The power of the REMIX

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

So originally Shontelle's 'T-Shirt' washed over me, a drizzle of wet sentiments and post-'Irreplaceable' production (HINT: I wasn't paying enough attention). But then The-Dream turned up to sprinkle his magic on it and hey presto, suddenly a song I can't turn off.

It seems so much more appealing as a duet, instead of Shontelle moping into a void her sentiments are now reciprocated and more. Someone on ILM described The-Dream as "carolling away" behind her which is pretty on-point. (Is it just because it's Xmas that it feels Xmassy?) It's also made me rethink the original, to recognise the unstoppable melody and the touchingly introspective lyrics.

(NB: Shontelle has seen fit to title her debut album SHONTELLIGENCE. Awesome. She's Barbadian, so I'm expecting a lot of dumb "new Rihanna" press, but I'm hearing more...Ne-Yo's craftsmanship paired with Tanya Stephens' strength? Not strength, that's the wrong word, but I can't think of the right one and I have last-minute Xmas shopping (ie: all of it!) to do now.)

Comments

[koganbot]

Oh, I hated the original. (Wrote it up in Year In America.) She sounds emptily demure in this version, rather than just empty, and presumably it's the identical performance, so the voice does benefit from having a foil. It'll take more songs for me to decide if there's anything distinct or interesting about her.

[koganbot]

I remember back in '78 there was this godawful rock band called the Cutthroats who opened for the Contortions a couple of times and had as their raison d'être a horrible insipid singer whose feature song was "Wet T-Shirt": I think the back-and-forth went, "'All she had on was a wet T-shirt'/'All I had on was a wet T-shirt.'" Soured me to the whole concept.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah the structure of the original 'T-Shirt' treats "nothing but your T-shirt on" as a revelation when it's just one of the many minor details which comprise the picture of Shontelle moping around her apartment, unable to do anything at all (inc. have any revelations). The original hinges on the question of whether the boy Shontelle's missing will ever come back (and the line "I don't know if I'm ever gon' let you go" implies not - this is excised from The-Dream's remix obv) - but it works in the same way as the greyer, mopier moments on Brandy's Afrodisiac work.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Is this the one that sounds exactly like Chris Brown's 'With You'? I can't click on the link as there are sleeping dudes in the room here, but I wasn't massively impressed tbh. Poss. because the lass was sat in a chair instead of doing a twizzly dance?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes it sounds exactly like 'With You' as well as 'Irreplaceable'. I wasn't impressed with it either, until I went back to it after the remix, but the remix is HEARTS ALL OVER THE WORLD TONIGHT.