Kelis - C/D

RELIGION SCIENCE FICTION TECHNOLOGY

― grin and ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ it (The Reverend), Saturday, June 26, 2010 1:00 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark

otm. this is probably my favourite song on the album

Still lolling @ this:

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h62/freshcrunkjuice/kelis-dog1.png

so edgy, so now

― r|t|c, Thursday, May 20, 2010 9:14 AM (1 month ago)

That said, I think the album's great. Kate OTM about the lack of skippable "ballad" tracks. This is a lot further into dance/house territory, and a bit further away from R&B, than I ever imagined she might go. But I'm enjoying it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqtZ7i1ToIQ

?

That said, I think the album's great. Kate OTM about the lack of skippable "ballad" tracks.

;_;

Though Kelis has never been a ballads lady.

really thought this album would have some really great dreamy housey rmxs by now but i haven't managed to hear any. Fourth of July is begging to be twice as long and w/ half the lyrics

really thought this album would have some really great dreamy housey rmxs by now but i haven't managed to hear any. Fourth of July is begging to be twice as long and w/ half the lyrics

― plax (ico), Saturday, July 17, 2010 5:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

As much as I love the album, I'm waiting for some killer remixes too... come on DJs and producers!

Though Kelis has never been a ballads lady.

get along with you
suspended
shooting stars
lil star
rolling through the hood
stick up
marathon

admittedly the last 3 aren't really trad ballads but i think they're secretly the pinnacle of kelis's career

Oh I love that list absolutely, I'm just not sure many of those read as "ballad" in the derogatory sense ilxor means - and it's a short list compared to most R&B singers.

"acapella" would work so much better as a ballad

That's a great idea actually.

Get Along With You FakeID bootleg >>> Get Along OG

OMG no, A Capella as a ballad would be a skippable horror of "argh argh clawing through your clothes to find your iPod and GET IT OFF GET IF OFF til everyone on the bus turns around to stare at you like you're a mad person" proportions.

A Capella as a ballad would be pretty much the most cloying thing imaginable. It would work much better as a house banger with a half-decent producer at the helm.

Which reminds me about my idea of getting someone to do a mashup version of the entire album over actually good eurohouse - most of these choruses are too good to deserve the shoddy treatment they get here. A Capella would be terrific over something in the Mandarine Girl/In White Rooms vein.

Also Kelis is way better at torch-song type ballads than pretty much anyone else.

one of the things i love about this album is that she makes no distinction between highbrow and lowbrow versions of house and wraps them all around each other because she doesn't know better

It's nothing to do with highbrow and lowbrow and more about good vs crap. At least half of this fantasy bootleg album would be about as High Street as possible.

all of the album is fucking planters tho as is

x-post

Agreed. I've always disliked Kylie Minogue's "Spinning Around" - kind of deadened fag-end filter disco - but when she performed it live using the music from CeCe Penniston's "Finally" it suddenly became brilliant. "Finally" is neither more or less high-brow than the original "Spinning Around", but the former is vibrant and energising where the latter sounds both self-satisfied and "will this do?"

I feel like Fleshtone has emerged at roughly the same point in post-electro-house as "Spinning Around" did vis a vis post-french-house, and at times there's a similar sense in which the listener is expected to just register the style's basic cues and think "oh yes I do like this style" with no regard to whether it's a good example or not. (a fairly reliable bet with this music's gay audeince at least I guess)

Which is not to say nothing totally amazing in this style could ever emerge again - Kylie's "Love At First Sight" is pretty much in the same style as "Spinning Around" but is magical.

A Capella would be terrific over something in the Mandarine Girl/In White Rooms vein.

I think the kid might be onto something.

No, that would be *terrible*. There's something just way too subtle about that kind of music. It wouldn't work, it would actually sound quite boring. The Kelis album works *because* it's all bombast and obvious stylistic tricks, but in a really fun way that compliments her over the top delivery.

But I guess I just look for different things in my pop.

at times there's a similar sense in which the listener is expected to just register the style's basic cues and think "oh yes I do like this style" with no regard to whether it's a good example or not. (a fairly reliable bet with this music's gay audeince at least I guess)

you see this was absolutely what i was expecting the album to be, and it was really surprising that it turned out to be a lot more than this - it doesn't feel as cheap or tossed-off as so much else doing the rote post-gaga redonesque urbanlectro rounds at the moment, it doesn't really feel like kelis is just doing a genre move for the sake of it. it's not as great as her first three albums but it's as good/better than kelis was here (though they're both 7/10 for completely different reasons)

gah post wasn't finished!

it doesn't come across like a genre move b/c kelis has been dabbling in commercial dance since day dot (timo maas, richard x, moby collabs), and i kind of admire how she hasn't gone for the obvious r&b/dance fusion album but she's just dived in at the deep end and made an album of songs like shapeshifters' "lola's theme" and sonique's "it feels so good". which i think we all agree are commercial dance classics, right?

yeah, she didn't adopt house signifiers, she made a house album, there's a difference.

The Kelis album works *because* it's all bombast and obvious stylistic tricks, but in a really fun way that compliments her over the top delivery.

^^^otm

made an album of songs like shapeshifters' "lola's theme" and sonique's "it feels so good"

They're okay but they're not in Finally or Show Me Love territory*, and I think the songs on Fleshtone are absolutely good enough to be in that bracket given the right treatment. But the production choices made here are just so hacky where they could have been transcendent - "will this do?" accusation totally OTM. There's nothing wrong with bombastic but there's good bombastic and there's lazy half-arsed bombastic. The end result is just clumsy, it's like the difference between Vitalic and Justice.

These songs don't really sound like Lola's Theme or It Feels So Good either fwiw.

*Or for that matter Corona's Rhythm Of The Night which sounds terrific over In White Rooms.

also there's actual BASS on this album, which the urbanlectro fusion has been sorely lacking. and there's a sense of grandeur in her vocals that balances out the obvious bombast-rush of the arrangements.

See, for me, vocals of GRANDEUR and bombast-arrangements work together. In a way that vocals of GRANDEUR over much more subtle treatments only serve to make the grand vocals seem silly or the subtle treatments seem boring.

But then again, Matt DC will chase me off the thread because I do actually prefer Justice to Vitalic. (But then again, I see Justice as just a cheesy Goth-Industrio fun slampiece.)

matt dc is weirding me out on this thread by using the argument i always use about something i like

and that i was FULLY expecting to succumb to all those pitfalls!

something in the Mandarine Girl/In White Rooms vein.

^^^ Hardly lacking in grandeur IMO.

(I'm tempted to say that the reason Kylie doing filter house doesn't work is more because she has the vocal personality of a hamburger bun than the production, but I haven't listened to Kylie close enough to know for certain.)

speaking of moby and kelis mashups: this and 4th july

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj8oFqzMcCw

I'm not really advocating Kelis doing Booka Shade here but she could have made an INCREDIBLE bombastic commercial diva house record and instead she got maybe half way there. Maybe I'm just advocating a more retro type commercial diva house - all the reference points I'm reaching for are from the 90s whereas you can't deny Fleshtone is 100% contemporary.

(I'm tempted to say that the reason Kylie doing filter house doesn't work is more because she has the vocal personality of a hamburger bun than the production, but I haven't listened to Kylie close enough to know for certain.)

that's true re: her vocal personality, but as tim says the kylie/filter house combination has worked sometimes, so idk really

Maybe it's a question of environment - perhaps Mandarine Girl/In White Rooms work really nicely over a Funktion 1 sound system in a club environment, but listening to them at work, over YouTube and shitty headphone speakers, they sound, well, subtle to the point of dull. Pop music like Kelis *has* to be able to sparkle, even over shitty MP3 sound quality in rubbish sound quality environments like my desk workstation. And they do.

But I do recognise that a lot of you are speaking from a "does this work in a club" perspective while I'm talking about it from a "can I listen to this as I program" perspective, which is what I want pop music and especially dance to function for.

you can't deny Fleshtone is 100% contemporary.

― Matt DC, Monday, July 19, 2010 11:13 AM (1 minute ago)

i think it sounds ridic retro?

Kylie only works in contexts where the flat/blandness of her voice is a *feature* - where the song is supposed to exude polished sophistication and the shiny all-white sleekness. Where the vocal is *supposed* to have the emotional lack of aura of a coffee jingle. In cases like that, Kylie's voice works fine as a kind of cipher. But in cases where the vocal needs a strong personality and presence, she's all wrong.

But this is not a Kylie thread.

that a lot of you are speaking from a "does this work in a club" perspective while I'm talking about it from a "can I listen to this as I program" perspective

No I'm absolutely talking about this from a radio/listening to at work perspective, I just think this particular style Kelis has opted for sounds shitty even on headphones/on work speakers.

(I'm tempted to say that the reason Kylie doing filter house doesn't work is more because she has the vocal personality of a hamburger bun than the production, but I haven't listened to Kylie close enough to know for certain.)

my argument is about the backing music not the singer - we should leave kylie the singer out of it. And what lex said above.

but... but... how can you leave the singer out of it when the whole point is the fit/contrast between the singer and the backing?

kelis doing retro diva house would be kinda lame, i'm ~glad~ it sounds contemporary

but... but... how can you leave the singer out of it when the whole point is the fit/contrast between the singer and the backing?

Because the backing music for "Spinning Around" and much of Fleshtones would be p. lame regardless of who sang over it.

the backing music of "spinning around" is nothing special whereas the backing music of flesh tone is mostly amazing though? i don't get where this "it sounds shitty" argument is coming from, it's pretty much an amalgam of a ton of commercial dance sounds that i love which is totally refreshing after hearing so many pop artists get it wrong lately

Given that many of us on this thread have absolutely no problem with Flesh Tone I don't think that argument works. With another singer - or as instrumental club music - it might be "lame" but with Kelis, it works. Hell, she got me to like and even *enjoy* a Boys Noize production, so that really does say something for the combination.

It means you enjoy a Boys Noize production.

People are allowed to like things other people don't. We can both be right/wrong on this.

haha yeah i'm not exactly a big fan of any of the producers kelis has worked with here - last time i saw boys noize in a club he did my head in - it's a bit similar to gaga/redone in that his production sounds awful to me 90% of the time but working with gaga clearly forces him to raise his game substantially

It means that I like the combination of Boys Noize with Kelis. I do not like Boys Noize under usual circumstances. Sometimes it is the combination, rather than the ingredients, so discussing the ingredients separately and switching them out is only half the story.

It occurred to me that I'd just assumed that the really boshing blary penultimate track was the Boys Noize collaboration and I actually quite like his song here. He can do restrained quite well when he wants to, his remix of My Moon My Man by Feist being the prime example.

SONG FOR BABBY SONG FOR BABBY SONG FOR BABBY

― The Reverend, Saturday, May 22, 2010 8:46 AM Bookmark

"Song For the Baby" works because it's not sentimental at all, just joyous and celebratory.

― upper mississippi sh@key mo (The Reverend), Tuesday, May 25, 2010 1:55 PM Bookmark

I said this before but not only does it avoid sentimentality by being j&c, it also does so by being v frank and honest and avoiding any pretense of sugarcoating. It's a strange mix of emotions that not only works, but avoids obvious ways out.