Keri Hilson, RnB songstress, is completely underrated, and has the talent and the style to make it big finally, after teasing us with glimpses of herself in “The Way I Are” by Timbaland. After listneing to a set of new tracks from Keri Hilson, I’m convinced her debut album, which is long overdue, “In a Perfect World”, with smashing tracks like “Alienated”, “Return The Favour”, and “Energy”, will eventually find success with the right dosage of promotion and live performances.
Keri Hilson does not have enough current exposure as a solo artist to be recognised the way she needs to be, her music is definetly hit quality, addictive, and intense. I believe that she should possibly do a lot more promotion in Australia and the United Kingdom, she needs to go onto chat shows around America and perform, to showcase her talents properly. The release of the album has been poorly planned because it has been pushed back over two years, and most of the songs have changed due to the changing market and inspirations in Keri Hilsons writing.
Watch out for “In A Perfect World” which will be released on the 24th of March. Below you can checkout two of the songs from the album, the first being Energy a slick production with the perfect combination of heartwrenching vocals and deep fast beats.
Secondly We Have “Alienated” a similar combination of striking beats and emotional vocals, but this time with dreamy synth beats.
So, what do you think of Keri Hilson, are you a fan already? Do you enjoy these songs? Do you think she will find success in the musical industry in America, or should she go overseas? Leave a comment below and tell me your opinion!
Many words can describe Natalie Bassingthwaighte, she’s sexy, sophistacated, but also funny and down to earth. Yet, she’s so talented, she really is an amazing performer, with a powerful and edgy vocal style that exudes audacity and the extent of her experience and maturity.
Now there is a Television show in Australia called “Neighbours”, filmed in Melbourne, where I live, which launched the career’s of countless successful artists, for example Kylie Minogue and Natalie Imbruglia. Yet whilst these two are talented, a string of semi-talented runts like Stephanie Mcintosh, released absolutely appaling albums, which is why Natalie hesitated to go to her audition for Neighbours back in 2003 when it was offered to her.
Natalie always planned to become a succesful music artist, and this is why she didn’t want to be tainted by the stigma of “Another bloody Neighbours star”, personally I don’t blame her, yet she suddenly became a very popular television personality.
The Rogue Trader's
She secretly joined the Rogue Traders, a band of which had little success apart from an Aria for their only single until she joined them. After she joined them she kept her identity under wraps to prove her talent, she had done countless musicals but this was different. Their first single went multi-platinum “Voodoo Child” and from there on they had a string of platinum singles throughout their second and third albums.
In 2006 Natalie was offered a record deal for a solo album, to which she immediately accepted, but never got around to until her and the band amicably parted in 2008. Then in 2008 she begun to write the album, and now it has been released, 1000 Stars her debut album.
The album begins with the devilishly retro “Catch Me If You Can” , this is fantastic, and it shows how diverse her musical talents are, and the song is electro inspired also which makes instantly catchy. If you like Adele and Duffy, despite this not being soul music, this is a song that you will certainly enjoy.
Natalie's first single "Alive"
This album reminds me of Beyonce’s “I am Sasha Fierce” album, because there is evidently a dichotomy of musical styles on the album, on one side there is the honest and vunerable side of Natalie, on acoustic songs like “In His Eyes” , the title track “1000 Stars” , the sharp “Turn The Lights On”, the philosophical “Why do I?”, and the inspirational “Someday Soon” of which many of you will have heard.
But then there is the side that I didn’t exactly expect from Natalie, she’s been the rock chick and then the soulful balladeer, but now she is the new Kylie Minogue as far as I’m concerned, evidence of this is in the ubiquitous hooks of “Supersensual” a song which is skeletally based on Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass” no doubt a source of inspiration that is paramount to this side of her music. Yet then songs such as “Love Like This”, and “This Can’t Be Love” take you away with the tempting beats and the energetic vocals.
“Feel The Flow” and “Superhuman” both show us the mellow and pensive side of Natalie, her vocals are somewhat mystical in these songs, they are some top quality tracks.
But overall this album ticks every box, it’s catchy, emotional, btouching, and danceable all at the same time. 1000 Stars is about Natalie the woman, not the character she played in the Rogue Trader’s, it’s the difference between Gwen Stefani singing “A Simple Kind of Life” and “Sweet Escape”, this is Natalie Bassingthwaighte, it is 100% her, she wrote it, she sang it, and we’re going to love it.
I believe this album will do well, and will easily go platinum, but if they release the correct singles, then she will certainly catch on and become a musical phenomenon in Australia, I look forward to her next album and I hope the success from 1000 Stars will inspire her to new levels of her career.
1000 Stars recieves 4 and a half stars, which whilst is a little short of 1000 is still a hit, there are some amazing songs on it, however at times some songs became a little too subtle and modest, which I understand was the point of the album, but it could do with more of her attitude in some places.
Purchase the album instore unless you really wish to buy it on itunes, you get a physical copy, higher quality, and it costs about a dollar extra, so why wouldn’t you just get the real thing!
Finally the much anticipated solo debut from Natalie Bassingthwaighte is going to be released this Friday, an album which should be likely to achieve a much more impressive debut than the albums two singles (which both had release issues despite the first going gold)
Here I have a few previews of some songs from the album, these are studio versions, and are featured on her myspace page but I thought I would put them up here for people to listen to, hopefully if you enjoy these songs you may want to go and purchase the album, something I highly would reccomend even if you live overseas.
CLICK THE IMAGE TO PRE-ORDER YOUR SIGNED COPY
So, if you do live overseas you are able to purchase online via Jb-HiFi one of the largest music retailer’s in Australia, where you can preorder signed copies of the album “1000 Stars” and they will be shipped to your door, the shipping will probably cost an extra 4-5 dollars but this album is slated to be a very very memorable one, Songs like Supersensual just give solid golden proof that Ms. Bassingthwaighte, is going to be the next Kylie Minogue, the next Australian Pop icon, except she will be more than that, because she has proved she can sing, write music, and is talented in so many different genres, which means she will be much more appealing to different demographics and most importantly unlike Kylie, the music is enjoyed by Guys as well as Girls.
After her tragic death in a car accident in November 2002, Lisa “LeftEye” Lopes left her fellow band mates from TLC in shock and horror, at such a terrible misfortune. However to this day her music will still be around to inspire us, before her death she was recording her second album, but was unable to be around to complete it, and ultimately it was shelved.
Yet her family has decided to have the album revamped and to invite former friends of “Lisa” to help with the album, such as Missy Elliott, this is to be done in her honour.
Thefirst single off the album is surprisingly good, it has a catchy beat, but after a few listen’s what becomes important is the message behind the lyrics, about love and perseverance, of which Missy tries to reflect in her vocals. The song is titled “Let’s Just Do It”, and if you were a fan of TLC or just a fan of Missy Elliott, I would definetly reccomend downloading this song on Itunes or at least checking it out on youtube.
The sad part of the album is that there has been relatively no marketing, so the album will possibly drift by unnoticed by the general public unless it gains a bit of publicity.
“Perfectly Clear” is folk singer Jewel’s 6th studio album, an album where she decidedly creates country music instead of her trademark insightful haunting folk rock sound. To be honest I am dissapointed that she has diverged into Country music as I beleive, whilst she certainly fits the mark for it, she has greater potential in other areas of music, and myself not being a country fan I will stay as objective as I can.
The album opens up with the delightful upbeat positive self affirming lyrics that can lighten up the darkest of moods. This song is really a great number by Jewel, singing “I’m gonna be my own best friend, wont lose myself again”. This song was rightly chosen to be the lead single for the album, yet enjoyed mediocre success. Despite this the song is still worth listening to for fans of Jewel.
“I Do” is the second song on the album, and fittingly the second single. This song is fantastic, it has heartwrenching chords and it switches between country and pop during each bridge. This is by far the most original song on the album, and probably would be a fan favourite. If you enjoy this song, the music video is worth a watch.
“Love Is A Garden”, which is another spectacular song, the lyrics are truly meaningful, and they suit her beautiful melodic vocals, would be the best choice for third single, although I believe that it has been chosen to be “Til it feels like cheating” which is a mediocre effort at best, when you compare it to her other albums.
“Thump Thump” is a sweet song, that can be enjoyed best when thinking about that special someone, she cooes “Your laughter is like poetry to me” along to a gentle riff. This song is one of the occasions where the album peaks well above the rest.
“Rosey and Mick” is an interesting song, a story about a couple reaching the end of the line of their violent relationship, Jewel’s sonorous feminine vocality shines through this song, and it is engaging and at no point trivial whilst remaining tongue-in-cheek in her constant allusions.
“Perfectly Clear” makes it clear (perfectly of course) why Jewel would do country music, and that is because the combination of country music and her raw and emotional vocals which drive this song to the quaint but so introspective style of Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic”.
Overall this album encapsulates Jewel as a person, she was homeless at a young age, living out of a van doing gigs and trying to get a recording contract whilst making ends meet, she is a true icon because her music presents her life as evidence for the emotions in her unique vocals. Perfectly Clear gets only 2.5 stars unfortunetly, only because it just diverges too far from what makes her so good on a few too many occasions, and some of the songs seem to have been written to sound like country music, with stereotypical lyrics and a few too many cliches (Of course nowhere near the dreadful amount in Jessica Simpsons country “effort”) Yet songs like “I Do” and “Perfectly Clear” redeem Jewel from such songs.
Jewel is one of my favourite artists, and I’ll be very dissapointed if she sticks to country music, despite her being somewhat suited to it, it doesn’t mean she should change her musical direction because her folk-rock music is incredible, and a gift to a music industry starving from tasteful music that contains raw emotions other than the why did you call the album “Songs about girls” when clearly it’s “Songs about Shemales”. Nevertheless, Jewel fans will enjoy a selection of the songs on this album, but they will never be as memorable as songs like “This Way”and “You Were Meant For Me”.
If you have any questions or want to request an album or single review, drop me an email atjaw.modernmusic@gmail.com
Well… i’ll be honest, at first I really didn’t quite ‘get’ the Ting Tings and what their music was actually about. But eventually I purchased the album to find out what all the fuss was about and gave it a good listen and to say the least, it’s surprisingly catchy for such repetitive lyrics and beats.
Firstly, you may have heard the singles, “Great DJ”, “Shut Up And Let Me Go”, and “That’s Not My Name” which are all extremely catchy songs and great choices for singles. These songs make “Who Let The Dogs Out?” sound sporadic and fresh, in fact many of the songs by the Ting Tings are very repeititve, but they know how to a create a song that shifts in tone, key, and tempo from start to finish to bring the listener on a journey through the song rather than idly listening.
However that is not to suggest that the music is deep and intense, in fact it’s clear that it intends to be the opposite, light, fun, and edgy music that you can sing along to easily. Roughly half of the album sounds like it’s coming from your neighbours garage, very raw, basic, but yet catchy. Prime examples of this would be the title track and “Traffic Light”which are utterly forgettable yet relaxing.
The album’s best song is undoubtedly “Shut Up And Let Me Go” which is fantastic, the beat is so engaging and the vocals are very edgy, the video is also something I would highly reccomend upon first listen of this song. Other Highlights include “Fruit Machine” which I interpret to be a song about Pokie Machine’s, “You keep playing me like a fruit machine, putting in change systematically, winning streak that you had over me, turned into your broken tradgedy”, it has a good message! “We Walk” is up tempo and defintely one of the songs worth a listen.
Overall the Top Listens on the Album would be “Shut Up and Let Me Go” “That’s Not My Name” “Keep Your Head” and “We Walk”
The album gets a rating of 2.5 stars. They really come out with some great music, and they evidently have diverse talents, but it would be nice to listen to a sophmore album from them that has a few less of the 12 year old garageband songs, and more of wha they seem to do best, light, catchy, up tempo anthems. Their recent live performances of late seem to suggest their second effort may be even better.
Beyonce's Third Studio Album "I am...Sasha Fierce"
Beyonces new album, is a double disc which showcases both herself, and her crazy ghetto whorish lip gloss alter ego “Sasha Fierce”. This is not anything new, Beyonce mentioned her diva alter ego to many journalists in interviews with the immediate response involving something of a completely different nature.
As an artist Beyonce seems to put so much of her heart and soul into her work, listening to her in interviews confirms this, her devotion to her roles in movies, her image, and her music are all something to be gawped at. Beyonce seems to be an artist holding tightly onto her muse, and it also flourishes in her work.
However the album is really solid, and I mean that, B-Day was a massive album when it came out, and really confirmed her superstar status. My problem with the new album is I feel that perhaps the fact that Beyonce set out to make a double disc album, led her astray into feeling as if she had to do one disc of ballads and one disc of “diva” songs.
This is the achilles heel of I am… Sasha Fierce, on 75% of the album it seems to come natrually with confidence and a strong self awareness that the songs are classics. Yet the problem is when she plays the key out of tune, she really plays it out of tune on this album, need I mention, “Video Phone”, this is the female equivalent of SOULJA BOY, and this almost makes me want to cry. Video Phone manages to hold a few listens because Beyonce brings her style throughout it. However the problem is, with “Video Phone” and “Diva” (Which sounds like a ‘Lil Mama’ B-side… no wait, C-Side!) is that Beyonce seems to have stopped using the “Sasha” disc as an outlet for “Sasha” and seems to feel the need to play the role of “Sasha” rather than be her. In this way those two songs stand out horribly and it feels as awkward as the acting on Bold and Beautiful.
Now enough trashing, the redeeming part of the album, is that just like when she bombs, when Beyonce gets it right here, she nails it bigtime. “Halo” is going to be one of the biggest songs of her career if she releases it and promotes it properly, it is like “Bleeding Love” but with an established and professional personality singing it, this songs really connects with the listener.
If you liked “Bleeding Love”, then you’ll fall for the symphonic “Halo”
If you enjoyed “Bonnie and Clyde ‘03″, you’ll enjoy what I would deem it’s worthy sequel “Hello”
If you loved that old crazy girl Sonique and her trance song “Sky”, you’ll be addicted to “Radio” and “Sweet Dreams”
I really think Beyonce has been conscious in changing her sound a little, she’s opted to strip down her ballads with piano, and as she has said, chose not to colloborate with Jay Z or any other artists, which I think was a good decision. I think everybody is getting a bit tired of the ol rap interlude in the middle of the song… it’s got to go because it’s getting beyond repetitive right now na na na… right?
Overall I give this Album 3 stars, it could’ve been better if Beyonce put “Diva” and “Video Phone” in a box to the left, but unfortunetly she didn’t, but we all have a skip button anyway. I will say that “Halo” and “Radio” are my pick for the next two singles, they could become major radio hits.
If you have any questions or want to request an album or single review, drop me an email at jaw.modernmusic@gmail.com
As many people are aware, Britney Spears’s newest album “Circus” leaked, and in fact I saw it on the shelves in a few music stores yesterday (Which means somebodies ignoring the sales embargo!). After Listening to it I’ve decided it’s a really strong album, very diverse, and most prominently FUN!
The album has a lighter feel than Blackout but maintains the cutting edge beats many non-britney fans, like myself warmed to, especially in the clubs. **Warning** If, like me, you quite despised Womanizer as it made you feel nauseous, can I just say, ‘False alarm people!” because the album never stoops to such a level even at the stereotypical “My Baby” which we just know was forced onto to the album as i was the only one she wrote without the help of her talented team of co-writers.
"Circus" cover
If you loved piece of me, you’ll fall in love with “Mannequin” and within three or four listens on a decent stereo, it will surpass piece of me.
If You loved Blackout but wanted to hear some more attitude you’ll love “Kill the Lights” and “Shattered Glass”
If you’re craving the more pop orientated Britney from her first two albums, “If You Seek Amy” and “Amnesia” are worth being added to your ipod!
If You Liked Madonna’s “Get Together” you’ll be addicted to the US Itunes bonus track, “Trouble”
If you’re curious to hear a coherent Britney actually sing without the vocoder being treated as her “Life Support Machine” , then I recommend the whole album.
If you find 60’s music corny and fun, like in Austin Power’s, I reccomend “Mmm Papi”
If You enjoyed the club beats of Blackout and love dance music, “Mannequin” and “Phonography” are a must listen.
The album is a mixture of 50’s, 60’s, 80’s, and “baby one more time” influences, with a juxtaposition of a 50’s highschool beat with 80’s synthesisers in “Amnesia” one of the standout tracks, which ironically is only a bonus track in Japan and the UK. I say buy the album, and do not forget to grab other bonus tracks “Trouble”, “Quicksand”, and DO NOT FORGET “Amnesia” it is just a classic.
Overall…
This is a very solid album, I believe it really runs miles around her previous work and then defecates on it to tumultuous applause, it showcases a huge effort not only on the part of the producers but also Britney herself which people have been looking forward to in this album. What strikes me is that they were able to create an album with such diversity whilst maintaining the ground breaking, trend setting production of Blackout. Britney has raised the bar on her new album, the subject matter is much more mature, but also alot more light hearted and less dark than Blackout was. It seems as if they took the feedback from Blackout and really tried to break through the public scrutiny that Britney Spears receives to create a Classic album which will be memorable for many people.
I wasn’t a great fan of Britney’s work, whilst I enjoyed the beats and club friendly nature of Blackout, I found little interest in her campy songs like “Oops I did it again” amongst others. This album showcases the growth which Britney Spears has experienced from her breakdown, and it solidifies her relevance and place in music history as an artist able to dramatically predicate musical trends and define the future direction of music for everybody else in the rat race that is Pop.
Anyway I know a lot of people may feel a bit differently so drop a comment and tell me what you think! Make it legible and constructive, I’m reviewing the cd, not Britney Spears as a person.
“Thump Thump” is a sweet song, that can be enjoyed best when thinking about that special someone, she cooes “Your laughter is like poetry to me” along to a gentle riff. This song is one of the occasions where the album peaks well above the rest.
Upcoming Album – Keri Hilson “In A Perfect World”
March 10, 2009 — justaddwater09Keri Hilson's Debut Album
Keri Hilson, RnB songstress, is completely underrated, and has the talent and the style to make it big finally, after teasing us with glimpses of herself in “The Way I Are” by Timbaland. After listneing to a set of new tracks from Keri Hilson, I’m convinced her debut album, which is long overdue, “In a Perfect World”, with smashing tracks like “Alienated”, “Return The Favour”, and “Energy”, will eventually find success with the right dosage of promotion and live performances.
Keri Hilson does not have enough current exposure as a solo artist to be recognised the way she needs to be, her music is definetly hit quality, addictive, and intense. I believe that she should possibly do a lot more promotion in Australia and the United Kingdom, she needs to go onto chat shows around America and perform, to showcase her talents properly. The release of the album has been poorly planned because it has been pushed back over two years, and most of the songs have changed due to the changing market and inspirations in Keri Hilsons writing.
Watch out for “In A Perfect World” which will be released on the 24th of March. Below you can checkout two of the songs from the album, the first being Energy a slick production with the perfect combination of heartwrenching vocals and deep fast beats.
Secondly We Have “Alienated” a similar combination of striking beats and emotional vocals, but this time with dreamy synth beats.
So, what do you think of Keri Hilson, are you a fan already? Do you enjoy these songs? Do you think she will find success in the musical industry in America, or should she go overseas? Leave a comment below and tell me your opinion!