― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― justsaying, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:42 (eighteen years ago) link
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 Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― justsaying, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― justsaying, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 14:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 15:02 (eighteen years ago) link
Tim you are GREAT.
― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 15:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 15:12 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Al (sitcom), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Not C.3.3 (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Al (sitcom), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― Al (sitcom), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:30 (eighteen years ago) link
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'.
― Dave M. (rotten03), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Al (sitcom), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 23:08 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 23:25 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
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").
― Dave M. (rotten03), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 23:57 (eighteen years ago) link
"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.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 00:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― bahktin, Wednesday, 18 May 2005 03:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 04:59 (eighteen years ago) link
surprised there's no discussion of her new track here of all places
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Wednesday, 18 July 2018 15:52 (five years ago) link
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)
― breastcrawl, Thursday, 19 July 2018 17:08 (five years ago) link
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.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 July 2018 18:00 (five years ago) link
this sounds like it's already been given its own Soundcloud Deconstructed Club Edit
― boxedjoy, Friday, 20 July 2018 09:58 (five years ago) link
This is fucking great
― No angel came (Ross), Friday, 20 July 2018 14:38 (five years ago) link
Yep, way to save everybody some time and jump right to the Jersey club remix
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 20 July 2018 15:42 (five years ago) link
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
― boxedjoy, Saturday, 28 July 2018 08:21 (five years ago) link
also this now has a remix with Missy Elliott and Fatman Scoop, which is actually really phoned in but also cute for existing
― boxedjoy, Saturday, 28 July 2018 08:22 (five years ago) link
yeah it's explicitly based on that, I think they're credited even?
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Saturday, 28 July 2018 16:09 (five years ago) link
"level up" is just okay to me. i like the vid tho and am glad it's getting her some attention
― dyl, Saturday, 28 July 2018 19:16 (five years ago) link
https://youtu.be/NSIDTlG6bbs
OMFG. This is above and beyond anything I might have hoped for at this stage.
― Matt DC, Friday, 10 August 2018 08:01 (five years ago) link
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.
― Matt DC, Friday, 10 August 2018 08:04 (five years ago) link
Love this so much
― Tim F, Friday, 10 August 2018 10:03 (five years ago) link
So it looks like the strategy for this album is to get Ciara on as many genre playlists as possible but if the execution is this good on all of them then I'm onboard.
I also feel like afrobeats hasn't inflitrated US R&B and rap to anywhere near the extent it has in the UK, so this might actually lead somewhere exciting? I mean the alternative is that no one there cares about her any more, but if you're going to bandwagon jump to mitigate that then this is a pretty good one to be on.
― Matt DC, Friday, 10 August 2018 10:41 (five years ago) link
love both these tracks but lmao at Level Up being based on Fuck It Up Challenge
― ufo, Friday, 10 August 2018 12:57 (five years ago) link
I approve of this collabo, but “Freak Me” didn’t come out of thin air either. It sounded super familiar, and yes:https://www.google.nl/amp/s/amp.pulse.ng/entertainment/music/ciara-samples-tiwa-savage-on-new-single-freak-me-with-tekno-id8708959.html
― breastcrawl, Friday, 10 August 2018 16:07 (five years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcfwvX0HPVI
three for three
― ufo, Friday, 14 September 2018 11:30 (five years ago) link
Yep. At first I thought "hmm a Lose My Breath rip off" but it rewards repeat plays. A+ video too.
― Jeff W, Friday, 14 September 2018 20:31 (five years ago) link
haven't heard yet (no headphones at work) but does this one have a prominent sample as well?
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Friday, 14 September 2018 21:08 (five years ago) link
not feeling this so much - functional and perfunctory but nowhere near the level of the last two
― boxedjoy, Wednesday, 19 September 2018 14:14 (five years ago) link
new song is super gorgeous, fuck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BjpWJyd_hk
― monotony, Wednesday, 13 February 2019 04:35 (five years ago) link
Beauty Marks is another disappointment.
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 May 2019 18:43 (four years ago) link
ton of good stuff on the record, kind of a DOA first track though
"thinkin bout you" song of the year
― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 10 May 2019 18:46 (four years ago) link