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Great recent r&b gems
- Thread starter Blackdown
- Start date
believekevin said:don't forget the youngest contender: Chris Brown! pre-teen ladies are loving this dude in the worst way stateside. "run it" was the breakout jam (tasteful with tacked on dark side in a Juelz Santana's feature.) his other track is going to be this generation's first slow-dance. though i can't recall the title, it has this hook "excuse me miss but i saw from across the room and i got to admit that you're making me want to say yeahhh..."
It's "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" and yeah, I think it's a totally awesome song.
"Run It" and "Yo!" are diff songs. I donno dude has potential but I feel a bit like a 12 year old listening to those. Not to get all GROWN FOLKX MUSIC on the thread. Bobby V is pretty juvenile but he's coated in sticky cotton candy clouds of production. Speaking of great R&B I CANNOT stop listening to Anthony Hamilton right now. 2005 was a solid year for R&B!
yeah Tim'n'Bob probably the best producers in R&B right now. But I want them to do a seven minute epic or something a la Ashanti's "Rescue Me" (which is also a gem, albeit from four years ago) - with, like, an instrumental rainforest interlude! David have they done one of these yet?
Kylie Minogue did a song like that about 8 yrs ago called "Take Me With You" which I love for its pretentious "I am a real artist k thx" statementiness - total prog-pop. But there needs to be more of these in popular R&B!
Anyways, success! I was able to download those two tracks at my parent's place, so thanks for posting them. But I haven't had a chance to grab them from their computer and listen to them - will do so and report back.
I like the Chris Brown single, it's very much in the "Yeah" mould only it's surprising how few of those there have actually been to date! Esp. from male R&B singers!
David tell me more about the Anthony Hamilton album.
Kylie Minogue did a song like that about 8 yrs ago called "Take Me With You" which I love for its pretentious "I am a real artist k thx" statementiness - total prog-pop. But there needs to be more of these in popular R&B!
Anyways, success! I was able to download those two tracks at my parent's place, so thanks for posting them. But I haven't had a chance to grab them from their computer and listen to them - will do so and report back.
I like the Chris Brown single, it's very much in the "Yeah" mould only it's surprising how few of those there have actually been to date! Esp. from male R&B singers!
David tell me more about the Anthony Hamilton album.
I find tunes like 'Slow Down' strangely like Justin Timberlake. Re: Mr Valentino's delivery, more than the beats. I was kinda surprised when I first heard it (just in a shop or something) because after JT doing the solidly R&B move, market-wise, I wasn't expecting other bods to follow that recipe. Wasn't expecting Mr Pop's moves to feed back into R&B, I guess...
I find it all a bit soppy sounding. Haha... is that like complaining when grime is a bit raw or that gabba is too fast or something?
I find it all a bit soppy sounding. Haha... is that like complaining when grime is a bit raw or that gabba is too fast or something?
Yeah it is soppy sounding but "Slow Down" is a soppy song generally (esp. the bit in the chorus that gratuitously rhymes "beauty" with "cutey") - when the song is stronger the voluptuousness of the production doesn't seem quite so er nambypamby. I'd actually like to see more hip hop tracks with this sickly sugary sparkly production style - it kinda went out with crunk (give or take the odd Neptunes production) but Ludacris's "Pimpin All Over The World" signalled the style's grand return.
Actually "Pimpin All Over The World" could almost be a Tim'n'Bob production except that it sounds more synthetic. I almost put it on that mix-cd I made - I almost put T.O.K.'s ridiculously swirly "Tell Me If You Still Care" on there too.
Actually "Pimpin All Over The World" could almost be a Tim'n'Bob production except that it sounds more synthetic. I almost put it on that mix-cd I made - I almost put T.O.K.'s ridiculously swirly "Tell Me If You Still Care" on there too.
Ha ha Teedra Moses was my second favourite album of last year! Such a good album! Also in the "epic sumptuous R&B" category about from "Backstroke" are "For A Lifetime" and "Last Day". Meanwhile while the title track "Complex Simplicity" is somtimes the best song ever made.
I haven't heard anything with that description, although 'rainforest' would be a good description of their style I think! Something like "Tell Me" does seem very uh moist?
Anthony Hamilton has a restrained Al Green going on, non-flashy organic-ish production and an incredible voice. "Charlene" was his hit from '03, I said something AWFUL and ILM-ish about it at the time, something like how I wish he was working with timbaland, the thought of which makes me groan now. He is impeccable over straight-forward production, earthy sound but I'm struggling to define what it is that seperates him from generic neo-soul because he doesn't strike me as neosoul really. His new album Ain't Nobody Worryin works in this same vein, perhaps not as good as the 2003 one but maybe I just have to listen to it more. He's sort've dusty soul like Mary J's new album or Rich Harrison/Amerie ballads, except it sounds more rural/southern/country and sometimes he sounds country&western (actually Cibula calls Comin' Where I'm From a country album!) or funk or does some weird reggae interpretation, and he's a really incredible singer. Lyrics can be very bleak! Haha the antithesis of Chris Brown and Bobby V I suppose.
Anthony Hamilton has a restrained Al Green going on, non-flashy organic-ish production and an incredible voice. "Charlene" was his hit from '03, I said something AWFUL and ILM-ish about it at the time, something like how I wish he was working with timbaland, the thought of which makes me groan now. He is impeccable over straight-forward production, earthy sound but I'm struggling to define what it is that seperates him from generic neo-soul because he doesn't strike me as neosoul really. His new album Ain't Nobody Worryin works in this same vein, perhaps not as good as the 2003 one but maybe I just have to listen to it more. He's sort've dusty soul like Mary J's new album or Rich Harrison/Amerie ballads, except it sounds more rural/southern/country and sometimes he sounds country&western (actually Cibula calls Comin' Where I'm From a country album!) or funk or does some weird reggae interpretation, and he's a really incredible singer. Lyrics can be very bleak! Haha the antithesis of Chris Brown and Bobby V I suppose.
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Tim, did you ever hear the Tweet song 'Drunk', off 'Southern Hummingbird'? Was listening to it on the way home this evening and there's no rain forest interlude or anything, but over this lush, slow ballad there are all these backwards vocal mutterings and hazy slurred effects. Later in the track these kinda loud, blatantly synthesized "strings" come in. I found myself laughing at the Twin Peaks-ness of it all.
I guess I'll have to check out Anthony Hamilton and take a chance - organic never <i>particularly</i> bodes well for me but we'll see.
Yeah Michael I love "Drunk"! The Tweet song that made it onto my comp though was "Steer" from the new album, which combines a similar hazy smear with a booming-but-blurry old skool beat, in a way that's really wrong-sounding but wonderful.
Yeah Michael I love "Drunk"! The Tweet song that made it onto my comp though was "Steer" from the new album, which combines a similar hazy smear with a booming-but-blurry old skool beat, in a way that's really wrong-sounding but wonderful.
Anthony Hamilton - Charlene
I love this song. If you like it, you'll prob get something out of the album. I never even liked D'angelo's stuff very much outside of the singles and I'm not a usual organic/neo-soul kinda guy. (PS: althouh Tim the first Amerie album is very 'organic!' )
I love this song. If you like it, you'll prob get something out of the album. I never even liked D'angelo's stuff very much outside of the singles and I'm not a usual organic/neo-soul kinda guy. (PS: althouh Tim the first Amerie album is very 'organic!' )
Oh yeah there are definitely exceptions, it's not a hard and fast rule. I also like older "organic" sounding R&B from the early-to-mid nineties (which Amerie is taking some of her cues from), it's more a particular vibe of mustiness that tends to go with stuff from the last seven or so years which I have trouble connecting with.
has anybody heard the new stuff Kenny Dixon Jr. (aka Moodymann) is putting out on his Mahogani Music label?...yeah, it's the kind of slurred, blurred, late-night stuff one might expect, but it's also really acoustic/organic, moving much closer to straight-up R & B...(if you're familar with "Motel" by Tweet, you have an idea)...
BTW can I just use this space to say how underwhelmed I was by Jamie Lidell? It just sounded like generic 80s funk to me. I thought a couple songs were OK. But then I read some XLR8R year end issue going on about his genius and I'm trying to figure out what the difference between XLR8R and Urb is now. Why was their year-end so much like everyone else's? I thought they were supposed to cover primarily dahnce music. I flipped thru the mag and ended up leaving it on the El this morning.
Sorry about the off-topicness.
Sorry about the off-topicness.
Wow, I thought it was surprisingly good! Maybe it's partly a hype thing? I hadn't read anything about what he was up to when I saw the lead single in a shop. I thought of how little I liked all the solo stuff I'd heard from him, but I gave it a listen, bought the 12 straight away and ordered the album on the basis of how strong all 3 tunes were.DavidD said:BTW can I just use this space to say how underwhelmed I was by Jamie Lidell? It just sounded like generic 80s funk to me. I thought a couple songs were OK.
I also think it spans quite a range in its way - tunes like 'A Little Bit More' seem to be riffing on contemporary, more minimal R&B styles, the title track is a few shades Otis Redding, 'When I Come Back Around' has the 80s funk thing going (with obligatory choppy edits... still like the sound, anyway), and then a tune like 'New Me' is basically afro-beat.
David "Tell Me" is so good!!! So melodramatic and overripe! It sorta strikes me as the kinda sound Timbaland and Brandy were <i>trying</i> to get on <i>Afrodisiac</i>. "Your Behind" is not quite so good (and it's odd how many of these delectable, epic Tim'n'Bob productions prop up unusually to-the-point devotions to booty) but I love its proggish two-part structure, it reminds me of Timbaland's most wonderfully inflated moments ("Make It Hot", "We Need A Resolution", "Come & Get Me", "Nowhere" etc.).
And actually when Bobby says something like "Yo Tim drop the track" at the beginning of "Tell Me" the whole thing sounds like an eerie exercise in homage/mimicry.
And actually when Bobby says something like "Yo Tim drop the track" at the beginning of "Tell Me" the whole thing sounds like an eerie exercise in homage/mimicry.