Kelis in 2013

good weekend morning album

there's something about the production that feels super urban (in the dictionary definition sense of the word, not the colloquial) to me, and i really like that about it

Not sure what to make of this yet, it really is quite a strange album. I think I like it but definitely need to spend a lot more time with it. Floyd was the standout after one play, beautiful chorus.

Not sure she's going to have big hits from it. Think Jerk Ribs would be her best bet but she already gave that away for free last year.

"She needs ice cold water"

huh, they've switched "breakfast" and "jerk ribs" in the running order from the press copy - minor alteration but i liked the way the album opening with her kid's voice talking about food made it feel like a segue from tasty ending with kelis's voice saying "ok: now, swallow"

I don't get strange or bizarre from this. I think it's brilliant.

yeah i don't hear what's strange about it at all, it's comforting (but also kind of enlivening) at the same time, like some sort of platonic ideal of homecoming

and the more i listen the more fantastic i think it is

excited to hear it!

I can't keep up with 2014, people please slow down!

If you can, catching her live this year would be ADVISABLE for real

It's a strange album in the sense that it's an about face for her. Prior to this her most recent output is an LP with David Guetta spearheading production, along with a feature on a Calvin Harris single. And yes, I know we've had since May last year to get used to the idea of an album with Sitek, but a quaint interlude like "Bless The Telephone", which is almost a Laura Marling song if you squint hard enough(though Marling would likely never deign to reference something so modern as a telephone; in her world missives appear to be the only natural form of communication), is kinda wtf for Kelis. If Flesh Tone was a change up from her Neptunes days, this is a full blown metamorphosis.

this sounds pretty good. is there a link to her cooking show that's viewable in the UK?

i feel like this album really follows on from tasty - not just all the food/drink connections, but it's like a ~proper soul~ continuation of the reflective, city heatwave aesthetic of that album's final stretch. it's not any more of a shock than flesh tone itself was (which is to say, it is a metamorphosis, but by now that's kinda expected of her)

i was discussing this with DL after the gig last night, it's weird how kelis never actually codes as a pop shape-shifter like madonna or whoever because she never shifts - her persona/character remains constant - what she does is completely and totally inhabit whatever style she's committed to at any given point. (this was reinforced last night when she recasted "4th of july" and "acapella" in the style of the new album omgggggg so good)

also would like to point out that despite being universally dismissed as a mere neptunes muse on her emergence, kelis's creative powers have far outlasted theirs

also yeah we've had half a year of "jerk ribs" knocking around - THAT was the "wow, didn't expect this sound" moment, surely no one's surprised by the album after that!

Well, "Jerk Ribs" wasn't necessarily going to be synecdoche for the whole record. (And I don't think it is, tbh, though I have only heard it once).

It's a surprising move for Kelis - and I don't mean a bad move, just to clarify - because none of this will be on radio, it's far more languid, measured, and removed from the dancefloor than anything I can recall from her in the past. In any event it's certainly the most interesting thing I've heard from Ninja Tune since, like, forever.

Last night Bless the Telephone sounded like very early 70s, like Clifford T Ward or someone like that. You wouldn't want a whole record in that vein but it was a beautiful interlude.

Horn arrangements sounded spectacular - shades of Isaac Hayes, Charles Stepney and other prog-soul masters, even Fela on Jerk Ribs, plus a colossal version of Nina Simone's Feeling Good. Hard to do 70s soul horns without slipping into Later with Jools Holland "feel the quality" smugness but her arranger managed it.

It's no doubt wishful thinking but I'd like to see this get even a fraction of the adoration of Back to Black because I think it's the first album since that one to pull off the retro-not-retro vibe. Seeing her perform it in its entirety underlines that there are no weak links here. Every song adds something valuable to the whole.

Just realised this is her first album without an intro. That was fast becoming my most played Kelis track on LastFM.

also would like to point out that despite being universally dismissed as a mere neptunes muse on her emergence, kelis's creative powers have far outlasted theirs

The word "universally" is doing an awful lot of work here. When 'Caught Out There' first came out all the talk was about this awesome screaming lady, at a time where people barely knew who the Neps were.

when the album came out every review i read was like "oh no, it was written by men". this was an era when the idea of Writing Your Oen Songs still had a ton of currency

I don't remember that much handwringing about it but most of the reviews I read were overwhelmingly positive. The point being she was never seen as exclusively a Neptunes muse, and I accept that eg Aaliyah got a load of condescending reductive press along similar lines. Kelis was always too in-your-face.

In the UK press Kelis was definitely a bigger deal than the Neptunes circa Kaleidoscope. I don't remember any of the reviews Lex refers to.

i don't hate this but the production sounds too much like tv on the radio from 10 yrs ago, can't really get past that

(this was reinforced last night when she recasted "4th of july" and "acapella" in the style of the new album omgggggg so good)

see this sounds horrible but maybe ill seek out a youtube of it

http://youtu.be/FirBvR1HmKI So "Bless The Telephone" is actually a cover! Ha.

which is almost a Laura Marling song if you squint hard enough(though Marling would likely never deign to reference something so modern as a telephone; in her world missives appear to be the only natural form of communication)

i don't know where you're getting this from but just so you know, it is bullshit

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lauramarling/masterhunter.html

It was kind of meant to be in jest - I had goodbye england in mind when I wrote it. But, yeah, caught out!

This is so damn great, "Fish Fry," "Runner" and "Cobbler" in particular.

putting this on now, will be annoyed if 'floyd' isnt about keith

is it called Friday Fish Fry or just Fish Fry? i'm seeing both

didn't mean to come overhard at you, monotony, actually i was just listening for the first time then and getting a gross feeling from sitek's production, very backing-tracky, and in the percussion a bit crisper but kind of reminiscent of what i thought about the indie-default rhythm section on st. vincent's new one, although given the more pronounced throwback vibe on 'food' the effect seems more like the 'we can get down too' vibe you could get from 60s pop records who dared to plop some rock/soul rhythms under their arrangements. both this and the marling record seem to aim at roughly the same era so what you said about modernity really rubbed me wrong, if anything i think kelis' record sounds more dated because its attitude toward the intervening years of stylistic changes is so after-the-fact conservative ('we incorporate the best of everything that's happened in tasteful music of the last 40 years!'). say, -because- it treats them like style markers.

(and i think a big part of my reaction must be a production/writing thing, because although nothing else has grabbed me i really did love 'dear science', so i think the elements of the sound can work given the right settings.)

I quite enjoyed this in a superior quality retro soul way but I feel that Kelis gets less, not more, interesting with each subsequent reinvention.

she's getting old and has clearly been all about the domesticity for some time, this feels like the "right" album to have made at this point in her career. whether the styles she goes for at any point interest you or not i think what becomes increasingly clear is how thorough and non-obvious each reinvention is. over 15 years five of her six albums have worked incredibly well and distinctly in terms of mining a particular aesthetic (with record label fuckery responsible for the one that didn't, and even that had enough great material in its random grab-bag to be satisfying)...feel like her absences in between might prevent her from getting the credit she deserves as a career artist/reinventer (as opposed to a purveyor of lots of great singles)

Yeah, I remember it being later that the Neptunes were recognized as producer-auteurs. Kelis was used in the list of artists they had worked with to support that narrative (along with Noreaga, Old Dirty Bastard, Jay-Z, Ludacris, Mystikal), but that wasn't until around late 2000, early 2001. At least in terms of my knowledge.

I always liked this story from S/FJ's 2004 piece on both Timbo and the Neps coming up at the same time from Virginia Beach:

The studio was called Mastersound in the 90's, when Timbaland and the Neptunes sometimes worked simultaneously in the adjacent rooms. ''There was a great moment here,'' Andrew Coleman, the Neptunes' longtime chief engineer, recalled not long ago. ''It was 1999, and Missy and Tim were working on Missy's 'Da Real World.' Chad and Pharrell were working on Kelis, and they were doing 'Caught Out There.' '' They especially liked the song's chorus, Coleman said. ''Tim and Missy could hear Kelis screaming, 'I hate you so much right now!' They had their ears right up to the door. They loved that song. Tim was like, 'That's crazy.' Then they went right back to work.''

Making filter disco Guetta-pop in 2010 and indie-friendly retro-soul in 2014 feel like the most obvious moves possible for their respective years. She's got a vastly superior take on both sounds but records were totally on-trend.

Making filter disco Guetta-pop in 2010 and indie-friendly retro-soul in 2014 feel like the most obvious moves possible for their respective years.

Funnily enough if she'd done this in reverse it might have seemed sightly belated in each case.

Is indie-friendly retro-soul on trend right now? Who are you thinking of?

she was def ahead of the curve w/ flesh tone

Indie-friendly retro-soul - this is something that's always around, always "slightly belated", isn't it?

btw enjoying this record on the morning tip!

That's kind of what I meant, yeah. It's just the specifics of what it would be compared to that change.

It's definitely more forgiving to be competing with Adele than Amy.

that this album has really not very much in common with either sorta proves my point that kelis is doing something non-obvious in a non-obvious way

I haven't had a chance to listen but I assumed there was going to be more of an afrobeat bent based on "Jerk Ribs"/Dear Science.

Yeah I don't think Adele or Amy are particularly relevant to this discussion, their records were aiming right at the mainstream whereas this has a kind of domestic-bohemian thing going on. There's none of Adele's stadium slush here and none-of the hip-hop influence of Back In Black. Actually the audible influence of hip-hop is conspicuous by its absence here - it's all very 1970s in its arrangement and production choices (those horn sections!)

I feel like getting Sitek in to produce an R&B record and by extension aiming it at a very particular crowd is something that would have been considerably less likely pre-Weekend/Frank Ocean. Like there's something very second-hand store about this record's entire aesthetic but it's definitely a superior quality second-handness if that makes sense. I get the sense that all concerned were trying to make the kind of awesome psychedelic soul record that makes crate-digging worthwhile, with all the attendant baggage that comes with that.

Got to say, this is really working for me on a Sunday morning. The sound is really thick and rich in a way that suits Kelis's voice well (and it's a huskier voice these days). It's like really good quality comfort food.

Err, Back TO Black. Sorry, it's still early for me.

I've heard it twice. Sometimes her voice is too chalky and intractable for the arrangements, or the arrangements are too fussy (I like how "Cobbler" acknowledges the former). I like it though.

I was asked to write about this record for The Talkhouse but I'm gonna have to pass, this is beyond my ability to write about. I have a running theory that men and women who can sing, like, can really sing, they're encumbered, rather than gifted, as record-makers. A song written for a golden-voiced singer will more-often-than-not be written to showcase That Voice-- all melisma and emotion-- voice placed hot and sharp in the mix-- moment to show off the falsetto-- listen to that lung capacity-- a four-octave range?

I was gonna try and frame Kelis and her half-woman half-horse voice as proof of theory, how it always felt she was struggling on those first two records and flailing on Tasty, but that the struggle itself was so musical, created such great records. I remember when "Milkshake" was a hit, and I was playing "Trick Me" every morning, it was always being said by my roommates etc. "she doesn't have the voice," but I was always so into it, her clumsiness on "Bossy", the braying of "Lil Star" and best/worst attempt at vocalise at the end of "Marathon", omggggg!

In catching up with Kelis though I listened to the EDM record and hated it, beyond hated it, and was surprised that there was love for it here, and realized that a) Kelis toes the line for me in terms of what it expected of an artist, vocally, and is failing more often than succeeding on this one; b) other people think she's a great singer! so my argument is faulty anyway.

her voice is really interesting because "half woman half horse" is actually accurate but it's like suspension of disbelief, there are only ever occasional flashes where you go "actually...your voice...what?" because she acts and sings as though she has a conventionally excellent r&b voice

OMG that is so spot on.

In my experience she can't really sing in tune live, but I love the timbre and texture of her voice. You only really notice its limitations when she's trying to sing high, her lower register sounds great.

One of the reasons I initially recoiled from Jerk Ribs is because her voice and the backing don't really seem to fit well together - that cycling high-pitched bass guitar feels like it's from a different track to the vocal altogether, and that only really resolves itself when the arrangement fills out.

But there are moments on this record, particularly it's softer moments, where you can tell that real attention has been paid to how the vocals and the music *sound* together - I think it's on the chorus of Floyd where the horns and the voice blend together and the specific way they've been mixed just sounds gorgeous together.

There seem to be a lot of cases of artist/producer symbiosis recently: Ferreira/Rechtshaid, Cherry/Four Tet, Kelis/Sitek.

The songs on this album are approximately 10000000000000x more enjoyable when heard live. Saw her show last night and she was a complete delight - I came out grinning from ear to ear.

I mean first of all this album still rules

second of all did you know Mount Kimbie did a remix of "Jerk Ribs"??? Holy shit!!! There's some echo on the vocal that really evokes some 80's pop R&B vibes imo!! V fresh and great!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUAY9X8CWjY

I'm surprised "Forever Be" wasn't released as a single

also "Floyd" still sounds like Spiritualized to my ears.

this album is still so underrated

^ Agreed. "Floyd" is such a beautiful jam.

it always sounds beautiful in the summer gloaming

kelis in 2021!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EJLxF0mElM

I haven't felt compelled to return to the rest of it, and my overall impression is that it's pretty dull.

Also wow I was SO wrong about Food back when it was first released. It's probably my favourite Kelis album now, or at the very least my most-played.