really in love with this thing

I prefer "Running," which will probably be in my top ten. My favorite guitar solo in many months too.

but, yeah, she's worth watching. She reminds me of Shara Nelson.

There's also this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ltza7hYls

Looking forward to the album

I love the video for 110% almost as much as the song. I can't figure out what the muffled sample in the background is saying, "carving my initials on your forehead" I think?

fucking love this song. definitely deserves a thread

original 'running' felt to me way too encumbered with reference and borrowed vibes, but tbf i did come to that conclusion when i was still getting to know her (which i guess i still am). alf have you heard the disclosure remix?

'110', it wasnt really until i heard it on the radio before i realised how much it goes, it's p catchy. not sure if it's gonna be a keeper but certainly one of those brief flings you kinda fall for a bit

Love this song

yeah I've played this song 20 times since I first heard it, I love it

i've been meaning to listen to this and "running" for MONTHS and didn't get round to them because i didn't think i'd have to make an effort. here we are now though, i like them all, on one listen "running" is better and neither are as good as "strangest feeling" but who knows how they'll shake out

"running" is totally and amazingly soft rock

just checked out Strangest Feeling, must have missed it last time around, amazing too. Think she's shaping up to be my 2012 pick of the girls looking at her trajectory.

i think i might start a thread for delilah at some point, her album is really surprisingly good

"running" is totally and amazingly soft rock

― kanye kardashian (lex pretend), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:06 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

so so so tryhard sade tho

just look at the single cover even

"maybe felt a little too record industry to capture the true desired lisa stansfield realness" is what i said about my first impressions of ware generally on the bobby caldwell thread

listening to the three singles together is weird, they're all good songs but they all feel like really overly deliberate attempts to capture a certain aesthetic - sade x soft rock for "running", delilahesque trip-hop revivalism x burial 3am night bus moods for "strangest feeling", airy summery "my boo" breezy realness for "110%"

i think i perhaps like "strangest feeling" best b/c being overly conscious and deliberate suits that gothy aesthetic well

http://i.imgur.com/D0TuS.jpg

1. Devotion
2. Wildest Moments
3. Running
4. Still Love Me
5. No To Love
6. Night Light
7. Swan Song
8. Sweet Talk
9. 110%
10. Taking In Water
11. Something Inside

i wonder if i'm the only person on earth who feels sorry for jamie woon

haha the first thing i thought of when i heard "110%" was "aw, poor jamie woon"

jamie woon's album did decently, didn't it? and now he's just between albums.

capture the true desired lisa stansfield realness

i don't care man i'll take the imitation

sade is the real oak real and stansfield is the real plastic real tho, there's levels mayne

i guess what i'm saying is i am enjoying the video

yeah i dont actually know how woon's sold on the low but i dont feel his album was ever really in the air once it dropped, even in the liminal circles we're talking about. just seemed to drop and disappear

anyway i wouldnt care to speculate on what he deserved but it was definitely more than what he got. i felt like he made brave-ish decisions on that album he didnt have to if he was just playing to the gallery and it's a shame they werent acknowledged at very least

ok maybe brave is too strong but whatever, he stuck to his guns somewhat and i respect that

Produced by Julio Bashmore if you were wondering. It's blowing up, just an hour ago I heard it on a radio station in Mexico City and was wondering what ILM thought about it.

For all the reference points being thrown around here, and I know Jessie Ware's coming from a completely different place, but you could put 110% on the Grimes album and no one would notice. Its level of base competency is higher and it's a good song but I'm not sure the production does it many favours. I listened to Running straight afterwards and liked that one more.

Bit disappointed that so many of these jobbing post-dubstep vocalists seem to be defaulting to a very similar soft-rock middle ground, and yeah while it might be a brave decision up against whatever the FACT-reading bores are clamouring for, you need serious songwriting ability to pull of that aesthetic well and I dunno if any of these guys do.

Does Roses Gabor have a post-guest-vocalist career yet? That might be promising.

"running" is as good as "110%"... this might be my most anticipated album of the year atm

assuming d'angelo isn't putting an album out

Running > 110% for me, but just barely.

I hadn't been slotting Woon into this space in my brain, but now that it's been mentioned it totally makes sense.

No clue what he sold, but that album was mad underrated even on ILM, given the love for 'Night Air'. There were a LARGE number of jams there.

I love the video for 110% almost as much as the song. I can't figure out what the muffled sample in the background is saying, "carving my initials on your forehead" I think?

― boxedjoy, Friday, June 8, 2012 5:57 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You heard it right - it's a sample from Big Pun's Dream Shatterer, I think.

hmmm, not so sure about this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=FnOBjARwNi0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnOBjARwNi0

baby in our wildest moomins

i like this a lot

http://vimeo.com/38905074

hadnt seen it before but this song off the alb is the real deal

"wildest moments" is amazing

fully in love with all the singles now. i think "running" might have shaken out as my favourite so far

think i might be talking to her next week

i'm really taken with how - similar to wynter gordon's newest stuff - ware's vocal strategy is a perfect midpoint between r&b and female singer-songwriter

hmm...I heard "Stimela" and wasn't impressed.

Holy fuck her album is going to be amazing. "Sweet Talk," the latest track to be released, is ANOTHER great track. When the guitars drop in at 2:30... one of the best musical moments of the year. Man this girl's on a roll.

Can we change this thread to "general jessie ware thread" btw i think it's about time

As requested, kinda.

that works. thanks ned!

+1 for Running. Shades of Sade, tasteful trip-hop, etc.

Still I actually liked tasteful trip-hop. Makes me want to go listen to a Moloko record.

That was a good interview BTW, Lex. I wouldn't mind seeing dance music in the UK go classy again like back in the 2-step heyday.

I wouldn't mind seeing dance music in the UK go classy again like back in the 2-step heyday.

I'm not sure this sentence makes sense really? Unless by "2-step" you basically mean MJ Cole and Wookie?

Yeah, and some Dem 2 tracks and Tuff Jam.

And Craig David.

i need the whole package

it's quarantine, honey. Use your imagination like the rest of us.

jessie ware has never been a lyrics-forward artist anyway

there's an art to unobtrusive lyrics that don't actively detract from the experience!

A craft at which even Bernard Sumner failed sometimes.

and I like the lyrics of the last two tracks just fine

i take it back about the lyrics, they're good actually, i just heard a few clunkers on "read my lips" the other day and extrapolated

any good remixes so far? the album has if anything just grown on me more over the course of the summer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHwsQHvmQ-c

i think that's literally the only one though? (i wish i liked it more.) hoping for more.

jessie needs rave synth drama not a moodymann-lite treatment imo

Georgia's remix of "What's Your Pleasure" is closer to rave synth drama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgZilR39_BY

ty

i think that's literally the only one though? (i wish i liked it more.) hoping for more.

Only good one or only one? (as there's quite a lot of remixes on Spotify)

ok a bunch more since the last time i checked

hey yall who invoked Azana, thanx so much! Just now listed, then commented & linked to Frank Kogan, who had sent South African picks:
Here's a good -sounding playlist, all from her currrent album, Ingoma, I think--might seem a bit ballad-y at first, but mostly of a smooth pulsation, luxury class but never wasteful---or wasted, alas; I wouldn't something a little less reasonable, but she's as good, as that gets. Relatively mainstream "Your Love" is even a fave---first single, and I totally get that, ditto the plainer version of "Goodbye," but most faves make more overt use of "ethnic" elements, like the other version of "Goodbye," feat. Just Bheki and Afriikan Papi, and another fave, "Uthando Lwangemela" (that might be my No.1), also "Sikelela", with 0 guests listed. Ditto the mystique of "Egoli," with clipped accents drawing catchy verses around the sidewalk, then chorus stretching some syllables toward dreamtime--here's the playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgV3lUftsRbYnDhoIIwZoqvIfFN4gOYkF
And one of several not on the list, v. catchy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNCml8NfC8I
There's also a live at the Redbox set, where she performs the whole album, apparently, haven;t listened to that yet (several African artists with vids from the Redbox, I see) (Oh also on the list: "Lovers and Best Friends," feat. Disciples of House.)

Somebody in YT comments said, like, "If she were Anita Baker or Sade, people would be raving." Yeah she's in there between them, vibe-wise, also found/from her own nexus.

Also think of Sade re more sensuous phrasing (of Jessie) brushing by on the beat train, overall effect also recalling that Sade is a band. Agree that while JW has her Granny's disco collection down as ground, she's also learned from subsequent releases, sounds like she might like Robyn, for inst.

"More sensuous" sometimes than others on *her* album, I mean, not comparing her to Azana.

She has her own thread if you're curious: Azana - Ingoma

that's right - I c+p'd your post to that thread, dow.

in case you (or anyone else) missed it, the new album by kindred spirit Simmy is out today, more here: THE HOUSE OF SUN-EL: Sun-El Musician, Simmy, Mlindo The Vocalist, and other related artists

Thanks so much! I like her track w Sun-El Musician, and dazzled by prospects of all the vids etc. on his thread, incl. Simmy.

Do you like the Ware?

O hell yes, did I not say enough about her? Very much! You guys have covered it pretty well. How does it compare to her previous?

Bass-ier, faster, sensual-er.

ooo-wee!

it's her best album imo

Stunning archive Ware performance on tonight's Jools Holland (selected by, er, Mel C).

Ahh I love this, this is like the polar opposite vibe of the original (and I fucking love the original)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpaihnd2a4Y

that took a turn!

Jessie's gonna be a judge on Drag Race UK's upcoming season and if the two queens up for elimination on her ep don't LSFYL to WYP's title track, I will plotz

but knowing it's Drag Race and they never give us what we want, they probably won't even lip sync to a Jessie Ware song on her ep

yesssssss

Just so you all know. There's gonna be a deluxe. I have listened to your calls (demands 😉) and I'm trying to get this shit together as quick as possible for you. I got you XXX

— Jessie Ware (@JessieWare) January 8, 2021

THANK U QUEEN

maybe the deluxe will over Overtime #justice4overtime

She’s so underrated outside the UK.

is she?

this album was probably rated more highly by american critics than just about anything she's ever released which is insane

is it

yes

her first two albums -- even the imperfect second one -- where she was trying to carve out a voice of her own & interacting w/ contemporary pop music >>>> trad disco revivalism

you know there's more going on than "trad disco revivalism" but ok

devotion is still a classic and was very well received critically also, it just probably had less crossover to us critics because it was only released in the us nearly a year after its uk release

no way is tough love better than what's your pleasure though

are we really arguing about whether she's underrated here? Check Metacritic in 2012 and 2020.

it is weird to me that this album is comparably well received to devotion which is imo more interesting and emotionally resonant

No she’s not underrated and Devotion = WYP

both questions settled, next

imo Pleasure > Tough Love > Devotion >>>>>> Glasshouse

Neat how different people hear things differently.

She’s so underrated outside the UK.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, January 9, 2021 7:01 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Apparently she has a sizable following in Poland -- Devotion apparently made a successful impact there. I believe she has performed on The Voice Poland

There's been a whole Polish nu-disco scene for at least 15 years, most visibly to me (as a dilettante) in the Kathy Diamond albums or the film The Lure. What's Your Pleasure is a neat fit, and really its only fault (to me) is its single-minded lyrical focus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rym5

Jessie will be on Graham Norton in a few weeks' time and the rumour is she will perform "Remember Where You Are"

ooooh

love this rumour

Still have absolutely no idea which track to vote for in the poll