A few pinches of freshness

[credoimprobus]

I've been meaning to post a couple of album tracks from Ashanti's new The Declaration for a number of weeks, but she totally beat me to the punch by making one of them the second single!

Production courtesy of Jermaine Dupri, smashing stuff. The 'wooo!'s = gold. And adorable video! The visual style suits the song to a T.

(The other track I had set up is Rodney Jerkins brainchild So Over You: kind of turn-of-the-millennium retro, and a right stomper.)

Elsewhere, summer movie season brings us this:

The tinkly/sparkly backing is sort of completely addictive, and the beats are killer. Keri Hilson's contribution is pretty minimal; mostly she provides atmospherics (if very effective atmospherics!). [Produced by poptimist favourite Polow da Don; he's really shaping up as a producer of the year, isn't he?]

Speaking of Keri Hilson, we FINALLY have a debut solo single:

It borders on the nice but eh until the moment in the chorus when that THRUM (like the one in Danity Kane's Is Anybody Listening! read: OMG) slides in under the music, and the emotion just SWELLS -- and then that middle eight, omg! It's been a looong wait for her official solo career launch, but this certainly fulfills all the heightened expectations I've built up over all that time. CANNOT WAIT FOR THE ALBUM.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OMG that Ashanti: when did she get a personality?! I've had her album next to my laptop for two weeks now but was just deflated by thinking "ehhhh, Ashanti" every time I thought about importing it. I shall be remedying that IMMEDIATELY. LOL, feminist-baiting, I will always approve of that (and imagery like this makes my own liberal-switch flicker uncomfortably so much more than any whore-pop), but her tongue is so deeply embedded in her cheek. The "woooo"s are indeed gold.

Have you heard the Nas album? On one listen it's...pretty impressive. Love this, didn't know it was Polow but should've guessed. Bizarre to think how both Jay-Z and Nas have returned to some sort of relevance in 2008.

Still not sure about 'Energy', I can hear a great, great track in there but am not sure Keri totally delivers - in fact it'd work so much better as a Danity track, it needs more vocal oomph. Maybe I'm just disappointed that it doesn't live up to the best two solo Keri leaks I have, 'High Heels' (http://youtube.com/watch?v=DoVRP62pyR0) ("love how they look but hate how they feel") and 'Hands & Feet' (http://www.sendspace.com/file/bkixkk) which, Keri, if you're not going to use yourself, could you please pass down to the next fame-hungry cock-mad whore-pop act? Because a song as great as this does not deserve to be lost down the back of some mixtape sofa.

[credoimprobus]

The Ashanti album is only a solid 'good' overall, really, but it's def worth hearing, nonetheless! Good Good is possibly the best track on it (as a side note, the spoken bits in the middle eight totally remind me of Bouncy's Kitty Kat, somehow, which can only = WIN), but there's a number of tracks on there that are pretty much the same level. Also: I was not really feeling the lead single The Way That I Love You on its own, but in context on the album it totally worked, suddenly.

I was thinking just yesterday (after hearing the above) that I should get around to checking out the Nas! I've been eyeing it in the shops for a fair while, but haven't really wanted to drop the full 20 euros on it on faith, esp as I only got properly into him earlier in the year (record shop going-out-of-business sales ftw). I shall have to internet-remedy this oversight within near future, innit!

Energy -- I am so, so ridiculously sold on this one myself after listening to it 50 000 times since posting this yesterday, to the point where it's in serious danger of being my single of the year if it holds up past first rush of obsession. (I can never know how I really feel about any song I go nuts for before at least a week after I first hear it, haha!) I can see what you mean abt how it would be stunning as a DK track, but I love Keri's delivery enough to still not feel it falls notably short of its potential. (And I haven't the same problem wrt previous leaks, since as much as I love those two as well Energy is my favourite of the Keri solo tracks I've heard so far by a distance -- sucker for the melodrama that I am, and all that! [previous probable shoe-in for single of the year: No Air, after all.])

[koganbot]

While listening through "Energy" was thinking the THRUM was too little too late but then it becomes the whole song by the end. I'll have to give the song more listens to decide if it's top tier, though. I like the vid, which I was half ignoring at first, thinking, "posing in several postures of sex bomb, then with boxing match as metaphor for relationship and for energy being sapped, ho hum," but then it clicked as real weariness and emotionally being wrung out. That the track goes for THRUM rather than hookiness probably means it won't hit, though I'd be happy to be wrong.

[credoimprobus]

I could actually really easily see Energy all over Finnish radio, but a) I could be totally deluded, there and b) this would assume it even gets here at all. (I am STILL BITTER about the fact that Damaged never got any kind of single release here, much less any promotional push, because I'm convinced it would've been a smash if it had only been given a chance. The album was slipped out completely without any fanfare, too, to my immense frustration.) I have hope that the massive success of The Way I Are and (more significantly) more recently Scream will have left Keri enough of a known quantity that whoever decides these things will consider it worth it, but who knows. If it passes that hurdle, though, I really think it'd have a chance to hit -- we've had a lot of non-obvious songs hitting here this year (most recently Michelle Williams' We Break the Dawn has been gaining momentum), so the lack of immediate hookiness shouldn't stop it from going big, at least. (Mind, conversely Chris B's Forever has completely failed to hit (woe), so you can never know about these things!)

[koganbot]

"We Break The Dawn" hitting? Wow! In the U.S. it's gotten no airplay except on the "dance" stations (of which there are only nine in the entire country) and no attention outside the clubs. It's a wonderful song, though Williams' singing is rather nondescript.

[koganbot]

Also, taking a look at your Top 20, I see Kat DeLuna's "Run The Show" real high; it got only a little more airplay in the U.S. than "We Break The Dawn" did, its support being in the clubs.

[credoimprobus]

It topped out at no. 2, even! It's starting to descend again, but it really is awesome that it managed to get that high.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The bass in the chorus is really awesome, I like it a lot but feel it might need...an extra chord change, or something? I am as befuddled by its Finnish success as you, it's not even scheduled to be released here for another month.

Still disappointed that 'Run The Show' only got to No 41 here. It's so ridiculously catchy.

[koganbot]

I think the only thing "We Break The Dawn" needs is a different singer. And maybe - maybe - I'd have made it a tad longer, extending the "hold back the sun"/"we break the dawn" call-and-response mashup at the end until it's compulsive and mesmerizing.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Ashanti and Nas: BIG TICKs for both. Thanks for posting these.

The Keri Hilson solo vid no longer works.

[credoimprobus]

Just glad to spread 'em around! That Nas in partic. really is amazing.

And thanks for the heads-up on the Keri; have edited post with a working embed. (We'll see how long that one stays up, heh.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I listened to it again this morning and I think I agree, I'm trying to think of who could have pulled it off better than Michelle - maybe someone like Jennifer Hudson, someone with a big, generous voice.

[koganbot]

Toni Braxton or Mary J. Blige? Both can do the slow burn and the gospel eruptions. Mariah? (This would be a stretch, but she often responds well to being stretched.) Taylor Swift? (That would be a real stretch, since she can't do gospel eruptions to save her life, but she could find the latent fragility and neediness in the song, trying to hold back the dawn in a desperate, frail chant.) Daveigh Chase? (My newest discovery: Don't know anything about her or the TV show she's part of, but I decided that if she could make this song compelling, she could do anything.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think MJB could do it, but it'd be a different song then. Toni Braxton might be a bit too dignified? Like, she always seems a bit repressed, even when she erupts. Anyway I have actually just realised who the perfect singer for this is: FANTASIA BARRINO. Holy shit how good would that be.