| Current music: | Ashlee Simpson "Hot Stuff" |
| Entry tags: | ashlee, madonna |
I still don't know if it's Kara or Ashlee I should fall in love with
Advance word was negative on the new Madonna alb, and it starts with the wretched "Candy Shop," but I just now heard it way in the background and it sounds really nice, far better than the last album, despite "Candy Shop." I continue to think that "4 Minutes" is a slamming track, even if the vocals can't match the intensity of the rock and the rhythm. Nothing stood out as supremely great, or remotely innovative, but as I said, basically nice from (almost) start to finish. I'm on the second runthrough, and I'm still happy. A nice surprise.
The Ashlee album I have expectations for, and a great emotional stake in her doing good stuff and, paradoxically, a compensatory tendency to underrate the album out the box so as to not get too hurt and disappointed. I know that's irrational, but as Lester once said (though I can't find it, so maybe it was someone else, though it's probably somewhere in the morass of "Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves"): Having heroes sucks. It's even worse than being a hero, especially in this instance where I've imprinted on this sweet, naive ordinary girl who has an exceptional talent for creating phrases or inspiring other people to create phrases for her that they can't create for anyone else including themselves that capture a moment and a predicament and a germinal idea and the flat-out emotion that accompanies the situation/predicament/idea (notice the tortuous path of this sentence in its attempt to locate/dislocate the source of this woman's intensity): "I walked a thousand miles while everyone was asleep," "I'm the one who's crawling on the ground/When you say love makes the world go 'round," "Sunday morning blues always about you," "Maybe you don't/Love me/Like I love you baby/'Cause the broken in you doesn't make me run." I want her to somehow morph this beauty into a broader intellectualism and articulateness and insight that she so far has given no indication of being interested in. So it's going to take me a long time to disentangle all these hopes and fears from what is actually going on, and I've basically been giving this the background treatment too, only attending to a scrap here and a scrap there of the lyrics, perhaps to shield me from a direct taking-in of what seems sometimes evasive and sometimes doggedly prosaic and so far not punching me anywhere near my epigram center or my gut.
There are two tracks that I absolutely totally tremendously love, which is the same number I got from I Am Me and not close to the six (!) on Autobiography, then another for sure gushy if not total tremendous transcendent love, whereas I Am Me had two or three of those as well and Autobiography had another several, and then... well, we get to a lot that I like and I almost completely like all the singing, which for better or worse has gotten rid of anything raw and grating (possible parallel to her straightening her nose?), in general sounds quite warm, really nice, but also like there's a total conscious commitment to making herself sound like a goofball (the only interesting thing in the Us Weekly interview was when she said that post-nosejob when she looks in the mirror she still sees the same goofy girl as always). Lots of playing dress-up (you see, I called it RIGHT on I Am Me, when I said she was running through styles and trying on voices, but none of you guys could hear this), her being this Vicky Valentine alter ego moll chick on various benders and rampages, though gently and amusedly portrayed.
What I wrote the other day on the Haloscan at Bedbugs (slightly revised):
Very early reactions to Bittersweet World: The two singles are some kind of breakthroughs, or would be if anyone would play 'em and any musicians would follow up on 'em: manage to be silly and emotional and dancey and confessional in the same giggly gasp. Don't think their lyrics are nearly as articulate as the equivalent desperation and comedy was back when Kara and John (and a bit of Steve and a bit of Shelly) were lending a hand, but especially in regard to "Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)" you're getting a bounce and a zing that doesn't sacrifice emotion even more than you get from the second Aly & A.J. album - which isn't to say it's better than "Blush" or "Potential Breakup Song," 'cause it isn't, though "Little Miss Obsessive" probably is. I don't think Higgenson added anything by taking up so much space on "Little Miss Obsessive" but ultimately he doesn't get in the way. I find that song just beautiful. As for the other tracks, where the album overall isn't kicking in as well is its tunage, which on all previous stuff including b-sides and bonus tracks and outtakes runs to an astonishing 95% or so whereas this seems to be running at 60%. But melodies can take time to click, so maybe I'll revise the hit rate upward; in the meantime there's nothing on the alb that doesn't sound good in some way; so a nonmelody track like "Hot Stuff" is exuberantly excellent. Think it's a Neptunes track: her entry into the batshit sweepstakes that both Gwen and Jessica have taken a shot at recently and I think it's just as happily frazzled as "Wind It Up" and "Push Your Tush" but holds together better than either. But it's not authoritatively out-the-window like Robyn's "Konichiwa Bitches" or Teena Marie's great "Square Biz"; it is totally sweet in its spazziness, and I think I'm hearing more force in it as I listen more.
Anyway, she's fitting with the r&b/dance producers better than I'd expected she could and sounding uniquely herself nonetheless, a better motion than she's ever had, but Shanks is missed for his tunes and maybe his gravity. And she's not changing my life this time, not yet. I'll check in later.
EDIT: "Little Miss Obsessive" live and raw and metal and totally lovable several days ago on TRL. (Link keeps getting wiped away by Viacom, but I'll keep trying to keep it refreshed.)
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koganbot) wrote,
