is the ciara album worth getting?

YEA.

why do all rock and popists hate R&B ballads?

Public perception of r&b singer is based on her singles/videos wherein she is pouting, preening sex diva dancer goddess who leaves little room for argument; most people don't like it when women try to escape pigeonholes, esp. when the pigeonholes are as amazing as Ciara on 'Goodies' or Christina Milian on 'Dip It Low', and they justify this by pointing towards the r&b singer's own compliance in her über-branding. So of course when they get the album and hit the ballads they're all like "oh ugh no, she's trying to be something she's not". Rockists don't like it because they see her overtly emotional side as 'fake' and 'dishonest'; popists don't like it because they see her trying to pander to rockist criticisms by making 'honest' and 'emotional' songs. All of them need to get over themselves and start actually listening to the songs.

Also a side-effect is that many r&b albums are rarely good as albums - when I listen to Goodies I listen to either the ballads or the bangers, because you're not going to be in the mood for both at the same time. But this is why we have that thing called the skip button.

None of this applies to Beyoncé because she's really, really bad at ballads.

because there are generally two great mini-albums on one CD!

I don't think many r&b ballads are signifiers of 'maturity' at all, if anything the majority of them seem to emphasise innocence and naivety - situations where the singer doesn't have all the answers and freely admits this. Most of them seem to stem from confusion more than anything else.

D'Angelo's two albums (when's the third coming, you workshy fop?) are a prime example of how this sort of thing can work in the extended format if done (im)properly. But otherwise...it's faux-sophisticated MoR for used car salesmen in Sydenham. Light the candle, open the fridge door, etc.

xposts

At root people who dislike R&B ballads specifically (as opposed to R&B generally) often seem to be reacting against the dominance of a certain post-Babyface sound - the use of certain chords, a certain quality to the piano tingles and starry background effects... it is a quality of familiarity perhaps - this replication of specific musical and sonic effects being like a signpost for "what remains the same" (the "truth" of love) in spite of the rapidly shifting cultural, sonic and linguistic ground of the uptempo single (where sounds, phrases and story constructs tend to come and go according to the dictates of fashion). And "what remains the same" appears to persevere unchanged regardless of year or singer, such that paradoxically the personal love song appears much more interchangable across albums and artists than the supposedly utilitarian club banger. As with failed-indie, what grates for the listener is not merely the perceived genericism but the perceived genericism in the face of an emphasis on personal feeling.

This vantage point tends to lead to two positions: people who dismiss R&B ballads unconditionally, or people who theorise their love of individual ballads according to the extent to which they deviate from the above. For a long time I was in the second camp: an R&B ballad was great insofar as it distinguished itself from the post-Babyface mulch. Such a category of avant-ballad tends to start with unarguable sonic peculiarity ("One In A Million" is archtypal here) and slowly or rapidly accrue other criteria by which to mark out the deserving few: particularly vivid or perceptive lyrics maybe, or an unusual or idiosyncratic vocal performance, or a naggingly bittersweet refrain - not to mention a more expansive or subtle ear for sonic differentiation.

But once you start to listen to ballads in this mode it is difficult not to start hearing so many great ones, or such a variety, that this entire approach begins to appear suspect. One can't see the forest of the rule for the trees of the exceptions. And yet the rule persists. I suspect it remains my underlying critical formulation when listening to R&B ballads, even though I now generally enjoy ballads so much that the Teedra Moses album could be my favourite R&B album in years. But what I'm looking for now is quite a small element of differentiation (perhaps the element of differentiation which can be found and is worth noting in all genres) - maybe even just a piece of post-Babyface mulch done really really well.

It would probably not now result in a change to the amount of ballads I liked or the intensity of my enjoyment, but I'd like to rebuild my approach to ballads so that it centered around a positive rather than negative definition (what should ballads do rather than what should they avoid). I like the way that Spizzazzz tend to flip this entire construct around and talk about R&B artists "keeping it real" with ballads and slow jams. I think it's really useful to think of ballads in this way, as a deliberate assertion of fidelity to something (what? I dunno, ask facelift or rob them co) rather than conservative pandering or album filling.

well, thats just rockism at its absolute finest. who cares who tells them to sing it or not? most of the stax and motown catalogue was made in virtually the exact same way.

"R&B people have got this stupid idea in their head of maturity, i.e. making soundtracks for yuppie pimps' beds. "

yeah, more typical white middle class rockism. go to an estate and tell some fof the kids and adults listening to and enjoying R&B ballads that theyre yuppie pimps.

"I don't look at it from any "popist" or "rockist" perspective."

of course you dont.

Great post, Tim, but I think what this reminds me of -- inadvertantly (perhaps?) -- is the piece linked over on the NME editor thread by Sarah Dempster, specifically here:

A 31-year-old friend recently told me that he'd just bought U2's entire back catalogue, despite "never being that much of a fan". "They're still here," he explained, "and that counts for a lot." He's not wrong. Longevity is as important to the maturing listener as appalling attitudes are to a teenager. It's badge of honour, proof that mortgages and fallen arches may dampen one's ardour, but the spirit of rock is inextinguishable.

I'm not trying to tie this together *totally* -- these are two different situations and arguments -- but in a way I sense 'fidelity' in your terminology and 'longevity' in Dempster's as trying to grasp for a similar 'at least there's something to hold on to that lasts' vibe. The core difference is obviously that in Dempster it's a salute to the musicians while here it's one to the sound. (And if the sound, then as you carefully suggested above, all of a sudden the indie sonic continuum above so many people here are trying to kick comes back with this roaring vengeance, because what is that if not keeping it real?)

btw, only said this cos kids in estates arent yuppie pimps thats all. didnt mean it as in 'yeah theyll beat your arse if you go there cos theyre so tough' or anything.

I'm hesitant to tease it out into a theory because spizzazz ideas are most enjoyable when sort of glanced at sideways.

Anyway I use spizzazz more as a corrective than anything else. My position as per usual is that the excitement/fun/interest is generated by the tension between experimentalism and adhering to the dictates of genre, between keeping it real and changing the real. The nuanced rockist position (ie. the one I outlined above) could say that it recognises and can explain this (as per Simon R's claim that rockism can always adequately explain the phenomenon of good pop music via some excuse or another), but it places all of the explanatory weight on the "experimental" side, whereas I think the truth is more in the middle.

x-post Ned please explain this "emotional aspiration" idea more - I don't know if I see what you're getting at yet.

Lyrics aren't split into a binary of original/formulaic or individual/communal according to genre. I don't think lyrics in R&B tend to be any more formulaic than lyrics in rock say; it's a formula of a different kind.

The Teedra Moses album has my favourite lyrics of any album in years.

Real quickly since I actually need to do some work here -- what I can briefly remember of Simon's soul-boy attack in Blissed had a lot to do with an implied/open critique of 'material' aspiration, ranging from body health to yuppie business to whatever. I am almost certainly oversimplifying. In terms of 'emotional' aspiration, consider the Dempster article in part (peace in the minds of the article's subjects and intended audience, ie 'this is what I really am'), consider the idea that ballads in showing what something 'truly' is provides a grounding and peace for the listener as much as for performer/songwriter/producer, ie, "I don't NEED to show off when this is all I really want." What something "really" is and how that is defined/described/couched is the key to all this obv. [Not just for r'n'b ballads, thus maybe indie freaks as classically conceived. Please also note that I am listening to Bauhaus right now like I have for about 16 years now? Never mind, carry on, back in a bit.]

I don't think lyrics in R&B tend to be any more formulaic than lyrics in rock say; it's a formula of a different kind.

...in that case, what IS that formula? You've unpacked the sonic side of it a bit but what's the lyrical side? Why does Teedra Moses succeed so much on the lyrical front?

These are tough questions for me to answer because I don't write about lyrics that much. In terms of formula I'm referring to the type of situations which R&B songs tend to deal with (falling in love, not being in love but wishing I could be, falling out of love, wanting not to be in love but finding it too difficult to break away etc.) and the language/phrasing used to then express/construct these situations.

The difficulty in explaining Teedra's distinction is that she's not obviously deviating from convention on either of these grounds - you might point to the unusual tinge of existentialism which runs through some of her songs, or her more abstract poetic metaphors, but these are all visible only against a backdrop of a more general adherence to R&B norms.

The other larger issue is that much of the value in Teedra's lyrics is actually conferred by her exquisitely judged performance of them - she knows which lines to give weight to and how, how to control the feel of the narrative progression by using vocal progression etc.

The overall point deriving from all of this is that Teedra's persona - as expressed by the music - strikes me as incredibly strong, such that she speaks from a position more clearly than many other ballad singers - a point of distinction which then (in a circular fashion) imbues the lyrics she is singing with greater resonance and meaning. And yet this position is not created Kelis-style by a succession of deliberate breaks with the genre-formula-chain, but rather by a succession of subtle shadings of the formula. It is this dialectic movement of individualism arising out of genre formalism that interests me, but it also makes Teedra difficult to unpack.

Tim you are GREAT.

from the Chain Letter thread:

this album is GREAT. i can't wait to review it.
-- strng hlkngtn (ya...), April 4th, 2005.

huh? not questioning anyone's freedom to change their mind, but that's quite an about-face.

also Tim i like the idea of R&B balladeers keeping it real by keeping R&B from getting swallowed by hip-hop, and would add that 'real' in this sense also means 'in touch with the roots of the music - Aretha etc - without being totally hidebound by classicism a la Joss Stone'.

Yeah okay but that's not what i mean at all! In this case "keeping it real" means "keeping it (un)real". The classixor are not "Respect" but "I Have Nothing" etc. It is a disavowal of grit, which both Aretha and hip hop have (or have been designated by critics as possessing) in spades.

When I say "fidelity" I mean fidelity to a concept (R&B balladry as a space for the feminine of effeminate) rather than a past musical precedent. I don't want to imply that this concept has some sort of ethical/epistemological validity or superiority (ie. that R&B "understands" the feminine correctly) though, or that "fidelity" is the correct posture for musicians generally.

I guess what interests me is that you have a constellation at work: the concept of current R&B balladry and what it "means" generally, and then the real life actual R&B ballads and what they "mean" specifically (all will differ or deviate from the concept to a greater or lesser extent). And these are all interrelational: we will understand R&B ballads in a normative fashion (ie. how they relate to the concept of R&B ballads) but that concept itself is an effect of the constellation of individual examples. So you have this back and forth of concept and real life examples, and there's no necessary value that derives from breaking away from the concept, or remaining true to that concept, or remaining true to another concept (pieces of music, unlike stars, can belong to several different constellations); and yet it is this movement, this tension, this friction etc. which generates the appeal of a particular piece of music.

Aretha was perhaps a bad example. a modern balladeer eg. Teedra Moses doesn't appear to be expressing fidelity to Aretha and deliberately ignoring Whitney or Mariah, she's expressing fidelity to the R&B ballad tradition as a whole, which includes even the treacliest Babyface material. ditto Beyonce, who is probably more influenced by Mariah than anyone else IMHO. in fact, people who try to disavow certain influences from the tradition usually end up marginalizing themselves - Jill Scott will never sell as much as Ashanti.

When I say "fidelity" I mean fidelity to a concept (R&B balladry as a space for the feminine of effeminate) rather than a past musical precedent. I don't want to imply that this concept has some sort of ethical/epistemological validity or superiority (ie. that R&B "understands" the feminine correctly) though, or that "fidelity" is the correct posture for musicians generally.

is R&B balladry necessarily feminine or effeminate? i see it as being much more about virtuosity combined with vulnerability. the singer has to show off their range, scale the heights, triumph over that absurdly high note not only to expose the depth of their emotion, but as a demonstration of their mastery of the form. incidentally, ballads in heavy metal are nearly identical, but they usually leave the crazy virtuosity to the guitar solo, which in my opinion comes because singing in a really emotional, demonstrative way is like crying in public - they have to sublimate it through the guitarist. (I'm thinking of Ozzy and his seemingly emotionless vocal on "Mama I'm Coming Home").

"Aretha was perhaps a bad example. a modern balladeer eg. Teedra Moses doesn't appear to be expressing fidelity to Aretha and deliberately ignoring Whitney or Mariah, she's expressing fidelity to the R&B ballad tradition as a whole, which includes even the treacliest Babyface material."

Yeah I'd agree with this definitely.

haven't heard yet (no headphones at work) but does this one have a prominent sample as well?

not feeling this so much - functional and perfunctory but nowhere near the level of the last two

new song is super gorgeous, fuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BjpWJyd_hk

Beauty Marks is another disappointment.

ton of good stuff on the record, kind of a DOA first track though

"thinkin bout you" song of the year

I like the one.

I really can't stand this tendency to lapse into therapyspeak with goddamn Macklemore and the title track.

* I like THAT one

the bookends are the worst, it's true. really love the run from "dose" to "freak me," which should've been in the ilm 77 last year

'I Love Myself ft Macklemore' is a blazing do-not-listen-to-this batsignal that I sadly failed to heed.

The rest rules but the afrobeats tracks >>>>> all.

You might like the original “Freak of the Week” as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeasOeUgkA8

Tiwa Savage ft. D’Prince • Before Nko

(I posted about this upthread as well, but I feel it’s important to give credit where it’s due. This is more than just a sample or an interpolation.)

Woof, minus a few of the singles this is a stinker

yikes

not a stinker but what a disappointment - the good stuff here is the adventurous and unexpected sonic moves so the first half being heavy on the formulaic r&b is really uninspiring and I really don't need another "I'm going to out to have fun" xerox like Girl Gang. She's always been more comfortable than most others doing weird stuff and Level Up/Freak Me were the first time in ages I felt she had broke out the bubble of yesteryear r&b star, so why this falls back into really lacklustre stuff seems a mystery. And both the opener and closer are terrible choices.