This is getting embarrassing for me, because it's my third post on this article already, but oh my god, the more I listen to it, the more I can't stop listening. I'm already on my 5th consecutive listen of the whole album, as I just started listening to it a few hours ago. Very few albums in the past few years got me to respond to them like that. It's like every line, every riff, every vocal delivery just keeps getting better every time. This album is so musically layered. Prince and Sly & The Family Stone comparisons are damn deserved. Man, the band is just great, and I love how often the album goes from human to bonkers. It's so exciting to hear this I'm not ashamed to sound like a hyperbolic superfan. I don't even know how to pick a favorite song. "Ain't It Easy", "1000 Deaths", "The Charade", "Back To The Future (Part 1)", "Till It's Done (Tutu)", "Prayer", "Betray My Heart", "Another Life"... how do you even begin to choose a favorite track in an album as awesome as this one? I'm just so fucking happy D'Angelo is back.
That Pentatonix story got me thinking about which Christmas album I'd love to hear throughout the year, and I have to say, Phil Spector's Christmas album would be the one, even if Phil Spector isn't someone you'd want to associate with Christmas.
Popstars having a sense of humor about themselves has basically become an obligation as to not alienate a more causal fanbase, but this is actually some good use of self-depracating humor. I actually chuckled a few times, which more than I can say about most pop videos that try to be funny and only come off as trying to hard to be comedic. This is one of her better songs also.
Even if you don't like her music (and nothing wrong with that), I remember no reason to assume Ke$ha is "human garbage". If the allegations turn out to be false, you'd be right, but so far, there's nothing about her that leads me to assume she is what you call her.
Miley is only a guest among many in a tribute album. Ke$ha wanted to release a whole original album with Flaming Lips that went into a very different direction than her pop work does, so they didn't let it get released for fear it would alienate her audience and hurt her pop career. She did have that one track with them, "2012 (You Must Upgraded)", which was kinda awesome.
Oddly, I think there's something nice about how Nick is so obviously pandering to his gay fanbase in order to become a popstar again. Sure, it's marketing, but most pop guys his age feel the need to become "dangerous" (like Bieber's poser bullshit or Chris Brown's tough guy act). And here's this guy making cheesy videos, posing for gay magazines and saying he has a crush on Daniel Craig. It's obviously the most calculated effort ever, but it's a nice change of pace to how these guys are usually supposed to behave when they are all grown up and stuff. And I say this as someone who doesn't even find him hot, he is too much of Ken doll for me.
I don't think you should force yourself to like r&b either. Everyone has their thing. But like how littleredcorvette said, it's just like any other genre, there's distinctions to be made between the artists, whether it's how they work or how good they are within the process they apply to their music. And just like every other genre, some artists will stand the test of time, and some won't.
Exactly. Tinashe spent years recording her mixtapes all by herself, with no support from labels or hot-shot producers, but because she is r&b, she's young, she's pretty and she dances, she must not be good or relevant or have any kind of lasting impact because she doesn't fit the stereotypical mold of indie visionaire that people around here respect. It's already annoying when people do that here with big pop artists, but with Tinashe really gets on my nerves a bit more, since her career trajectory is much more similar to the hundreds of indie bands that get worshipped around here than someone like Usher or Justin Timberlake, but people just assume there's no real value in taking her music seriously.
Her sound is also much more forward-thinking within her genre than a lot of bands that people here worship are for indie rock (not too mention a lot of them sound pretty much the same, while Tinashe has been building her own sense of identity). It's annoying that after music history has proven time and time again that r&b is such a great genre even though it rarely gets the respect it deserves at the time it comes out, to see people falling into the same pattern yet again. Instantly writing off an artist with the trajectory and respect of Tinashe just because the kind of music she does is not your thing is disrespectful to anyone who really gives a damn to artistry on r&b (older or modern). And if people disagree with the praise for her but still appreaciate r&b with the same level of respect than other more indie-friendly genres, bring something to the discussion instead of just reaffirming a bias (whether it is intentional or not on your part to do so, it's what happens). Tinashe and r&b in general are just as deserving of in depth analysis and commentary than the other music that commenters on this site love.
Such a ridiculous statement. What, do people stop listening to r&b is older than 5 years since release? You can't say that, especially as Tinashe actually has a pretty loyal fanbase and some very respected mixtapes. This is just the genre bias you have doing the talking. R&B albums are just as likely to find a legacy than something Caribou does. It's all about which audience you find yourself included. But just because YOU aren't in this case, doesn't mean others aren't. Really, it should be pretty simple after all this time for people to get that, but there's still an indie rock/music snob audience that refuses to. That you think the fanbase and respect for this album and artists is necessarily vapid says more about you than it says about the genre and the work here. And while nothing I say is necessarily unexpected nowadays, it still irks me that people throw around such statements while any questioning of their tastes is treated as sacrilegious. Tinashe is one of the best r&b artists right now, and you don't have to like it, but try to at least have an ounce of respect for people who take the genre and it's history and the direction it's taking seriously rather judgmental non-sense.
I don't know what's so weird about sampling and paraphrasing Justin Timberlake's "Blue Ocean Floor". I'm not hating on this or anything, but I see no big deal, except for maybe that change mid-song (which isn't exactly unexpected in today's r&b and hip-hop world where two songs become one frequently).
I never expected to get into Tinashe as much as I have this year, but what a gorgeous and captivating album. I just love how she manages to bring the hooks and energy of mainstream r&b with the layers and experimentation that come from the production and structure of artsy, alternative artists of the past few years. She gets compared to everyone right now, from Aaliyah to Jhené Aiko, from Beyonce to The Weeknd, but she really knows how to take all these elements that have been used before to come up with a very refined sense of the genre without ever straying from having a clear and bold personality.
It's also a very feminine album, in terms of perspective on sexual politics of relationships, which makes it a sister album to LP1 and Beyoncé in how blunt but sincere it is. It doesn't seem like Tinashe will ever have the popularity of Beyoncé or Rihanna or Aaliyah, or that she gets the same respect that people like Solange or FKA Twigs gets (at least so far), but she really is giving us a great combination of the best of both sides of r&b music right now with this album, and one of the most interesting personalities in music this year, in my opinion.
Don't Tell 'Em is my favorite r&b track of the year by far, so it's kinda annoying to see so many underwhelming remixes. And that Pitbull remix, just, urgh... Enough.
Don't Tell 'Em is a pretty massive single, even if only now it's getting its due on the charts. Jeremih has been surprisingly consistent in delivering killer jams since Late Nights. One of my favorite singles this year. Let's hope the album doesn't disappoint, but whatever happens, we at least got that excellent EP with Shlomo earlier in the year and one of the best songs to dance to of the year.
I'm young, but I very clearly remember Kurt saying something among the lines of "I get tired of people trying to find too much meaning in my lyrics" back in the day, which is frustrating in the case of a song about abuse. That's the problem you have when there's near God-like universal admiration for rockstars. Kurt said it's an anti-rape song, but he never really seemed to elaborate it much, always leaving the initial premise behind it as enough of a reason. So even if his intentions aren't harmful, it doesn't mean the song shouldn't have to stand on it's own merits like every other song, or that it was so loosely written that even if you are aware of the intended interpretation, it can still bother you how it lacks real depth in talking about the subject matter (even if it tries to capture the anger behind the experience musically) and just becomes frustrating - and not definitely not in the sense Kurt wanted to.
I think "In Utero" is Nirvana's best album, but "Rape Me" really isn't one of the best moments on it in my opinion, and that's because it feels like it's a track more worried about intensity, which would be fine in most cases, except, you know, a song about rape could use a little more complexity, and maybe even exploring more of the range of said anger, but it doesn't. So yeah, I get thinking "Rape Me" is not exactly one of their best moments, and as I much as Nirvana is a great band, I do think Kurt songwriting is put too much on a pedestal sometimes.
I also couldn't disagree more about that top 3. All of them are very overrated as videos even if the songs are memorable. And I'm always annoyed when music critics praise "Nothing Compares 2 U" for it's simplicity. So, you have a medium as open to innovation and creativity as the music video, freeing directors while giving them a big budget (in the case of big music stars) and a woman crying against a black backdrop is the best VMA winner of all time? No way I can agree with this. The overpraise that something can get purely for being minimalist will always bother me.
Top 3 should be Peter Gabriel, Missy Elliott and Madonna (depending on the day, I might switch Ray Of Light for We Found Love though).
I love Outkast to death, but it did not deserve to beat (in terms of the actual video itself) "99 Problems" and "Toxic", just like "Lady Marmalade" did not deserve to beat "Weapon of Choice" based on quality alone. That's the problem with Video of The Year winners: they are usually more of a symbol of what was most prominent in pop culture at the time than truly awarding what's best.
I like Britney's single, but damn, that video is just terrible. The only excuse I can see for it is that the videos she beat were just as bad (that was probably the weakest Video Of The Year line-up ever).
I agree there's no way Piece Of Me is better than Losing My Religion.
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