Young Jeezy! Jazmine Sullivan! Jennifer Hudson!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Seeing as we've all been complaining about the state of the UK chart for a while now, it's probably time to spotlight some of the tracks which should by all rights be livening it up.

First, this is my favourite hip-hop joint of the year, 'Put On' by Young Jeezy ft. Kanye West. It does this weird thing of marrying two templates which would seem to be in opposition - triumphalist horns + cold, steely synths - and allies them to a menacing piano line. YJ is on top form, A++ vegetable metaphors in the second verse ("They know I got that broccoli, so I keep that glock on me"), and then Kanye's guest spot is just...wow. It shouldn't work (Autotune gimmick wheeled out again, whinge about fame continued) but holy shit, it does - you feel Kanye twisting and turning, his voice buckling beneath the imaginary cross he has to bear (oh yes the Jesus complex is present and correct), and it's all the more effective for being shadowboxing.

Also, the video is amazing.

Next, one of my favourite recent discoveries - an R&B singer called Jazmine Sullivan with an absolutely incredible voice, a powerful soul alto which keeps you hanging on her every word. Lauryn Hill is probably the most obvious comparison, though she rivals Mary J in terms of sheer raw emotion; the single 'Need U Bad' is a real slow burn but it's the middle eight which hit me first, and still gets me every time - astonishing stuff.

Last, the new single from Dreamgirls star, thorn in Beyoncé's side and all-round fabulous woman Jennifer Hudson, 'Spotlight'. I've had this for a while but it only really clicked three days ago, and since then I haven't been able to get it out of my head; it's like 'Bleeding Love' in that the first time you hear it you think "oh, OK" because J-Hud doesn't overwhelm you immediately, and the production is only lightly modish; but eventually you realise that it doesn't need to be all ~LOOK AT ME~ because the songcraft is so perfect - the emotional conflict in the lyrics, the tension as the narrator's caught between doubt and strength - and because, like Leona, J-Hud's secret gift as a singer isn't melismaniac belting (though she can do that too! oh yes!) but her sense of restraint. She looks great in the video, too, though the really blatant Campari (!) product placement is a bit lolz.

I'm going to do an audio post of these too...

Comments

[koganbot]

Lex, listening to the "Need U Bad" and its resemblance to "Doo Wop (That Thing)" I am certain that when you get to them, you will love love love the black vocal trios, quartets, quintets of the '50s and early '60s (including Jamaican ska groups from the early-mid '60s like the very early Wailers, when they were modeling themselves after r&b groups like the Impressions).

[koganbot]

E.g., Wailers "Jailhouse" (I think it's Bunny rather than Bob who's singing lead on this, by the way).

pocket full of celery

[zenith.livejournal.com]

'Put On' has grown to become one of my favourite jams this summer too... About that video, I don't know how much this has been picked up in the UK, but the terrible state of the economy is omnipresent if you turn on the TV in the US at the moment: all over the news, sparking "how to save money" tips on all the daytime TV lifestyle shows, and referenced constantly in adverts during the endless commercial breaks... so it's very zeitgeist.

Kanye's rocking the Rachael Ray (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/28/dunkin-donuts-pulls-ad-fe_n_103859.html) look there I see...

Re: pocket full of celery

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Over here it's more...the media seems to have seized on the idea of "credit crunch chic", so it's less ads on TV, more lifestyle articles in the broadsheets about how to look good/eat well/whatever and save money. But it does seem omnipresent, and makes me feel simultaneously a) annoyed, because...to an extent I think it's scaremongering, though this is almost certainly because I haven't been materially affected at all; b) slightly worried that I will imminently be materially affected, though I can't really imagine how. Anyway yeah, the video does seem very zeitgeisty, stylised and powerful...on a related tip I love how blithely the new Ciara single has bypassed any notion that there might be an economic crisis or credit crunch. So high price she hasn't noticed it!

Re: pocket full of celery

[koganbot]

The economy seems to be one of these slow-motion catastrophes, like global warming. The strangeness about this is that the banks etc. don't know yet how much they've lost or are going to lose, and probably won't know fully for a couple of years, and in the meantime they know they've got to be careful with what they lend, not knowing what they have to give, and this carefulness itself threatens to stifle the economy, as does the general uncertainty, and people waiting for the crunch to hit and not knowing what to spend. And everyone's in debt.

Re: pocket full of celery

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yup, I've spent a bit of time recently watching various parliamentary hearings over here about it all, and the banks are being super-cagy, and you get the impression that that's not because they're hiding shit (beyond the usual standard stuff) but because they don't know what's going to happen (or at least are at the mercy of the global economy).

Re: pocket full of celery

[koganbot]

Well, more specifically they'd bought all these Collateral Debt Obligations that they thought were perfectly safe but that turn out to be full of all sorts of repackaged subprime and even nonsubprime loans that the borrowers are not going to want or be able to pay, either because the value of the home has fallen to less than the what is owed or because the mortgage-holder just doesn't have the money. But housing prices continue to fall, meaning that more mortgage holders will have an incentive to default, and as the economy worsens more people will default on their debts anyway, and on like this in a circle...