How good is 'American Boy' by Estelle?

and she never really did anything different until her latest album (which wasn't that different), she's just boring

nrq: Amerie's last record wasn't even released in the states. She's had a couple hits here, but she's certainly no institution.

Brainwasher OFFtm

i always hated her as a rapper anyway. she should stop rapping forever.

r&b gone crunk? thats sooooo 2003/4

there have been like 20 r&b singles with house beats this year

I like her Rev but she is dull as dishwater personality-wise

1st album is a classic tho

plus, anything is better than fucking R&B gone crunk.

also OFFtm

name them.

so i can DL them all.

the baseline mixes of j holidays bed and rihannas plz dont stop the music are good too.

"I like her Rev but she is dull as dishwater personality-wise"

bang on.

1st album was shit.

name them was in ref to "there have been like 20 r&b singles with house beats this year"

Taio Cruz!

who gives a fuck about a singer's "personality", what is this, tiger beat?

BW: Whe was dull personality-wise when she first came out. (Her first album is great, but I do like her newest one better.) Now she is absolutely thrilling to hear. This is only taking her on-record persona into account, though. She still seems kind of boring off-record.

danity kane - damaged
janet jackson - rock with u
jayms madison - room service
janet jackson - feedback
wynter gordon - surveillance
money - future
ne-yo - closer
day 26 - got me goin

there are others I can't remember at the mo, but it's totally the new trend since "way i are"

id never use 'thrilling' to describe estelle. she has good songs (given to/written for her) but as a vocalist shes quite unexciting.

I was talking about Amerie.

oh. well there is something oddly distinct about estelle regardless. i kind of like that she cant sing that well, although live its pretty obvious her singers are doing a lot of the hard lifting.

you heard the house mix of that 'im fine' song by mary j? No!! whose remix is it??

I'm more into the "R&B singles with house beats" than I am most house remixes...my thing is more to get people dancing to house when they don't realize it..."I hear Kanye's voice!! let's dance."

i think only a house-friendly crowd will always respond to remixes no matter how popular the original may be...I learned that with the bob sinclar remix of "please don't stop the music" (very unnecessary)

xpost 1st album was totally not shit! " Float," " Why Do We Fall In Love," " All I Have", "I Just Died," " Talkin To Me"... great album.

and yeah people care about personality... anyway I just brought it up to explain why Amerie doesn't sell.

Kelis is a different story, I agree she has been mismanaged but she does sell for the most part and she has a semi-hit everytime she comes out.

danity kane - damaged
janet jackson - rock with u
jayms madison - room service
janet jackson - feedback
wynter gordon - surveillance
money - future
ne-yo - closer
day 26 - got me goin

good list, don't forget rihanna, britney's whole album, "feedback" by janet (at least in the same vein as way i are)

"I hear Kanye's voice!! let's dance."

o_O if anyone has ever actually thought/said this

ameries 1st album>>>>the more recent ones.

rihannas PDSTM is the best R&B single of 08 IMO.

my reaction to kanye now is more like ""I hear Kanye's voice!! im a bit sick of this guy now."

great work on shitting up the thread, cheers.

xp woops re "feedback"

also, "Take Control" by Amerie is the jam of all jams, fwiw

n/p

i mean this is all vintage material, but totally irrelevant.

xp to Bmore: I don't think the point is Kanye's voice so much as its signifier of a hiphop/r&b context rather than a dahnce context.

fwiw, I love all of Amerie's albums, just some moreso than others

I'm hoping Lil Jon takes this up a la "The Anthem" and just goes head first into a house/crunk movement

seriously what's better than "The Anthem" answer nothing

stfu

sorry, i love music

there are sort of two trends going on right now in r&B - snap-type stuff (e.g. "touch my body"), and totally synthed-out, house/trance-type stuff (" love in this club," " killa" , anything produced by the runners & ryan leslie, all the songs I mentioned upthread..)

As much as I love Pitbull, it kinda saddens me to see "The Anthem" doing better than "Calabria 2007" (which, soz Preview, is much better) on the US charts.

clusterfuck thread about r&b music>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>clusterfuck thread about estelle's race

i didn't believe my brother the other night when he told me that that pitbull joint isn't a mashup

uh it's not about her race.

xpost

great post

both are pretty good imo but i like 'calabria' better

It seems that, "The Way I Are" aside, there's actually kind of a weird divide between the 4x4-beat house stuff and trance-synth stuff, which seems to go more for a slow, opulent, crunk-based half-beat feel.

Lil Jon's "verse" on "The Anthem" is like the greatest most hilariously amazing thing I've ever heard in my life. It's glorious.

and yeah "Calabria" blah blah but you're post above about r&pop signifiers is so OTM for this conversation i almost want to quote you against yourself

I guess "Low" might be a faster exception, but the beat is still crunk-based, rather than house-based. xp to myself

Oh, and add Charlie Wilson's "Let It Go" to the list of 4x4 r&b singles.

yeah you're probably right, "love in this club" is more crunk than house

gap band charlie wilson? lol

yea the two styles have different points of influence or whatever, I think the new usher, all that new synthy shit is taking its cues from euro trance and slowing it way down, like borrowing the sound of the synths and even sampling them (wiz khalifa) but the other side is more of an early 80s dance/pop/r&b influence

but yeah I totally agree that there are two parallel trends that might not really have much to do with each other

i think the 4x4 angle is getting a little overplayed, esp. as far as singles go-- i mean what are the biggest r&b songs on the radio right now? "with you", "bleeding love", "like you'll never see me again", "no air"? none of these are really breaking any ground

xxp: that's him, I posted it in rolling r&b if you want to hear. It's alright, not great.

the biggest are "i remember," "falsetto," "sexy can i","love in the club" and "like you'll never see me"