Rolling R&B Thread 2012

i love the chorus on this and also, surprisingly, the beat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL1GcXuP9GM

not so much uncredited and frankly unwanted dude but good song nonetheless

yeah it's okay! gone off it a fair amount since i first posted though, the whirring clunkiness endears then annoys

briefly just flicked thru this usher album, think i'm gonna like it

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

probably not gonna be the best song on there but it pleased meh

I had a real short turnaround when reviewing this one, and I'm a bit bummed b/c it's still growing on me. It's a total grab bag, even by Usher standards, so I actually like it more now that I've heard the bonus tracks, which only make an already sprawling album that much more eclectic. (I really, really wish labels included bonus tracks in early review streams).

the bonus tracks are possibly the best (and they did include them in my review stream) (though fret not the label made themselves unhelpful in several different ways)

shit i need to get the bonus tracks

really annoying me that i can't place the classical sample on "ifu", it's really familiar

I try not to vent about this stuff too much, but every stream is a massive battle for me lately, especially the ones 2+ weeks out. The original Usher stream they gave me expired after three (3) listens. That's not enough for me to review any album. It also seems stupid b/c most music tends to grow on listeners over repeat listens; and this album in particular seems like a grower

it def needs time to settle because of how big and bloated it is

they sent me the stream on a wednesday - my deadline was the following monday - and they told me it'd expire on friday. i wouldn't have been able to listen much before friday so i said i'd need it over the weekend. they said nuh-uh, not in our power to do that. but when (after consulting w/my editor) i then said "if you don't let me listen over the weekend we won't run the review at all" suddenly magically they found a way!

cunts.

also it was a stream where you had to go back to your computer and press play for each individual track rather than running straight through. some people at record labels need a punch in the face

Yup. Those individual track streams are most of the ones I get; they make PlayMPE seem like the most convenient format in the world. Best part of the three-listens only stream? Nowhere did it warn me I only had three listens. So it surprise-expired on Friday, and of course they couldn't renew it until Monday, my deadline.

I can't fault these protections too much, because they do curb leaks, and that's obviously the #1 goal. But it does seem like it's turning the publicist/critic relationship adversarial. We're a far cry from the days of stacks of unsolicited review copies of CDs, weeks before their release

every UK journalist I know has joined a facebook group called something like "PlayMPE is the worst thing in the universe"

does no one just record the streams...?

anyway had this on a couple of times and the sprawl isnt really shaping itself for me yet (suspect perhaps that's the point) but it's certainly less luridly jarring than nicki's. ursh is a agreeable and deft charmer though, much more so than usual, and comfortably shepherds his weird herd well. not sure i'm going to be as into it as i first thought i'd be however

they do curb leaks

do they? i mean...the usher album has leaked pre-release. every album does. and the leaks never came from journalists anyway.

it's certainly less luridly jarring than nicki's

i thought the opposite - nicki's album was at least divided into sections that made sense, whereas usher's is all over the place from one track to the next

also i keep coming back to 'ifu' and i can't decide if it's cos it's the best or just cos it comes as such a relief

I hate reviewing rap albums from streams more than anything, because I feel I can't properly judge most rap until I've heard it at least once in my car. But if I've got to stream, PlayMPE is at least an orderly system I can access both at home and at work.

It's inevitable that all albums leak about a week before their release; I think the labels have resigned themselves to that (and maybe even allow it). But five or six years ago, big albums were leaking three, four, or even five weeks before their release. That barely happens anymore.

nah i feel there's much more of an amalgamating sensibility, maybe even a line running through it albeit a vague one

usher is always a lot closer to his stages than nicki is though, it's inherent

besides that the divisions are what precisely didnt make sense with nicki's

it's certainly less luridly jarring than nicki's

i thought the opposite - nicki's album was at least divided into sections that made sense, whereas usher's is all over the place from one track to the next

― kanye kardashian (lex pretend), Friday, June 8, 2012 10:58 AM (2 minutes ago)

For as much as it style-shifts, there are some subtle throughlines that tie this Usher album together, some repeated sounds and textures. The Nicki album was just spaghetti tossed at a wall, cynically divided into groupings of pasta and sauce once the mess hit the floor

yeah i don't agree with that at all. i mean they're both segregated... nicki's is half & half (more or less) while w/ usher it's the first two tracks & then the last one (at least as the super pop stuff goes). otherwise i think it flows pretty well, the uptempo songs in the middle of the album aren't jarring to me at all.

"climax" -> "i care for u" -> "show me" -> "lemme see" is a great stretch here, "twisted" & "dive" i'm not crazy about, but it picks up with "what happened to u" thru "sins of my father"

"show me" is fucking amazing

Yeah, can't deny the dance tracks are pretty glaring outliers, but at least they're smartly sequenced to bookend the record. If you replaced "Can't Stop," "Scream" and "Euphoria" with three of the better bonus tracks, this would be one hell of an album, more or less.

"Twisted" is pretty lame. "Dive" sounds like a Savage Garden cover or some shit.

sav garden would probably have the panache to get away with "precipitating walls" solecisms tbf

Yeah, can't deny the dance tracks are pretty glaring outliers, but at least they're smartly sequenced to bookend the record. If you replaced "Can't Stop," "Scream" and "Euphoria" with three of the better bonus tracks, this would be one hell of an album, more or less.

yes

i enjoy "can't stop won't stop" an unsettling and disturbing amount

AND RIGHT WHEN I SAW YA!
I FELL IN LOVE!

that's the one where he says "i'll be your skin lotion" right?

feeling the new mmts clapper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itnvwZ4Z1Hc

Trey Songz is really good at making the most of shameless club songs about being in the clubs.

"Heart Attack" has totally won me over. It just sounds bigger than most radio R&B right now; it's a total power ballad.

think there was some elle varner talk earlier but this sounds great on the radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJIbNepRCS8

yeah i love it (despite reservations about her squeaky oversinging), although rtc already told me that my enjoyment of it is a symptom of being stuck in 2004

I've never listened to that song in its entirety because I seriously cannot sit through the chorus. I like the fiddle, though.

i love that!

verging on some kelsian yodelling towards the end there <3

haha don't make me sound like even more of an ogre than i already am you dick

lol

feel like i should know better than to love that mmts, and then i feel like i should know better than to know better

how can you ever resist that operatic hamming tho, STOP TRIPPIN U CAN'T CONTROL THAT FREAK!

what i would say to trey though is, hey, my mans, you are keeping it rolling and that is all well and good but where is your defining thong song that etches your silly swag into the public consciousness forevermore, reach for them stars homie

yeah it definitely feels like now that he's conquered his lane, both his bangers and his weepers aim to just maintain what they've already accomplished and not go any further. which is still kinda admirable given the desperate crossover splatter everyone else is going for, but it would be nice if he seemed to still have some unrealized ambitions.

thank god he's not following CB's lead and rapping on singles, though -- his flow on the "bait" remix and that dreamchasers 2 track are just horrifying.

his "flow"

i liked his rapping on "wonder woman" fine, at least as far as r&b dude rapping goes

yeah he's done some pretty decent rapping and rapping-ish stuff on random remixes like "I'm The Ish" etc. over the years but on those 2 recent tracks he's just annoying as fuck

both his bangers and his weepers aim to just maintain what they've already accomplished and not go any further. which is still kinda admirable given the desperate crossover splatter everyone else is going for, but it would be nice if he seemed to still have some unrealized ambitions.

I can't argue with the gist of this, but I think it undersells him pretty badly. There's a clear advancement of his craft from album to album, ending with PP&P, which was a rock solid through and through; it was a traditionalist contemporary R&B album that never felt stiff or classicist, and that's an impressive feat in its own way. He's not dazzling anybody with innovation, but if his plan is to keep making bigger, better R&B albums in hopes of having a pop audience come to him, rather than having to chase them, I'm OK with that.

not sure who this guy is... miguel tweeted a link to this last week or something

really strong song imo

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

every time Trey drops an album or mixtape i think "maybe this'll be the one i actually listen to" and then i don't. he can be great in small doses but an hour of all that emphatic vibrato just seems exhausting.

he's pretty uncompelling all told

every time Trey drops an album or mixtape i think "maybe this'll be the one i actually listen to" and then i don't.

ha otm

These #TweetTuesdays tracks are making me pretty excited for a new Tweet album. The new one is super soft.

new kellz is quintessential "tasteful mid-tempos for the moms, with a couple of oddities to leaven it" but it's v enjoyable anyway

that was the last album too, the question is is it better/worse than that