Corinne Bailey Rae

[YaoPau]

We haven't had much r&b on this board, so I might be preaching to the anti-choir ... but I saw Corinne Bailey Rae perform on tv and bought her cd the next day.

If you're a US Top 40 listener you've heard "Put Your Records On" ... but on the rest of the album she often sounds strangely Anja-esque.

http://www.corinnebaileyrae.net/ "Enchantment" (song #2) in particular.

[sound world]

Hi YaoPau
Yes,black music of all kinds is pretty off-limits hereabouts,which never ceases to amaze me.It's like omitting 75% of the world's music from your life.
Myself,I'm a big fan,and yes,CBR swam into my ken a few weeks back when the singer in my soul/ska band suggested we do some of her stuff.So I'm busy arranging some-and some of the arrngements on her album are great to start off with before I begin messing around with them,lol.

[wirbel]

Hi YaoPau
Yes,black music of all kinds is pretty off-limits hereabouts,which never ceases to amaze me.It's like omitting 75% of the world's music from your life.

I don't think it's that amazing, it's just a whole different type of music than the kinds we discuss here, so i guess it's a question of taste. I'm not a fan of R&B and soul, but i can really enjoy hip-hop from time to time and i love electronic music in which colour is less obvious i guess.
I've enjoyed hearing 'put your records on' on radio or tv, but it's not a song i need to have rightaway; again a matter of taste.
I have been listening to Gnarls Barkley lately and a dutch hip-hop group (Opgezwolle). they're nice to listen to

[paul-pgss]

I hate Opgezwolle. I think raps in Dutch just sound bad. Although I did like De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig.

Anyway, back on topic, CBR is in my cd-player too. I like most of the songs. Anyone likes Amy Winehouse? Really like that too.

[witchy]

I saw her live on bbc and I thought I was liking her but not, not really. She has a really sweet voice but the final result is that I don't want to listen to a whole song of her, don't really know why...
I don't know, here it's mostly hip hop, R&B and rap on tv and it's just boring and bothering and commercial...I like Dalek, but not many others...

[wirbel]

I hate Opgezwolle. I think raps in Dutch just sound bad. Although I did like De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig.

they do have something more interesting to say sometimes than JvT i think (which are funny though ) and on some tracks they have a jazz sound which is why I like it I guess:

"o.k. laten we dit doen dan, ik word moe van het gepraat
we zijn een end op weg maar houd je voeten op de straat
m?n toekomst is een waas, zoekend naar een plaats
waddup met die rappers? ze hebben goed geoefend maar helaas
ze gaan voor de duku, maar ze doen ?t te gehaast
als je geen plannen hebt kan je niet snoepen van die kaas"

[RobB]

The other day I heard 'Put Your Records On' on the radio and not knowing who the song or the singer I thought I was hearing something new by Emiliana Torrini.
Anyway,I quite liked it and this morning in town I bought Corinne's album from Woolies for £3.
I forgot to play it in the car coming home so I'll have to wait a little while now before I get a chance to play it.

[RobB]

Driving home the scenic route late last night I had the opportunity to play the album.
Its pleasant but pretty unremarkable.....being the sort of music you would play at a family get together where it would chug along in the background with other albums by Diana Ross or Rod Stewert etc.
Erm,I don't suppose I'll ever play it again.

[blue]

Hi YaoPau
Yes,black music of all kinds is pretty off-limits hereabouts

Oh for goodness sake, of course it's not! Anyone who's into 'black music' (I think of music as just music, frankly) can discuss to their heart's content. It's just that most of the people who bother to post in this part of the board are into a particular genre of music, so that's what they talk about. It's a question of taste, Dave, not prejudice. I think it's really unfair of you to put that connotation on it, as if there's some kind of unwritten agreement to not give 'black music' a fair hearing or something. It's just not the case.

I've said it before here and I'll say it again - if there's a particular kind of music you want to talk about, then TALK ABOUT IT! Nobody's stopping you. Do something positive instead of complaining about other people's taste.

Speaking for myself, I'm not someone who listens to popular music purely for its own sake, if you see what I mean - I did when I was growing up, I listened to a very wide range of music because I loved music so much, but then my personal tastes and interests asserted themselves, as they do for most people who aren't professional musicians. And my personal taste is for the individual singer-songwriter who can draw a fairly profound emotional response from me. That's my thing. Seems to be the case for some other people here too. Simple as that. If there was a singer-songwriter working within 'black music' who did that to me, I'd be there. But I don't feel any profound emotional response to soul music or R+B or reggae or blues or hip-hop or rap music. It just doesn't do anything for me, same way as country and western or British folk music or IDM or heavy metal doesn't do anything for me. It's nothing to do with colour, it's to do with what one particularly wants from the experience of music.

Anyway, Corinne Bailey-Rae ... yeah, I watched her live session on the BBC a while back and she has a sweet voice, the music is pleasant enough, but it doesn't make me feel anything other than 'that's nice.' Which is not what I want from music. I want music to rip through my soul and turn me inside out and make me think. That being the case, 'girl, put your records on' set to an inoffensive soul-ish jazz-ish arrangement is not going to provide me with the experience I'm looking for. I do get that from 'blood roses, blood roses, back on the street now. Can't forget the things you never said. On days like these starts me ... thinking' set to a demented harpsichord accompaniment, or 'I blinked again and I wasn't dead. I was a favourite child in its bed' set to bleak pizzicato strings. It's a matter of personal response and taste, that's all.

[blue]

Incidentally, for Dave or anyone else who likes Corinne's music, she did an absolutely lovely cover of Bjork's 'Venus As A Boy' some time ago, I think I actually mentioned it on the board at the time - it was on a free CD compilation of covers from Q magazine, and it's well worth searching out. I'm sure it'll be on the 'net somewhere for download.

[sound world]

Er,I wrote that post over a year ago [b)]
To be honest,though I liked the bits of CBR I heard ,it didn't exactly make me want to rush out and investigate more,not like 'I wasn't dead' etc.
Interesting,now that I've got an iPod which I'm slowly filling with favourite music,I'd say (aside from the classical stuff) that I seem to like rhythm (which I get from multicultural music,jazz,funk etc-er,black music lol) and poetry (everything else-eg Stina)
I think there's some Tom Waits songs that you'd really like,Beth.The words,at least.Tom and Kathleen are great poets.

[d.a.walker]

we use her name as a swear in our house, and thats about as interesting as she's ever got in my opinion. Radio friendly fodder for cardigan wearers

[blue]

Er,I wrote that post over a year ago [b)]

Oh I'm so sorry hon, I didn't even notice the dates on the posts, I thought this was a recent thread. Mind, it still stands.

I think there's some Tom Waits songs that you'd really like,Beth.The words,at least.Tom and Kathleen are great poets.

Tom Waits is someone I've thought about checking out because I know some of his songs via covers, and his writing is just brilliant. I think it's the voice that's stopped me from exploring really, but as a wordsmith he's right up my street. That's a very important aspect of the music I connect with emotionally, if we're talking about personal taste. The handful of artists I've loved over the years are all, in terms of writing, particularly skilled at using words in an unusually inventive, poetic, imaginative way. That's really necessary for me to connect, you know? And it's not something I hear in a lot of 'black music', except some strands of rap of course - I actually really admire some rap artists as wordsmiths. But of the stuff I've heard, that skill with words is often being employed to denigrate women or white people or homosexuals and so on, and I can't get on board with using music to spread hatred of particular groups. It's morally objectionable to me.

[sound world]

No,totally agree about most rap/soul lyricists.Big pity.For instance,IMHO Stevie Wonder is one of the very few MUSICians alive that THIS musician would dub 'genius',but not lyrically.At all.
Similarly Prince (but he's not quite a musical genius anyway). And don't get me started on rappers-although the verbal rhythms are often amazing.
Tom Waits takes a lot of risks with music too,at least insofar as he goes for an earthy,dirty sound,whatever it takes,touching on all kinds of music into the bargain.

[blue]

Dave, I don't know if you'll be interested in seeing this, but it was my introduction to Tom Waits as a songwriter and I just love the words so much - Tori covered his song 'Time' on her album Strange Little Girls, and this live performance is from the Letterman show just days after 9/11. The song seemed to have a pretty powerful effect on viewers at that time, in that context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xdhwXIzFKY


It's just an amazing piece of writing.