The quest list is pretty intimidating: Timbaland, Danja, Polow Da Don, Kanye West, Ne-Yo, Lil’ Wayne. Huge names? Yes. Fantastic musicians? Without a doubt. At the peak of their career? With the exception of Polow, not really. Keri Hilson’s In A Perfect World… has gone from “very” to “mildly” promising. And I actually think that that does the album a favour. As I wrote in my review of The-Dreams latest effort, anticipation can certainly kill a record. And I’m almost certain that Hilsons debut would have been a huge disappointment if it would’ve been released a year ago. Read more…

Reviews

To begin, let’s get one thing out of the way: this isn’t a new Love/Hate. When you accept the fact that The-Dream’s second album just ain’t as good as his (dare I say) classic debut, some amazing music awaits you. Read more…

Reviews

That commercial and artistic success somehow should exclude each other may never be true, and certainly isn’t when it comes to rnb. Last year, ‘Umbrella’ was the perfect example of the billboard top ten meeting the avant garde: perfect pop, perfectly fresh. Indeed, a lot of rnb-hits follows a popular formula, Chris Brown (with Stargate) has definitely been guilty, charged with the cynical ‘It’s You’.

How he redeemed himself. ‘Forever’ starts out with melodic information virtually unheard of in rnb, so pop it’ll make you blush. It’s a song that goes in all directions: the lyrics freestyled, the backing harmonies ridiculously expensive, the keyboard arpeggiators 90’s european, the drums Timbaland played through an old boom box. In my opinion, the closest thing to perfection to come out this year.

Chris Brown - Forever (written by Chris Brown, prod. by Polow da Don)

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Best of 2008, Songs

James Fauntleroy - Heated

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Best of 2008, Songs

The Internet has become a popular tool for up-and-coming songwriters to share their latest demos, sometimes with better results than the ”real songs” later performed by more established artists. Lonny wrote ‘Quickly’ for John Legend and Brandy, a great song but even greater with the writers own voice on it. ‘Read the Stars’ is better. It is, musically as well as lyrically, essentially a house record, and one of few dance-oriented rnb songs that hasn’t felt forced or gimicky (’Disturbia’ and ‘Closer’, I’m looking in your general direction.)

I can definitely see someone else recording ‘Read The Stars’ in the future, but I can’t imagine that that someone will perform it better than Lonny.

Lonny Breaux - Read The Stars

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Best of 2008, Songs

Instead of reaching for the Frank Sinatra hair piece, Ne-Yo covers his receding hair line with different hats, proclaiming 2008 to be “The year of the gentleman”. His latest album is a mixed bag, better than last years extremely mediocre effort, but still light years away from In My Own Words. I liked the singles ‘Closer’ and ‘Miss Independent’ as well as ‘Single’ (minus Polow da Dons nauseating kick pattern), but the Ne-Yo song that we will remember is, without a doubt, the beautiful, Stargate-driven, ‘Mad’. Classic soul music.

Ne-Yo - Mad (prod. by Stargate)

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Best of 2008, Songs