Even if Jazmine Sullivan‘s 2008 debut, the Gold-selling and Grammy-nominated Fearless, wasn’t littered with strong, neo-classic entries like The Best Lauryn Hill Song Not Recorded By Lauryn Hill first single “Need U Bad” or the melodramatic Broadway-soul ballads “Bust Your Windows” and “Lions, Tigers & Bears”, the newcomer was destined to be a standout anyway, her throaty and rasp-tinged alto offering a pleasant throwback to the similarly distinctive-toned R&B divas of yester-decade (Toni Braxton, Anita Baker, the aforementioned Hill) and an appreciated change of pace from the high-pitched, caterwauling sirens that surround her these days.
On new single “Holding You Down (Goin’ In Circles)”, the first taste of her upcoming sophomore collection Love Me Back, Sullivan further proves why she’s needed now, reminding one of the pleasures of ’90′s R&B as she strains her deep, husky pipes in the frustration of unrequited passion (“Its a shame that you don’t care enough to even give me half the love I give to you/ I live for you baby”) to an ever-evolving smorgasbord of that era’s best-of urban contemporary sounds (the latest nostalgia-fueled production from Missy Elliott).
Can (relatively) slow-burning hip hop-soul joints like these please start making a comeback into radio playlists? There’s only so much fist-pumping one can do in a day.
Hear the Fat Joe-aided remix of the track, as well as the Stonebridge Club edit of her Daft Punk-sampling “Dream Big” (hey, fist-pumpers can still be good…on occasion), below.
It’s obvious that what Ne-Yo was attempting on new single “Beautiful Monster” was a sort-of “to the next level” take on “Closer”, his 2008 dip into Euro-house-meets-R&B sonic templates and obsessions with mysteriously sexy/ spooky seductresses, but wheras “Closer” can come on the radio today and immediately get us all pumped and excited for the near-four minutes of clubby euphoria about to envelop our ears, “Monster” just makes us angry every time we happen to catch it.
Why? Well, for starters, it’s just not all that catchy, with verses that just seem to meander on and on forever, lacking the specific lyrical finesse and melodic hookiness Ne-Yo usually employs so well. Then when the beat FINALLY drops on the chorus we’ve waited eons for, we’re subjected to anti-climactic, and quite awkward, repeatings of this woman being a “beautiful monster” (with nary a wink to GaGa, no less).
All that being said, there is a certain attraction in the hook’s driving dance thump and Ne-Yo’s cycling whines of “I don’t mind/ I don’t-I don’t mind” (which remind us of the similar repetitive aural pleasantness of his #1 mentor Michael Jackson on those otherworldly rounds of “eh-eh-eh-eh” at the tail-end of The Jacksons’ “Show You The Way To Go”), as well as the accompanying video’s Inception-meets-Mortal Kombat visuals, but a few seconds of goodness and a slick, big budget music video does not a great song make.
On the other hand, we can’t get enough of “Champagne Life”, the other single Ne-Yo has chosen to lead off his next album Libra Scale.
Another one of those Ne-Yo tunes seemingly tailor-made for the MJ album he sadly never got to helm (sigh), “Life”‘s ultra-smoove, solo-Pharrell-esque R&B flutterings fit his high-pitched tenor and the lyric’s cheery detailing of “good-life living” (“We don’t even clap the same when we living that champagne life”) like a glove.
Check out the videos for both, as well as a Rick Ross-laced remix of “Champagne” below.
Monica featuring Missy Elliott & Notorious B.I.G. “Everything To Me (Remix)”/ “Blackberry”
While most other mainstream R&B artists are too busy trying to keep the kids’ attention by sounding like malfunctioning robots and wannabe rappers, or awkwardly straining (and usually failing) to inject as much soul as possible in between club-happy house thumps and electro bleeps and bloops, Monica aimed to keep it simple and just saaang on her Missy Elliott co-produced lead Still Standing single “Everything To Me”, a vintage-hugging, Broadway-sized tribute to the “perfect man”.
Though the back-to-basics move has proven successful (the track is currently spending it’s third week atop the R&B/ Hip Hop singles chart, making it Monica’s first #1 in seven years), the song falls a bit on the bland side, mostly making us wish to hear the tune it samples (Deniece Williams similarly theatrical, albeit far more dynamic, ’81 classic “Silly”) more.
Slightly better is the summer jeep jam-styled remix, which again lifts it’s musical foundation from the ’80′s R&B world (this time, Rene & Angela’s “I Love You More”), as well as a completely unnecessary re-heated Notorious BIG verse from the Life After Death number “I Love The Dough” (tie-in for the confused: both songs sample the R&A joint), though we should note that the best song we’ve heard from Monica so far in 2010 was one that didn’t even officially make the album. That would be “Blackberry”, a midtempo cut that brings back the dual joys of both snap & b and Monica’s sassier side as she hits the roof after breaking the code to her man’s titular cell phone and finding out, through texts and voice mails from another chick, that he’s not being on the up-and-up. Oh, the drama.
It usually takes a good month or so for us for a new T-Pain single to make the transition from being just plain dumb to severely addicting (but still dumb), so it makes sense that right about now, after weeks of the Auto-Tune soul-man/ walking spoof’s latest bringing about all kinds of raging “What’s wrong with music today!?!” and “Why his this guy still around?!!” tantrums, we would start coming around to admiring “Reverse Cowgirl”.
Of course, like all the times before when it came to taking a liking to this guy’s solo material, we were drunk and “slow-dancing” (read: dry-humping some chick on the dancefloor) when we reached this epiphany, but admit it: there’s something awe-inspiring about the way T-Pain excels at making the silliest lyrics/ concepts (in this case, a certain sexual position and bleats of “Giddy up girl” and “Yee-haw”) sound SO DAMN DEEP with just a sprinkle of his yearning, “studio-sweetened” vocals.
Plus, we kinda dig the “artsy” moves of it’s video (see it below), where, especially under the influence of things we don’t feel the need to mention, watching T-Pain shake his dreads in slow motion is on par with seeing Avatar in 3-D for the first time.
More surprising than discovering that Next, the late-’90′s/ early-00′s hit R&B boy band who turned a song about getting erections on the dancefloor into a five-week #1 US pop smash, are still together and making music?
Finding out that their recently dropped cover of Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone”, done in the synth-bedazzled Euro-R&B style of the inexplicably currently popular Taio Cruz/ Jay Sean/ Jason DeRulo (we know they’re different artists, but deep in our hearts we think they are all one person), is kinda-sorta not all that bad.
Faith Evans “I Wanna Rock (Snoop Dogg Freestyle Cover)”
The Former First Lady of Bad Boy peaks her head out of hibernation (really, where has Faith been)…with an unfortunate alter-ego tag (“Fizzy”)…to drop some boasting “rhymes” about her flow over a 2009 Snoop instrumental…and then some cat named Deuce Hanna (who?) raps.
Yeah, we don’t know what to say either…but here you go:
Foreign Exchange-affiliated singer-songwriter (and former Erykah Badu vocalist) YahZarah previews her forthcoming fourth album, the enticingly titled The Ballad of Purple Saint James, with “Why Dontcha Call Me No More”, a song that finds her going through the blues over a cheating beau (“Obviously you never had a broken heart/ Or you would’ve known better than to play with someone else’s”).
Don’t think that the song is another one of those depressing slow burners though. In fact, it plays more like a mood-lightener thanks to punk-ish kiss-off dialogue like “I hope you’re happy or whatever/ On second thought…not really” and a boppy, new wave-inspired backing beat that, in our heads, would be featured as the walking-down-the-aisle soundtrack for the wedding of Prince and Janelle Monae.
Newbie girl group, and latest Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins find, Purple Reign position themselves as ones to watch in the two-thousand-and-dime on this R&B twist of Timbaland & Drake’s “Say Something”. Of special note is the acapella intro, in which they both introduce their solid three-part harmonies and give a shout out to the inspiration behind their name with a melodic swipe from Prince’s “Purple Rain”.
Head here to hear the ladies tackle Drake’s “Fear”, Waka Flocka Flame’s “O Let’s Do It” and Young Money’s “Bed Rock”.
Coming off what many considered 2009′s top R&B release (Love Vs. Money), it’s hard not to be left a little underwhelmed by “Love King”, the first single and title track to The-Dream‘s next (and possibly last) album.
Built atop a floaty, snap-laden midtempo groove perked with candied piano plinks and punctuating “Ey”‘s, the song is nothing more than a cut-and-paste patchwork of the singer/ songwriter/ producer/ “ey”-er’s usual bag o’ musical quirks, this time tied together by a thin concept (The-Dream has tons and tons of chicks at his beck and call) that’s in dire need of much stronger goofball lyricism than “Got girls with weaves/…Girls without it” and “Got girls on my Sprint/ My AT&T/ Got girls on T-Mobile/ Metro if it’s local”.
Yeah, it’s “Shawty Is The Shit”-meets-”Rockin’ That Thing” soundbed is perfect riding-to material, but if The-Dream really wants to finally nab some Grammy nods this time around (we, the people, can only endure so many Twitter rants), he’s going to have to conclude his solo album trilogy on the high note it demands with far better offerings than watered-down regurgitations from the same stylistic template.
Over-the-top randiness has dominated the R&B game so much over the past couple years (thanks to so many artists doing their best to try to out-top the king of WTF sex jams R. Kelly), that it’s a bit sad that nary an eyebrow is really raised with the lyrics presented on this all-star remix of Trey Songz’ current Top 5 R&B hit “Invented Sex” featuring Usher and Keri Hilson.
Still, for the simple sake of having something new to add to your “Bump N’ Grind” playlist, this 2.0 take serves as a fine enough addition, with Ursh ordering his gal to “meet me upstairs/ So I can beat it upstairs” before quoting old Trey Songz singles (“I can’t help but wait”) and Keri dismissing missionary as “no good” while claiming that she can “have you so woozy/ You’ll think I invented X”.
Alicia Keys‘ last single “Doesn’t Mean Anything” delivered all the Grammy-baiting things we’ve come to expect from the singer in terms of poised showmanship and inspirational pop majesty, but it was also kinda boring (and a bit too similar to her last album’s lead single “No One” in it’s plodding piano foundation), so it’s nice to see her quickly moving on with the release of a follow-up jam that at least doesn’t immediately come across as your Typical Alicia Keys Ballad.
Heavily shadowed in this ominous ’80′s R&B slow jam haze that employs some of Bonnie Tyler’s old lightning sound effects and, at times, threatens to swallow the singer whole into it’s dense black hole sway, “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart” stands as one of Alicia’s most musically enthralling cuts to date. At it’s core, a grand lyric about the post-break-up blues (“Have you ever tried sleeping with a broken heart,” she asks, before quickly adding the devastating “Well you could try sleeping in my bed”) and the self-help strengthening one must go through to break free of it’s debilitating shackles (“Tonight, I’m gonna find a way to make it without you”).
The song’s most appreciated touch? Alicia taking a much-appreciated break from all that top-of-her-lungs belting she’s relied too heavily on on recent material, and opting to bring most of “Try”‘s tear-stained narrative to life in a whispery, smoky vocal that sounds like she’s been up all night trying to gather the inner-courage needed to finally move on past the shattered romance.
Catch the video below, followed by TWO remixes of the tune, one with Brooklyn rapper Maino (“Hi Hater”) solidly tackling the heartbreaker role (“Pushing for commitment/ I’m running from commitment/ Scared to open up/ And you wonder why I’m distant…”) and another featuring…um, Mase (off his new mixtape, I Do The Impossible).
Not to beat a dead horse, but it’s still so amazingly dumbfounding how Nina Sky continually release such great material with none of it ever able to bubble into commercial success. This past year alone they’re unleashed at least two well-acclaimed tracks (“On Some Bullshit” and their heavily remixed Major Lazer/ Ricky Blaze collabo “Keep It Goin’ Louder”) that are deserving of topping some pop single chart somewhere in the galaxy instead of just being the blog-crit/ club sect sensations they are.
Really, what do these girls have to do to score another over-ground hit? Could nicking an old hook from the Hall & Oates’ platinum-lined catalog be the answer? Probably not, but if it’s any consolation, “Here He Comes”, the “Maneater”-biting third single from B-more club hero Tittsworth‘s 12 Steps, has quickly risen up the rankings of our own personal Hot 100.
Tailor-made for a club-set scene in a CW tween soap, with Tittsworth’s light R&B-house thump carrying a distant bump as if to illustrate it’s source being outside the central camera shot, “Here He Comes” hones in on the inner-thoughts of Nicole and Natalie Albino, who are quietly going nuts as their crush casually brushes past them. “Tense up my body/ Can’t talk about it/ These feelings got me, got me…”, their forlorn harmonies trail off, the breathtaking appeal of their favorite boy so overwhelming, they’re rendered speechless.
The track carries such an alluring overall mood, that the fact that it breaks no new ground for the twins stylistically (these girls have managed to successfully marry every single human emotion possible to a “in the club” setting over the years), or that fellow featured guest Pitbull somewhat mars things with his needless misogyny (“I spread legs like a gynecologist”), don’t even begin to matter…all of which only makes it a bigger shame that “Here He Comes” likely won’t ever reach the massive audience it deserves.
You can sample the original below (in addition to a bonus Tittsworth remix of a beloved ’90′s R&B classic), but don’t forget to also cop the complete single EP, featuring remixes from AC Slater, Nadastrom, Stretch Armstrong & Jaimie Fanatic and Rico Tubbs & Will Power.
Despite the fact that she consistently produces far more entertaining/ adventurous R&B than a majority of her contemporaries and continues to have the undying support of most critics, she just can’t catch a break when it comes to commercial success. Both her In Love & War lead singles, the pleasantly ’90′s throwback-ish “Why R U” and the crackling “Heard Em All” (probably the best of her endless “1 Thing” retreads) were/ are bonafide JAMS, but for whatever inexplicable reason, neither one have managed to catch fire on the charts the way they deserve.
Hopefully her label has enough confidence in her to give her one more shot at a hit single (y’know how record companies love to drop acts with the quickness these days), and if they do, we pray they plant their focus on really pushing the Trey Songz duet “Pretty Brown”, another lovely nod to ’90′s contemporary soul thanks to it’s memory-jogging sample of Mint Condition’s 1992 smash “Breakin’ My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)”.
Sparking from the get-go with the familiar instrumental bursts that made the Mint Condition such a cherished favorite, “Pretty Brown” manages to sustain such high levels of pleasure throughout the rest of it’s length as Amerie and Trey circle round eachother’s high-pitched pipes, trying to figure out where all the heat went to in a once-solid romance. “Is it a crime to want that old thing back?/ Can it be wrong to miss the way you used to kiss me?” goes Amerie, her desperate, edge-of-sanity vocal still one of the greatest sounds to ever pierce the ears.
Catch an “alternate” version of the track featuring Lloyd Banks below, and don’t forget to pick up In Love & War when it drops November 3rd.
After spending a large part of 2009 having to deal with the embarrassment of having everyone know (and freely share their opinions and concerns) about a certain Grammy night ordeal, you would think that Rihanna, one of the decade’s top singles artist, would deliver an upbeat fourth album lead-off single that was all shades of game-changing kick-ass to succinctly remind the masses of how she really became a household name in the first place.
Instead, as the first taste of the November-set Rated R, Ri-Ri has oddly chosen to give us a Ne-Yo co-penned ballad that utilizes the title “Russian Roulette” as a metaphor for taking a chance on love over a backing track that’s all intense and menacing, with rolled dice (or is that the crackle of a barrel turning?) and gun shot sound effects thrown in to add more oomph to it’s darkened moodiness.
We’ll give “Roulette” a few points for effectively illustrating the tense stand-off between the song’s two lovers, with a relentless heartbeat-like drum stomp and the occasionally haunting lyric (“…And then I get a scary thought/ That he’s here means he’s never lost”) doing enough to bring about a couple of arm goosebumps. But following the first few curious listens, it’s spooky intrigue fades, exposing it for the largely lackluster “comeback” it is.
Put simply, if we wanted noir-ish ambiance from Rihanna right now, we’d revisit her and Ne-Yo’s previous single collaboration “Unfaithful”; for goth-toned pop, we’d rather give “Disturbia” a re-spin (and if we wanted gun shot-accented R&B, Lloyd’s “Pusha” would be the ticket).
“Russian Roulette” is okay (in a third or fourth single kind of way), but as the first solo thing to emerge from the singer following all that Chris Brown drama, releasing an eardrum-rupturing club-pop confection (possibly about how much angry lil’ ex-boyfriends suck) would have been far more appreciated.
While it’s nice to see Mya resurfacing on America’s pop culture radar through her gig on the ninth season of Dancing With The Stars, on one level it’s quite sad to see the singer/ dancer’s career trajectory ending up here.
Most recent media blurbs about her may only cite her involvement in 2001′s chart-topping and Grammy-winning Moulin Rouge-backed remake of “Lady Marmalade”, but let’s not forget, Mya rolled out a slew of other noteworthy pop and R&B entries throughout the late ’90′s and early ’00′s. From solid solo entries “Case of The Ex” and “My Love Is Like…Whoa” to memorable collaborations with Jay-Z (“Best of Me (Remix)”), Beenie Man (“Girls Dem Sugar”), Blackstreet (“Take Me There”) and Pras & Ol’ Dirty Bastard (“Ghetto Supastar”), Mya was on a roll there for a bit. Unfortunately, minus the brief blinding spotlight “Marmalade” brought her, she never quite managed to fully break that ceiling to superstar status, her career (at least in the US) eventually petering out as the new millennium wore on thanks to a bunch of failed singles and behind-the-scenes business politics; her last two albums, 2007′s Liberation and 2008′s Sugar & Spice, ended up only being released in Japan.
Maybe things could turn out for the better though with Mya set to build off the attention she’s re-garnering through Dancing with the release of a new mixtape, Beauty & The Streets Vol. 1. Featured cut “Ponytail” is certainly an attention-grabber, finding Mya wrapping her soft coo around a woozy cycling of backwards-moving synth sounds, as she tries to steal male attention away from pole-wrapped strippers with some seducing moves of her own.
Self-hyping that those other women don’t have “this thing I be sitting on”, Mya challenges them to a lap-dance off, shoving one guy into a chair before requesting that he pull her mane in a ponytail and make her yell. Yeah, she kind of blows her load early as far as titillating imagery goes, with the rest of her contribution here failing to muster up anything else as lip-licking good, but at least Young Money First Lady Nicki Minaj is around to keeps things a bit interesting on the back-half with her random references to “Peggy & Al Bundy” and “Crocodile Dundee” in describing the freaky way she gets down.
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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Even if Jazmine Sullivan‘s 2008 debut, the Gold-selling and Grammy-nominated Fearless, wasn’t littered with strong, neo-classic entries like The Best Lauryn Hill Song Not Recorded By Lauryn Hill first single “Need U Bad” or the melodramatic Broadway-soul ballads “Bust Your Windows” and “Lions, Tigers & Bears”, the newcomer was destined to be a standout anyway, her throaty and rasp-tinged alto offering a pleasant throwback to the similarly distinctive-toned R&B divas of yester-decade (Toni Braxton, Anita Baker, the aforementioned Hill) and an appreciated change of pace from the high-pitched, caterwauling sirens that surround her these days.
Over-the-top randiness has dominated the R&B game so much over the past couple years (thanks to so many artists doing their best to try to out-top the king of WTF sex jams R. Kelly), that it’s a bit sad that nary an eyebrow is really raised with the lyrics presented on this all-star remix of Trey Songz’ current Top 5 R&B hit 
Not to beat a dead horse, but it’s still so amazingly dumbfounding how 
Poor Amerie. 
After spending a large part of 2009 having to deal with the embarrassment of having everyone know (and freely share their opinions and concerns) about a certain Grammy night ordeal, you would think that Rihanna, one of the decade’s top singles artist, would deliver an upbeat fourth album lead-off single that was all shades of game-changing kick-ass to succinctly remind the masses of how she really became a household name in the first place.
While it’s nice to see Mya resurfacing on America’s pop culture radar through her gig on the ninth season of Dancing With The Stars, on one level it’s quite sad to see the singer/ dancer’s career trajectory ending up here. 
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