Kelis - C/D

or whatever she's saying. dope song

wait....I missed that line! which song?

lol dude now that i've seen the tracklist i realize i was mishearing "emancipate yourself"

hahahahahahahaha

haaah

O_O at the "i'm a braveHEEEAAAAARRRRRRT" chant.

then she starts going on about purple hearts!

This is better than most other commercial Eurohouse departures in this vein but it still feels very hacky. I wish she'd picked better producers.

It feels like a wasted opportunity because there's so much potential in that hinterland between rnb and diva house and Kelis would be the perfect vehicle for that, but the tracks need to be more Robin S and less Confessions on a Dancefloor for that to work.

^^^ Largely agree with that on first listen.

I sorta feel like the sound doesn't frame her vocals awfully well. shrug, maybe it'll grow on me.

but Kelis doesn't really have a big enough voice for that diva house approach does she?

I sorta feel like the sound doesn't frame her vocals awfully well

Yeah most of these feel like mashups. With a couple of exceptions (Scream, Emancipate) it doesn't feel like she's really interacting with the beat properly, or aware of how it suits her vocals, or the producers just aren't really interested in that.

but Kelis doesn't really have a big enough voice for that diva house approach does she?

You don't really need to be a big belting Robin S/Lisa Kekula type to do diva house well though.

This is better than most other commercial Eurohouse departures in this vein but it still feels very hacky. I wish she'd picked better producers.

This is how I feel. It's a B+ or B effort.

Yeah the difference with Confessions... is the Stuart Price is so strong even when he's not trying - at first blush there's no groove here as captivating as "Get Together", say, and Kelis is too understated a vocalist to carry it without tunes that match her (which is why she and the neptunes worked so well together, or one reason at least).

Confessions is a stronger record. Whatever else Stuart Price brought, Madonna's been around a while too; she knows not to sound hack-y.

Also: Madonna had finally learned how to submerge her Post-Opera Lessons Diva Voice in the beats, so that the album seems richer from a vocal melody standpoint than it really is.

Madonna's been around a while too; she knows not to sound hack-y

*coughHardCandycough*

I pretended that one didn't exist.

knowing and doing are two separate things

You don't really need to be a big belting Robin S/Lisa Kekula type to do diva house well though

hmmm perhaps, but give an example? different thing but i'd enjoy her doing something like H&LA 'You Belong' (admittedly not because Kelis has qualities that would enhance that style of House particularly...but narrow range does enable malleability hence the JLC-inspired 4x4 electro-house template being so big in recent years)

I sorta feel like the sound doesn't frame her vocals awfully well.

yeah - this was my problem with 'acapella' and i thought it might only be the contrast with that track's metallic beat, that other producers would find noises with more sympathy to her breathiness. But I don't think they really have - she still sounds so small.

also flat - I don't know if she's exactly flat or not, but she has this way of searching around the notes before getting fully in tune (e.g. the held note on 'the silence it was deafening' in 'acapella') and a lot of the music she's paired with is kind of... unforgiving?

I really like her blue notes tbh. You don't hear that much in today's climate. It's refreshing imo.

Wait! Wait!

Listening to this - this is what they were playing in New Look at the weekend that made me so happy that I was tweeting about how great "Mallectro" was.

I'm pretty sure the "Pat Benetar singing over EA/BN's Lemonade" track was either Scream or Emancipate.

(Not saying that she sounds anything like Pat Benatar... just that's the kind of vibe. Wish I could work out what the other tracks they played were. DAMN. New Look Mallectro is possibly my new "favourite thing ever" at the moment.)

I'm not getting the disconnect between vocals and production you guys are at all.

"Mallectro" is a great neologism but I'm not sure this is it. "Sexy Bitch" and "I Gotta Feeling" were the first things that popped into my head at the term, and I know yeah, yeah, Guetta Guetta, etc., but this doesn't seem to be squarely targeted at the same teenage audience those are, and that demographic seems essential to something being "mallectro".

Which is why this won't be a huge success like those are. It's too adult (and too gay, but that's a different story).

Back to those MJB-ish blue notes (which Kelis has always done), maybe it's just the current autotune-everything climate, but they give this feeling of humanity breaking through the unstoppable machine that no one making music in this vein has right now.

I call it Mallectro because it's the kind of music that you always hear playing when you go into shops like New Look (which are often located in shopping malls). It's this kind of super-upbeat high-energy (but not necessarily Hi-NRG) vaguely edgey electropop with sassy female vocals.

(I am however predisposed to liking this because it's so outraging so many of the Erol Forum snobs who are all... "But I LIIIIIKE this... but it's David Guetta, uuurrrgggghh... BUT I LIIIIIIKE IT, OH NOES, MUSIC SNOB BREAKDOWN!!!")

(Oddly enough, my favourite thing on it is actually Segue 5 which sounds like an Aphex Twin fanboy exploding with outrage)

kinda wish this sounded a little more expensive and richer

((It's probably quite juvenile that my impressions of an album can be tempered more by the kind of people who haaaaate it as much as the people who like it.))

(I am however predisposed to liking this because it's so outraging so many of the Erol Forum snobs who are all... "But I LIIIIIKE this... but it's David Guetta, uuurrrgggghh... BUT I LIIIIIIKE IT, OH NOES, MUSIC SNOB BREAKDOWN!!!")

so OTM

((It's probably quite juvenile that my impressions of an album can be tempered more by the kind of people who haaaaate it as much as the people who like it.))

and this, too, but I've never claimed to be above juvenalia

(Especially considering these are all the same snobs who were outraged when that false rumour went round last year that Boys Noize was gonna be producing Kelis.)

Is Kelis still bigger in the UK than the US? Because this is the sort of record that goes down a storm over here.

"Milkshake", "Bossy", and (too a smaller extent) "Caught Out There" are the only hits she's ever had over here.

to

"Caught out There" 54
"Milkshake" 3
"Bossy" (featuring Too Short) 16

^^Kelis' entire Billboard Hot 100 history

Whaaaaaaaaa!

This isn't even scheduled for release in the U.S. til July, which indicates it may go the way of Wanderland :/

i'd forgotten that 'Lil Star' was actually a top 3 hit here

i thought the only guetta production was "acapella" (which i dislike) and that boys noize did have a song on it? (dunno which but i'd guess "scream")

"mallectro" makes sense w/r/t uk high street clothes shops - new look as k8 says, top shop, miss selfridge et al. the production mostly reminds me of late-90s french filter house x straight-up commercial house (not so much guetta as, like, shapeshifters' "lola's theme" or something).

completely disagree that it sounds hacky or that there's a disconnect between kelis and the production though! it's certainly not as hacky as confessions on a dancefloor, which i LIKE but even then was fairly aware that a couple of songs apart that album basically = stellar grooves papering over non-songs.

there's this tremendous sense of euphoria throughout it - kelis all but abandons the idea of writing pop songs and just goes straight for a constant cascade of repeated, anthemic hooks - i rarely sense that she's trying to fit her songs to the beat, but more that she's improvising or writing based on the beat, and she's ready to pare herself down accordingly. but she still stamps her personality on it - her vocal hooks are SO huge ("it's not enough to SING so just SCREAM", "I was SUPER COOL but now I'm SUPER STRONG", "EMANCIPATE YOURSELF" etc), her husky voice works really well with the constantly building music, the motherhood narrative isn't laid on too thickly but is certainly present enough to be effective, particularly with "song for the baby" as the closer. it's sort of like her ray of light imo. and crucially the production avoids the recent commercial-dance pitfalls of being too focused on the treble.

With a couple of exceptions (Scream, Emancipate) it doesn't feel like she's really interacting with the beat properly, or aware of how it suits her vocals

i honestly don't hear this at all - it's true of the horrible "acapella" but elsewhere i could literally believe she's ad-libbing over the beat, going with it at all times!

i also think most of these trax would absolutely EXPLODE on any dancefloor

Yeah the difference with Confessions... is the Stuart Price is so strong even when he's not trying - at first blush there's no groove here as captivating as "Get Together", say, and Kelis is too understated a vocalist to carry it without tunes that match her (which is why she and the neptunes worked so well together, or one reason at least).

think "brave" and "scream" certainly match the booka-rip that is "get together" - the production's certainly not the star of the show here compared to confessions, there's no "whoa stuart price is a genius" moment, but that really enables kelis to shine imo. as for understatement...sure, in the past, but c'mon she's basically bellowing arms-in-the-air chants on every line here.

"it's not enough to SING so just SCREAM", "I was SUPER COOL but now I'm SUPER STRONG", "EMANCIPATE YOURSELF"

Haha these are total Lexnip phrases though but I don't hear them bursting with personality in the manner of a Caught Out There or Milkshake. Partly because the music they're tethered to is so anonymous. Not sure what big gulf in quality you're hearing between Acapella and everything else either.

she's basically bellowing arms-in-the-air chants on every line here

This is the problem, she's not bellowing really, she feels kind of overwhelmed by the production, maybe it's all just too loud </compressionbore>

lex entirely otm except for his bizarre "Acapella" hate, esp. about the motherhood narrative

I'm willing to consider that this just sounds shit on headphones.

Oh! It's 22nd Century. That was actually produced by BN.

xp possibly, but I do 95% of my listening on my stereo