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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Money Mike

  • Chrisette Michele Evades the Sophomore Slump with “Epiphany”

    chrisette

    There haven’t been a lot of newcomers in the R&B field worth mentioning over the past couple of years, but Chrisette Michele is definitely a star on the rise. Most people first heard her distinctive voice singing the choruses of Jay-Z’s “Lost One” and Nas’ “Can’t Forget About You”. With a vocal delivery and phrasing straight out of early 20th century jazz, she applied that voice to contemporary rhythms on her debut album, I Am, which was a modest commercial success (and a Grammy winner).

    Two years later, album #2, Epiphany, is on shelves, and Chrisette has changed her style slightly. It’s a more youthful-sounding album:  a more vibrant, sunnier effort from a musical standpoint, and there’s a little more of a hip-hop knock to it from a production standpoint (in simpler terms, the beats are harder) Vocally, Chrisette has mostly dropped the jazzy inflections, but still has a very mature voice, sorta like a younger version of Jill Scott. Very similar musically to Ne-Yo’s Year of the Gentleman. Small wonder, then, that Ne-Yo himself did a lot of the heavy lifting on this record, serving as executive producer and co-writing about 2/3 of this album’s tracks.

    The cool thing about Ne-Yo’s productions is that he’s expanded his sound so that his songs aren’t immediately recognizable (unlike most other R&B and hip-hop songwriter/producers)-well, except for the ironically titled Another One, an acoustic-guitar-and-handclaps jam that sounds very much like Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable”. The album’s hit title track has a gently knocking beat, but Chrisette’s message is no-nonsense: “I think I’m just about over being your girlfriend/so I’m leaving”. It’s one of the better F.U. songs I’ve heard in a while, maybe because it’s so sweetly sung that you don’t immediately realize it’s a breakup song. Ne-Yo himself gives vocal assistance on the midtempo hand-clapper What You Do, with his Jackson-esque backgrounds providing the perfect complement for Chrisette’s tale of infatuation.

    Chrisette definitely earns her diva stripes with the big power ballads Blame it on Me and I’m Okay, but she also proves she can get down on the dance floor with the bubbly, effervescent Playin’ Our Song. She sounds completely natural on both ends of the spectrum. Mostly, though, Epiphany stays grounded in midtempo territory. That would normally signify a boring album, and there are a couple of songs here that just kinda float by, but the majority of the album is well-performed. There’s just no bells and whistles, and every once in a while you have to remind yourself that sometimes good music comes without flash.

    While Chrisette has changed her style ever-so-slightly, Epiphany isn’t going to scare away the fans who purchased her first album. It’s mature, well-crafted R&B, with classic melodies and lyrics against contemporary production. The songs have a little bit of bite in them, but there’s a high standard of craftsmanship here. Chrisette and Ne-Yo comprise one R&B partnership that I wouldn’t mind hearing again.

  • Beyonce, T.I. Head List of BET Award Nominees

    beyonceJamie Foxx-who will be hosting- and a slew of other artists were on hand last night to announce the nominees for the 2009 BET Awards, and Beyonce and T.I. turned out to lead the pack with 5 nominations each. Beyonce scored 2 nods in the Best Video category and also was nominated twice in the Best Female Actress category. T.I. picked up nominations for Best Male Rapper and Best Video (for “Live Your Life”) among others.

    Lil’ Wayne, T-Pain and Keri Hilson are right behind with four nominations apiece.

    As usual, I’m left scratching my head at some of the nominations. Why have categories like Best Group and Best Female Rapper if the pools are so thin? The nominees for Best Group are Day26, The GS Boyz (of “Stanky Legg” fame), N.E.R.D., The Roots and Three Six Mafia, while the Best Female Rapper nominees are Trina, Lil’ Mama and M.I.A., who is also curiously nominated for Best New Artist, although she’s already on her second album. Looks like the BET Award nominating committee is sipping on the same sauce as the folks who do the noms for the Grammy Awards.

    Ne-Yo and Maxwell are among the artists scheduled to perform on the show, which will air on June 24th. SonicClash will, as usual, be live-blogging the event.

  • Birthday Props for Stevie

    stevie

    No disrespect to Bob Dylan (or Smokey Robinson, who Dylan thinks is America’s greatest living poet), but no one writes songs better than Stevie Wonder, and that crown was sewn up back in 1976, when he was the biggest thing since sliced bread. In the thirty-plus years since “Songs in the Key of Life”, his run of classics has slowed, but it hasn’t stopped: “Lately”, “All I Do”, “That Girl”, “Overjoyed” and “These Three Words” are just a handful of the lyrical and vocal masterpieces that have come from a post-Seventies Stevie.

    I won’t even get into the stuff he made before then. Let’s just say that “Talking Book”, “Innervisions” and “Songs in the Key of Life” are albums every human that’s into music should own (and “Fulfillingness’ First Finale, trippy as it is, isn’t a slouch, either). It’s an achievement to make one classic album; Stevie made a DECADE’s worth of them. No wonder the man has won more Grammy Awards than any other pop, rock or R&B performer in history.

    One way you can judge a great song is by how many times it’s remade, and you could fill a box set with nothing but Stevie covers: everyone from Barbra Streisand to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to 2Pac to Wayne Brady has covered (or heavily sampled) Stevie. He has to be, apart from Dylan, the most covered songwriter of the rock era.

    Those too young to remember Stevie in his Grammy-winning, slimmer phase and want to know who the dude with the sunglasses was that performed with the Jonas Brothers was definitely need to be schooled. His music, for the excellent lyricism, pioneering musicianship, stellar vocals (every R&B singer that doesn’t sound like Marvin or Michael sounds like Stevie) and positive message, is as relevant now as it was when it was first out.

    I was fortunate enough to see Stevie live about 18 months ago, and with no light show and no choreography, blew the roof off of Madison Square Garden. I’ve been going to concerts fairly regularly for 15 years now, and I have never seen a better show.

    In 1980, Stevie wrote and recorded a song called “Happy Birthday” in dedication to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Stevie was one of the most responsible forces for getting King’s birthday recognized as a national holiday). The song has also become a standard of sorts-go to a black birthday party and I guarantee someone’s gonna break into Stevie’s song either right before, during, or right after the candles are blown out!

    Here are two of my favorite songs by him. One from his golden era (the lyrics to this song are among the best-and yet simplest-ever written), one from more recently.