Let's talk about Ciara's Evolution

Status: True!

PappaWheelie doens't even know who the fuck ciara is!

Holy fuck is someone missing the point.

'like a boy' is an obvious highlight - i saw a video of her performing this live somewhere on the internet where she's grabbing her crotch throughout, and in the breakdown she PICKS UP ONE OF HER DANCERS AND LIFTS HER TO HEAD LEVEL. really love 'i proceed', 'make it last forever' (rapping!), 'get in fit in' and 'i found myself' too.

i love the old-skool zinging synths and handclaps all over this.

only a few tracks in, but it's exactly what I wanted out of her: bangin', catchy and with less treacle. Pappa, you'd find things to like in this; it's very girlie action.

That review is gone for some reason.

just go away

never come back

I'm waiting til Tuesday, but I have high hopes.

The leaked version I've got is a bit dodgy (bass please), but thoroughly enjoyable, and Bang It Up is awesome.

I find "Promise" very annoying, mostly because of her vocals. I've gone completely, totally off Ciara since that awards show last year where she was singing live with a whole bunch of other people and just... couldn't. A very similar thing is going on for me with the main backup singer for The Pussycat Dolls (aka, "the one who shrieks all out of tune every time they do 'Buttons' live").

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0649,selah,75196,22.html

i'm surprised dan doesn't love 'promise'! especially since it was clear from day one that ciara had a range of about three notes.

RE: the range thing, I think people are going, "Oh, every song she releases only has three notes in it, that must be all she can sing."

(I wouldn't have a problem with Ciara only singing three notes if she sang them in tune.)

the limitations of her voice are totally ciara's strength - when she's trying to get a high note, and she can't get it, and it comes out as this kind of rhythmic gasp, it's BRILLIANT.

This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion but celebrating someone for not being able to do something is really stupid. Celebrating someone for making an artistic choice based upon their strengths and interpretation is one thing but Lex's statement celebrates and privileges mediocrity.

this is exactly what i was doing (or at least, celebrating someone for making an artistic choice based upon the strength of realising what their limitations are). ciara's limitations aren't so much note-hitting as note-sustaining, anyway. tim otm obv.

i've said this elsewhere but one thing ciara excels at vocally is rhythm - she's always bang on the beat, and she sings as if she's dancing; each note she sings is like a choreographed move.

my favourites from the album keep changing, currently they are 'get in fit in', 'bang it up' (DRONE!) and the amazingly emotional "i am me" suite of ballads which closes the album.

Like I said, an unpopular opinion.

If you are in a genre where people are expected to sing (ie, R&B) and you can't sing very well (ie, Ciara, Keyshia Cole, seemingly a good 80% of the people with record contracts, etc), I don't think you should get props for your singing. It is much more impressive when Christina Aguilera goes for a soft touch with her vocals because you KNOW she could belt them out for hours and not even blink, but she's performing it that way because it is an intentional artistic decision. Ciara has absolutely no options with "Promise"; she couldn't do anything with it besides the performance presented in the recording and, as a result, I'm not particularly impressed, ESPECIALLY since I've heard what she sounds like when she does try to belt or sing out (ie, like ass).

There are vocalists out there whom I really, really enjoy who are not great singers in a strictly traditional sense, most of whom present themselves in a paradigm where you can get away with it (Robert Smith and Billy corgan leap instantly to mind). Ciara isn't one of them; she can't even do her own schtick better than anyone else because Cassie and the group who does "Do It" are leagues better than her. Really, the only thing Ciara has going for her is that she's sexy; forget Aaliyah, this girl is the new Britney Spears.

But on the other hand I don't particularly care because I'm pretty sure I will never hear it in anything other than its studio incarnation and don't really have any interest in doing so.

Matt's point is a fair and pertinent one.

this isn't remotely a problem given how exquisite the performance in the recording is - and also that there is no song on the ciara album which would require a performance she isn't capable of, and yet within her limitations she's managed to craft an impressively varied and ambitious set of songs.

also, many of the songs sound tailored precisely to what ciara can do - it's not as if she's merely trying her best with material others could do better, or trying to pull off songs like 'ain't no other man' or 'ring the alarm'. whether this is due to her having a writing credit on every song or an extremely good understanding of what she does on the producers' side i don't know.

i think the reason it doesn't ring true for me is because ciara's stamped her artistic vision so heavily on the new album. whether you think she's able to perform it well or not it's abundantly clear that there's a definite aesthetic (back-to-the-80s old-skool ice rink jams, like one elongated janet jackson tribute) she's aiming for. she never sounds like the vehicle for other people's songs - i mean, i didn't even realise 'i proceed' was a neptunes production until i saw the credits because it sounds less like a beat they gave ciara as an integral part of the evolution, the album.

Now having actually heard this, I like it, but mostly it just reminds me how tired I am of crunk, bubblecrunk, post-crunk, and the etc. The song after "Get Up" is really weird. The song after the song after "Get Up" is really boring. It has the weird distinction of being the only rnb album this year that I havent unabashedly loved (Beyonce, JT, Neyo, John Legend) or been completely indifferent to, (the rest) though it could creep it's way into the former w/ more listens.

In R&B a lot of criticisms seem to come down on either side very sharply when it comes to singing - either technical vocal proficiency is held up as the standard for assessment or people complain that R&B is overly concerned with it at the expense of actual feeling.

The truth as always is a bit more complicated than that.

Um, I do? (Although, in fairness, and I said this when she first came out, she's not offensive to me on record but she isn't particularly engaging either.)

In almost every other aspect of popular music it's accepted that not being able to "play" can be used as a strength if it's paraded with a certain level of conviction/passion.

I disagree with (what I presume are) the assumptions behind this statement for two reasons:

1) In general, you are assuming that the (for lack of a better phrase) parameters for success are the same amongst all different forms of popular music.

2) Specifically as it relates to this song, you are assuming that everyone would agree that Ciara's performance is convincing.

In general I appreciate that R&B places a higher premium on technical vocal performance than, say, rock. This results in a lot of what is good about R&B (and some of what is bad). But just as rock is not limited to a particular notion of a four piece live band, R&B is not limited to a particular notion of singing. This is precisely because we can't ultimately unanimously agree on parameters (altough ps Geir to thread).

I may not have this anecdote exactly right but close enough to make the point I think.

uhh I kind of understand where Dan is coming from, elsewhere I had an argument w/ someone who claimed that the new Nelly Furtado single was better than Aaliyah's entire catalogue and I found this kind of ridiculous; of course they can prefer any song to any other if they want to, but the comparison still seemed to 'miss the point' of aaliyah's approach, which is a much more subtle vocal performance; where Nelly F. is about melody, Aaliyah is melody AND interpretation/style (i'm generalizing, really both artists do both but I think Aaliyah has more of a balance). Not that there's anything wrong with ignoring Aaliyah's subtle qualities, if you prefer the sleek production and cool melody-aspect of the new Furtado single thats cool, but to compare it to Aaliyah's entire catalogue just because its timbaland+singer misses some very significant aspects of R&B performance that I think are integral to MY appreciation of R&B.

uh i have no idea if that made sense.

I've actually started listening to Loose again and noticing how nuanced some of the performances are

100% OTM; given the way everyone on ILM bigged up the club tracks and bashed everything that was ballady or mid-tempo, I was shocked both at how consistently good that whole album is AND by how much of a vocal an emotional chameleon Nelly is on the album (the vocals on "Showtime" sound like a completely different person from what she's doing on "Te Busque", which is totally different from "Say It Right" which is distinct from "Promiscuous" which sounds nothing like "Maneater", etc).

The Aaliyah comparison is interesting because I think both Aaliyaha and Tweet had much stronger vocal presence than Ciara (with Tweet being the strongest). My biggest problem with Ciara is that I feel like she's a completely uninteresting cypher; my enjoyment of her songs are solely tied to how much I like the beat as opposed to anything she's doing.

(The Marvin Gaye story falls down somewhat in this context when you remember that Marvin Gaye was a phenomenally flexible singer who did a bunch of different songs in a bunch of different styles, both strong and tender, whereas Ciara has made the beginnings of her career by singing every song put out for the public like Sade vocalizing into a pillow.)

And, y'know, obviously good vocal performance is a huge part of R&B and it goes towards why Teedra Moses > Aaliyah > Ciara. On a song by song basis though there's no necessary reason why vocal chops will push someone further over the line.