Album is so good I made a lesson post about it

80s pop updated and done right.... Dev Hynes did the damn thing

talk about it
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Didn't like her last release save a couple of songs.
But the songs I did like, I really liked.
Gonna have to check this out.

The production masks the sadness in the lyrics.

I've listened to it 4 times since yesterday.

Dev Hynes, makes total sense now.

Nice EP thanks for the heads up.

>Dev Hynes, makes total sense now.
>
>Nice EP thanks for the heads up.

http://stereogum.com/1207821/album-of-the-week-solange-true/top-stories/

When Jay-Z and Beyoncé showed up at a Grizzly Bear show in Brooklyn three years ago, I was working for Pitchfork and had to write a news story about it, because that’s what my life is like. In my original draft, I had a joke about how you kinda have to do what your sister-in-law wants to do when she’s in town. My editor took that joke out, telling me that we didn’t know that Solange Knowles dragged Jay and Bey to the show when they would’ve rather been spending quality time with their solid-gold pinball machine or whatever instead. Soon enough, though, we learned that I was right — that the show had been Solange’s idea and that Jay had not, in fact, been banging Yellow House in his Maybach on the way to Def Jam meetings. This was not a surprise. Plenty of big-money pop artists have experimented with indie-rock sonics, whatever that even means, in the past few years, and more will soon. (The smart ones will just hire Jamie xx and/or Frank Ocean, as Alicia Keys does on her own new album.) But Solange, alone in that universe, has always come across as the type of person who has serious opinions about what Deakin adds or takes away when he joins back up with Animal Collective. She’s someone who moves through the indiesphere without making it look like a pandering grab at a new audience — like she’s Big Boi throwing Wavves on an album track. And now that Solange has finally made her indie record, she’s made one that sounds like pop music, which is the smartest thing she could’ve possibly done.

True — which, at seven songs and 28 minutes, is trapped somewhere between an EP and an album — is kinda-famously out on Terrible Records, the label co-founded by Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor. But it’s not her attempt at making Veckatimest, or even at a Twin Shadow record. She’s co-written and co-produced the entire thing herself. As her one big collaborator, she’s enlisted Blood Orange guy Dev Hynes, an artist who’s cycled through a half-dozen musical styles over the past decade before settling on a drug-dazed, ’80s-informed synthpop thing. And that’s a sound that suits Solange beautifully. Her voice isn’t an emotional-cannon WMD thing, like the thing her sister possesses. It’s nearly as dextrous, but it’s smaller and softer. And in her previous life as a major-label prospect, she’s always brought a tricky intimacy to her songs; the 2008 single “Sandcastle Disco” remains an unheralded favorite. And here, she focuses on her strengths by going even smaller, by reducing her sound to whispers and coos.

And so True is just an enormously likable little record, a lovelorn sigh that never bashes you over the head with anything. There are no obvious indie signifiers beyond; instead, we get smart and buried production tricks like the squiggly synth-bass on “Some Things Never Seem To Fucking Work” or the mumbly kinda-rap verse that Hynes turns in on that same song. If anything, Solange, like Frank Ocean or Miguel, is playing around with the R&B touches that have been showing up in indie-pop recently, showing you kids how someone with a real no-shit star-quality voice approaches this stuff. The songs are about breaking up, or being about to break up, or wondering why you broke up when you were really happier than you realized. And the lyrics are more specific than you’d expect from a Knowles: “Remember when you kissed me at Jimmy John’s when I was 17 / Convinced you were the shit.” They’re indecisive songs, songs about being trapped in uncertainty.

But it’s still a remarkably happy-sounding record; even its saddest songs breezy and weightless. First single and opening track “Losing You” is an absolute joy, a ripple of love. And if you were writing a cynical trend-piece about pop artists going indie, you might snark something about the way it reappropriates first-album Vampire Weekend’s Afropop appropriations. But those flourishes are more subtle and nuanced than that; they’re built right into the flow of the song, and nothing’s been built around them. And that’s true of the entire record; Solange and Hynes understand how its production tricks can serve its songs. And even when Solange vocally cuts loose, wordlessly vamping as tracks end, she does it quietly and assuredly, letting her ah-ah-ahhs circle around the tracks rather than trying to drown them. In making a record this graceful and assured, Solange and Hynes have struck a decisive blow against genre-based gimmickry, and we should thank them for that.

True is out now on Terrible.
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I'm back to where I started, Losing You is a banger & the rest go in and out my ear mostly aside from a few struggle-notes on joints like Please Don't Let Me Go.

It's an EP but it feels long, not a great sign.

Losing You could or should be a hit tho & I like her energy/effort/cuteness/goofiness/80s-Madonna-style-pop-sensibilities but it's best in small doses.

theres no soul to her.
no vocal or emotional range.
she basically just recitin lyrics.

I will check it out later: http://www.amazon.com/True/dp/B00A2YJQK4/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1354157473&sr=1-5&keywords=solange

Check out NEW Soul music at: www.myspace.com/starbeing

Bumpin in the STEREO:
Gladys Knight&The Pips
That NEW Urrrrrsher
Gregory Porter-Be Good
Dwele-GTO
Darryl Reeves-Mercury
Mint Condition -M@TSOL

I dig some of the production but the songwriting is not catching me at all for the most part.

*shrugs*
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That's quite common with this hipster R&B, of course... but these songs seem especially wispy to me because at least the other stuff usually manages to toss out a memorable line or two that hook you, even if it's not in the chorus.

Just not getting that here.

>That's quite common with this hipster R&B, of course... but
>these songs seem especially wispy to me because at least the
>other stuff usually manages to toss out a memorable line or
>two that hook you, even if it's not in the chorus.
>
>Just not getting that here.

yup, same thing for me.

Like I've been waking up with that shit in my head for the last couple days... The grooves to Bad Girls and Trapped in Closets are infectious too. Losing You is actually one of my least favorite tracks on there.

The 'Hipster R&B' line tells me you are bringing more into this than just the music... I don't give a shit how you dress or grow your hair. It's a pop album with R&B elements and that's it. But this hipster labeling and hate (not just by you) is really starting to look and sound like a generational disconnect. I've been to shows that were filled with what y'all would call hipsters and had a much better time than I do at R&B or Rap shows today... There was far more positivity there I'll tell you that. But then young people having fun always seems to bring a backlash from older folks.

But that's just how I see it... to each their own

I'll let y'all return to your regularly scheduled programming now


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I don't. Me calling it "hipster R&B" is not some sort of prejudicial hate or bias... It's calling it what it actually is.

>The 'Hipster R&B' line tells me you are bringing more into
>this than just the music... I don't give a shit how you dress
>or grow your hair.

I didn't say anything about anybody's clothes or hair, though. If I were judging the record based on the visual style of the artist, I would probably love this shit because I think Solo is fly.

You're working on the assumption that hipsterism is merely a sartorial style and that there is not a whole wave of hipster-identified R&B (or R&B-influenced) music out there that has a certain sonic texture to it. C'mon man...

It's a pop album with R&B elements and
>that's it. But this hipster labeling and hate (not just by
>you) is really starting to look and sound like a generational
>disconnect. I've been to shows that were filled with what
>y'all would call hipsters and had a much better time than I do
>at R&B or Rap shows today... There was far more positivity
>there I'll tell you that. But then young people having fun
>always seems to bring a backlash from older folks.

People saying that they don't feel a record is "backlash" now? I thought it was just an opinion.

And really, if anybody is making extra-musical judgements here, it is you. So I should award points to music now because of how "positive" the crowd is at shows? In that case, I guess I'll big up Raffi and The Wiggles now...


>But that's just how I see it... to each their own
>
>I'll let y'all return to your regularly scheduled programming
>now

Seriously... and I am asking this sincerely, not in the snarky manner in which it is usually employed: Why are you mad?

I was just speaking on this hipster backlash I've heard coming from a wide range of people over the last few years... Anthony Bourdain has damn near turned it into a crusade. I thought I made it clear I wasn't directing this all at you. I go around with my boy Silk on this same issue... in fact we did again just yesterday so that is probably fresh in my mind. But really some people just have a negative reaction when it comes to anything that looks or feels of hipsterism... if that's not you then sidestep my comments and let them hit their correct target. But let's not talk like this prejudice doesn't exist among those in and around our age group.

But for real man I'm way past getting mad at people because they don't like something I like. I just was really enjoying her album and decided to make a post so that those that were curious could check it out... it's really not any more serious than that... I really didn't plan on going this deep or spending this much time on it but it's cool chopping it up with you again.

Peace


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Reunion Radio Podcasts
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Not counting those "old folk shows where they know everything" shows (like Frankie Beverly & Maze or EWF), hipsters show are better than most.

-They know the songs
-They get hype
-They actually dance...usually outdated dances to be ironic. But it's better than standing around.

So what they will be listening to something else in a week, that isn't my problem.

i may have to cop after hearing the snippets.

i give her kudos for doing this

http://saintheron.com/music/purchase-saint-heron-store-locations/

the bc kingdom song i was almost tempted to laugh at for some of the lyrics (made me think of DRS for some reason) but im into it.

http://saintheron.com/artists-of-saint-heron

hopefully its not all post-weeknd R&B

-------------------------
“Floyd Mayweather should be taking fights up to 157 or 160 pounds...His frame can hold the weight..it's not even a lot of weight....Go to the gym and lift weights man..lol.”-- Warren Coolidge

She left Bad Boy?

I'm not getting a good vibe about her hygiene...lol
looks like was she born on a commune and never left.

No idea her music was taking off like this

corny photo aside...was she any good?

*shrug*

not my flavor. I can see the appeal for someone else, though.

the music did not grab me right away but she has a decent voice.
i think her success like, say Kelis, would depend on meshing with a good producer/songwriter.
Everytime I have heard Kelis with a regular beatmaker, it's not been pleasant.

and maybe I only like that because Bilal is on the track lol.

I don't like her doing pop...needs to stick with the slower tracks

when i think of her music career i just gotta laugh.

this chick is so wack she makes Ahanti come off like Pearl Bailey. please tell me this a thanksgiving turkey joke?

Latoya Jackson is rolling over in her grave at how wack solange is