is the ciara album worth getting?

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.

surprised there's no discussion of her new track here of all places

Yeah, “Level Up” is great!

https://youtu.be/Dh-ULbQmmF8

(and Ciara has become a niche interest on ILM, just like almost everything else that’s interesting and fun, sadly)

She's a niche interest now because her last album was really boring, but if this is representative of the new one then I'm on board.

this sounds like it's already been given its own Soundcloud Deconstructed Club Edit

This is fucking great

Yep, way to save everybody some time and jump right to the Jersey club remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBcXmRe5UAw

this predates Level Up which is strange because when I first heard it I thought it was a parody

also this now has a remix with Missy Elliott and Fatman Scoop, which is actually really phoned in but also cute for existing

yeah it's explicitly based on that, I think they're credited even?

"level up" is just okay to me. i like the vid tho and am glad it's getting her some attention

https://youtu.be/NSIDTlG6bbs

OMFG. This is above and beyond anything I might have hoped for at this stage.

A couple of years ago this would have felt like a daring left turn but now it feels like a perfectly natural move that could do numbers but I'm still overjoyed it actually happened.

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.