Comments on: My Year In The Top 40

By: SteveM

SteveM — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:20:44 +0000

Tasteful gets flung at all kinds of people, seemingly whenever the sound of their music comes off too eager to please a big audience and leaving little room for any sense of ‘error’ musically (no roughness, no capacity to offend other than through being boring). I do see Ne-Yo that way musically (so have been avoiding his album) but I see John Legend that way too (assuming ‘American Boy’ and ‘Green Light’ are as close as he’s come so far to ‘the edge’ musically/production-wise). I like ‘Closer’ but could never love it.

By: Lex

Lex — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:04:13 +0000

I don’t know what “David Gedge of R&B” refers to but I don’t even get the sense of Ne-Yo as a hesitant loser from this (concept) album, let alone his overall body of work. There’s only one song on it where I think he confuses “being chivalrous” with “being a pussy” and it’s my least favourite (‘Why Does She Stay?’) – certainly he doesn’t come across as that on any of these singles, like, in the slightest. “Jane Austen of R&B” is OTM though. (Also, remember that Ne-Yo wrote ‘Unfaithful’ for Rihanna, ie one of the most mental R&B ballads of…all time, really! “I don’t wanna be – A MURDERAHHH!!!”)

As for ‘Green Light’ – the music is basically Kelis’s ‘Millionaire’ redux, and Andre 3000 is about the most tasteful rapper you can imagine, crass sexual metaphors or not. I like it but it’s about as “pleasantly there” as you got in male R&B this year.

Restraint and exuberance aren’t a priori value judgments in themselves, they just have to be used in the right places. You couldn’t perform ‘Mad’, for example, in any other way than restrained because the song is ABOUT restraint.

By: Andrew Farrell

Andrew Farrell — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:43:09 +0000

(bah that should have read “am now listening to”)

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:10:33 +0000

I think of “Year Of The Gentleman” as sort of pop’s equivalent of a Jane Austen novel. If you’re the kind of viewer who prefers the more tits-out Andrew Davies adaptations it might not be yr bag. I think he’s operating in the sort of space where you actually can’t get “too tasteful” – it’s sort of like Eno, or Basic Channel, or late Steely Dan, or Red Apple Falls era Smog, or Roxy Music, in that regard: the poetics of the tiny restrained gesture.

By: Andrew Farrell

Andrew Farrell — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:19:52 +0000

1) Tasteful is generally the exercise of unnecessary restraint, the opposite of what brings me joy (IE joy).
2) It thumps and squelches and ticks along at a pace, Andre 3000′s verse starts “So I’ve been hard like Medusa’s staring at me”, backed by what seems like a different sample every three seconds – to an extent it’s wind up Andre and let him laugh his way through, but even without him it would be a joyous record.
3) Well of course I might be wrong! I only know him from the three songs here and Tom’s description of him as the David Gedge of R&B. Which to translate from Indie is a hesitant and heartbroken loser – not generally my scene – the impression I had of him is that he’s more likely to record a single called Yellow Light.

(haha okay yet again technology has introduced awkward facts: I am not listening to Put Your Hands Up, which suggests I am talking largely rubbish)

By: Lex

Lex — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:04:01 +0000

I have no idea where to even start with the criticism of Ne-Yo as “too tasteful” except

1) what on earth is wrong with being tasteful
2) how on earth is ‘Green Light’, and John Legend generally, not the most tasteful thing released in this or any year (obv not a slight)
3) especially compared to a dude who has sung the line “no / I / am / not / I’m not / ADDICTED TO SEX! / but girl I guarantee / that if u lay with me / u just might be, ayyyy”

By: Matt C.

Matt C. — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:33:51 +0000

A fine breakdown, the outline of which I will brutally beat-jack for my own nefarious purposes. I think the “might as well have been by Ne-Yo” category might be under-represented by 504 songs or so.

By: jel

jel — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:43:56 +0000

haha rock songs, dude…

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:13:37 +0000

Just to give yous a laff, it was embarassingly very very long after i had heard Flo Rida that i eventually saw a poster for the album that had the florida-outline logo, and i ‘got the joke’ in the name. srs.

By: Andrew Farrell

Andrew Farrell — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:00:47 +0000

I kind of agree with Mark M – Ne-Yo’s tasteful setting is too high, which is why he could never make anything as great as Green Light.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:47:13 +0000

I went and checked “Low” and of course I did know it, what had me confused is that I assumed it was about 5 years old so the Flo Rida one had to be something else!

By: Kat but logged out innit

Kat but logged out innit — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:11:42 +0000

I have just done a Tumblr post justifying ‘The One’s existence.

By: SteveM

SteveM — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:59:18 +0000

‘Come On Girl’ goes “Come on girl! Come on girl! Come on girl!” iirc

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:50:27 +0000

ditto 2, but i liked it and still like it enough

By: Mark M

Mark M — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:35:42 +0000

1. I don’t see the Ne-Yo/Green Light thing at all. I find Ne-Yo’s songs utterly unengaging (although he seems v. charming and smart in interviews) while Green Light is fab and in line with John Legend’s previous good stuff.

2. Surprised Flo Rida’s Low has vanished from your mind. I, other the hand, disliked it but find it still bouncing around in my memory, alas.

HNY…