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| Posted: India.Arie rallies with a new collection, Songversation. On India.Arie's new song, Cocoa Butter, she sweetly sings of a love that nourishes past scars. It's a signature Arie track with a positive message wrapped in a tender groove that made news of a backlash over the single – her first in more than four years – disturbing. The controversy? The single's artwork. On it, the 37-year-old poses with her tresses in a towering head wrap, legs peeking from a short dress, and her skin, possibly glistening from the song's titular product, glowing. The photo was trending on Twitter in March as commenters mulled her "lighter" complexion and issued a rash accusation: Did the singer – long praised for Afro-centric anthems such as Brown Skin, Video and I Am Not My Hair – have her skin "bleached"? "I was completely taken off guard," Arie said by phone from Atlanta. "(But) that conversation belongs to the black community. It's not TMZ fodder. I'm still trying to figure out how to wrap my words around my feelings about it." "Part of it was serendipity," she continued. "They were talking about Cocoa Butter and seeing my picture and talking about my album. When I left the scene four years ago, I was struggling to get people to know I had an album out." Though her glow on the cover is the result of what Arie calls "magnificent lighting," a great deal of that radiance came from finding the self-acceptance she's struggled with during career. She channelled those feelings into her newly-released fifth album, Songversation. When the Denver-born, Atlanta-based musician, born India Arie Simpson, arrived on the scene in 2001, she helped rejuvenate contemporary R&B with personal songs about love, spirituality, politics and self-love steeped in an acoustic-driven mix of soul, R&B, jazz, folk and hip-hop. Arie instantly became a torchbearer for a new class of neo-soul singers that included Alicia Keys and Jill Scott. But after Acoustic Soul was shut out at the Grammys despite seven nominations in 2002, Arie started feeling the pressure to fit into a landscape of easily marketable R&B divas. "I'm not a straight-down-the-middle artiste. There was a lane cut right out for me because people were interested, but that lasted a couple of years," she said. "If I were not a black artiste but I was still singing, playing guitar and singing ballads that are spiritual and cerebral, I'd be easier to market because people accept that from white female singer-songwriters faster." As Arie "walked the line really carefully" between satisfying label expectations and her own artistry, a handful of albums followed – some sturdier than others. She eventually crumbled after 2009's Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics, and considered leaving music. "I always felt like – I mean I was told, really – I couldn't go too far with the productions because it didn't appeal to black radio," she explained. "It wasn't until I decided I was going to do what I wanted to do or I was going to quit that I empowered myself. I took my power back." Though Arie's hard-earned confidence makes Songversation an inspirational, even iridescent listen, the album didn't come without conflict. The recording sessions were spurred by the demise of a previous album, Open Door, a passion project with Israeli singer Idan Raichel. ("We couldn't agree on the business terms at all," Arie offered. "I had to take a deep breath and say, OK, let's just not do it.") Instead, in Songversation, she crafted the album she'd always wanted. It's her same guitar-steered soul, but inflected by an eclectic mix of sonic elements from her travels, especially in the Middle East. And the lyrics show Arie at her most personal. "I will no longer be defined by what someone else believed I am. Now that I've dropped the weight/ I'm light as a feather," she sings on Soulbird Rise. "This is the best time of my life because I feel free. Even when it's hard, I still feel free," Arie said. – Los Angeles Times/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
| Posted: Show biz veteran Robin Thicke finally has a runaway hit on his hands. Clutching a gold microphone as shiny as his gold watch, Robin Thicke sauntered into a Los Angeles recording studio on a recent afternoon like he owned the place. The R&B singer known for his romantic ballads was taping a brief live performance for YouTube, and as he passed through the audience on his way to a small stage, he paused to put his arm around one female fan, who seemed as though she might crumple under the weight of his attention. Then Thicke shimmied on, taking his place in front of his band as it vamped on the funk riff from his hit Blurred Lines, in which he poses one of this summer's great rhetorical questions: "What rhymes with 'Hug me'?" Afterward, he stood outside the studio smoking a cigarette, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. "That was fun," he said. It was unlikely too. Slick with new-media panache, Thicke's performance was one you might expect from a buzzed-about rookie running on borrowed bravado. At 36, though, this show-business veteran is well past his hotshot years, and Blurred Lines is far from his first crack at the charts. Nonetheless, the song's runaway success could make a young pop idol jealous. A jumpy disco jam featuring Pharrell Williams and rapper T.I., it just spent an eighth week at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100, while the song's willfully provocative music video has been viewed online well over 100 million times. In late June, Thicke's performance of Blurred Lines was a highlight of the BET Awards. And the tune has even earned its own parody from Jimmy Kimmel, and a recent Late Night With Jimmy Fallon appearance saw Thicke performing his number one hit Blurred Lines with the Roots, who all played the track on kids' toys. "It's just one of those songs that loosens people up," said Williams, who produced and co-wrote Blurred Lines. "With everybody so anxious about everything going on in the world, people need something to help them be happy again." Blurred Lines isn't the only breezy throwback track making a big impact this year. Emmanuel Coquia, music director at the LA hip hop radio station Power 106, compared the song to Daft Punk's Get Lucky (which also features Williams), Bruno Mars' Treasure and Justin Timberlake's Take Back The Night; all exude a sense of fatigue with the serrated synths and sledgehammer beats favoured by Lady Gaga and her ilk. "That retro sound is really hot right now," said Coquia. Yet for Thicke, Blurred Lines is more singular: the biggest pop hit, by far, in a long career previously confined to R&B crowds. "It used to be kind of a centered audience that knew me," he said at a restaurant near his home in West Hollywood a few weeks after the YouTube taping. "But now it's young girls, it's old people, it's people from India and Germany. It's a whole other level, which is very exciting, I can't deny it." As if on cue, several twentysomething women from a nearby table approached Thicke and asked, between excited giggles, whether he'd mind posing for a photo. "I look at it like an actor," he said. "You could be a great actor and be in good films for 10 or 20 years. But then you're Jeff Bridges and you get Crazy Heart, and all of a sudden everyone says, 'This guy's good – we like this guy!'" He comes by the acting metaphor honestly. The son of Growing Pains star Alan Thicke and singer-actress Gloria Loring, Robin Thicke grew up surrounded by powerful Hollywood types, which is one reason expectations ran high for his ambitious, eclectic 2003 debut, A Beautiful World. (Another reason was the songwriting work he'd already done by that point for stars such as Brandy, Christina Aguilera and Jordan Knight of New Kids on the Block.) But A Beautiful World tanked, leading Thicke to reinvent himself as a grown-up balladeer. The approach yielded a string of modest hits – including Lost Without U, a bossa nova-style love song he wrote for his wife, actress Paula Patton – and earned him a reputation among rappers such as Rick Ross and Lil Wayne, who enlisted Thicke to soften hip-hop tracks with his breathy lover-man vocals. Eventually, though, that softness became a liability: "Lost Without U played on the Wave," he said with a laugh, referring to the easy-listening LA radio station. "Here I am thinking I'm some kind of edgy artiste, and now I'm playing on elevators." For his new album, Thicke solicited help from Williams (who'd worked with Thicke previously) and other Top 40 rainmakers such as Timbaland, Dr. Luke and will.i.am. "I'd be lying to myself if, going into this record, I said I didn't want to have a hit," said Thicke. But if those producers' trademarks are readily apparent in sleek, club-friendly tracks such as Take It Easy On Me and the grinding Give It 2 U (with a guest rap by Kendrick Lamar), the album actually feels more defined by Thicke's personality – his idiosyncratic mix of sexy assurance and brainy quirk – than anything since his debut. In one lightweight disco-soul tune, Ain't No Hat 4 That, he tosses off the words "preposterous" and "obstreperous," an improbable rhyme he credits to his father. "My dad, he'll do that sometimes," Robin Thicke said, slipping into a pitch-perfect impression of Alan Thicke. "'If you're doing candy references, how about 'marzipan'?" Jimmy Iovine, the Interscope Records chairman who's been working with Thicke since the latter's days as a songwriter, said the song Blurred Lines demonstrates that Thicke has "finally cracked the code" for acceptance on the radio. "But that doesn't mean he cracked the code on being great," Iovine added. "Robin was always great." Despite (or perhaps because of) the song's omnipresence – even hipster rock acts such as Vampire Weekend and Queens of the Stone Age have covered it – Blurred Lines has its detractors, some of whom have taken issue with the music video, in which Thicke, Williams and T.I., all fully clothed, dance with a number of topless models. (The uncensored version of the video was banned for a spell by YouTube, which Thicke's manager, Jordan Feldstein, said "was the best thing that could've happened to us.") Critics have said that the song and video – in which Thicke sings, "I know you want it" – are degrading and that they shore up offensive notions about women who say "no" but supposedly mean "yes." Thicke said the criticism struck him as an attempt by certain writers to "get people to come onto their blogs." But he also seemed troubled by the idea that his song could be interpreted that way. "I'm making her a full-blown equal," he said of the lyrics to Blurred Lines: "'You're an animal, I'm an animal.'" And in an interview with Access Hollywood after the YouTube shoot, he pointed out that Patton loves the video and that it was directed by a woman, Diane Martel. Controversy aside, Thicke knows the attention paid Blurred Lines has extended his stay in the music business at a moment when that stay might otherwise have been drawing to a close. "I want to get right back to making another record and use (the hit song) as a platform to prove this wasn't a fluke," he said. Not that the singer, who's set to tour the US next spring, has figured out how to do that, exactly. "There's no math to a great record – it just happens," he said. "If we knew the math, we'd do it every time." – Los Angeles Times/ McClatchy-Tribune Information Services Robin Thicke appears at MTV World Stage Live In Malaysia 2013 at Sunway Resort City in Selangor on Sept 8. More details at worldstage.mtvasia.com. Related story: |
| Posted: The boys have taken over the music charts and are quickly marking their territories. LAST year, the girls totally owned the hit songs of the summer – Carly Rae Jepsen wouldn't stop singing Call Me Maybe, Rihanna kept asking Where Have You Been and Nicki Minaj in her clownish make-up made everyone wish that she was leaving to outer space on a rented Starship. However, the ladies have sure gone quiet this year as there is a definite surge of testosterone on the airwaves and the boys, namely Robin Thicke, Macklemore, Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars, Daft Punk and Imagine Dragons dominate the music charts across the globe with the summer hits. Blurring the lines Ever since Robin Thicke posed the question "What rhymes with 'hug me?'" on his hit song Blurred Lines, the world has lost interest trying to figure out other important things like the meaning of life, our purpose on earth, and even why the chicken crossed the road. Some creative people have come up with a few choice answers to Robin's question – some as innocent as "bug me" to others which are unfortunately too naughty for print.
This hit single has permanently changed his status from "Alan Thicke's son" to "that hot guy who's been singing forever, but how come we've not noticed him until now?" Oh, Blurred Lines just happened. That's why. The song is super catchy and the video, though some folks (can someone hand these people a panties-untwister-thingamajig, please) deem it derogatory to women, is entertaining. Plus, if you want a totally dorky-but-cute version of it, check out the videos posted by funny men Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel on their respective YouTube channels. Ain't no toxic music If there is anyone surprised at Imagine Dragons' almost instantaneous success after the release of its hit single Radioactive ... it is none other than its own band members. The band's lead singer Dan Reynolds (pic below) said in an interview that Radioactive is a song about "rising above", although to untrained ears, it just sounds like the vocalist is in extreme pain and is calling out for help ... with a band playing in the background. Singer in pain or not, it's obvious that the masses love the track as it was featured in several prominent commercials including Powerbeats by Dr. Dre, which starred basketballer LeBron James. The song was also used to promote Assassin's Creed III video game and was also included in a few television series including Arrow. They got lucky The song sounds as if it belongs in the 1980s and the band members, well, they'd seem more at home in a Star Wars movie. But hey, no one can disagree that Daft Punk's Get Lucky is one heck of a catchy track. The French house music duo, with a little help from Pharrell Williams, created one of the most danced to songs this summer and gave hope to many #foreveralone men and women that they could, as the song goes, "get lucky" ... at least for a night ... or an hour ... or as long as the song lasts. Yeah, that didn't happen for many folks.
Anyway, Daft Punk have been around since the 1990s and have had several hits over the years, but no song has gotten the duo as connected with the young crowd as Get Lucky from the album Random Access Memory so far. The song reached the top 10 spot in the music charts in over 30 countries, and Daft Punk definitely got lucky with a Pharrell track this time around. Can't hold him down Rags to riches tales are always good ... but a tale about a poor man talking smack about rich folks (after making his own millions, of course) is the best kind of story we want to hear. Macklemore was virtually unknown eight months ago – to the mainstream music lovers anyway – and now, he's the only guy everyone wants to talk about or try to rap like. His single Can't Hold Us featuring Ryan Lewis – off their collaborative album The Heist – is a bonafide summer hit. Can't Hold Us down is a motivational anthem and every time it plays on the radio, elevator, bus, television, in the club and basically everywhere, one can't help but feel that they can do anything they set their minds to ... except work; yup, it would take more than just Can't Hold Us to get everyone into work mode during this festive season. However, the song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, marking Macklemore and Ryan's second numero uno hit in the US and making them the first duo to place two debut singles at the top of the chart. Reflecting love Who doesn't love Justin Timberlake? He is the king of soulful pop ballads (though he sometimes sounds like a chipmunk) and once again proved that he's the Justin the ladies want (Bieber, who?). He delivered a perfect summer hit, Mirrors, which he performed for the first time at the 2013 Grammy Awards and the second single off the 20/20 Experience album, which was released in February, saw Justin collaborating with his longtime friend and go-to producer Timbaland. Some sources claim that Mirrors was actually inspired by events which occurred during his short break up with his then girlfriend (now wife) Jessica Biel. Of course, the song is now a current wedding anthem with couples going the Justin way, proclaiming that they've come to realisation that he/she is their "other half"... yada, yada. Too bad that for most people, the mirror broke and they are now under the seven-year curse ... So precious Bruno Mars can do no wrong with his songs. His third single Treasure taken from Unorthodox Jukebox makes you want to put on a funky red suit, hang a disco ball in the middle of the living room and boogie down until your neighbours either; A. Knock on your door at 3am and ask you to go to sleep, or B. Join in the fun till the other party pooper neighbours call the police.
The song, which wouldn't sound too out of place in a Michael Jackson (God, rest his soul) or Prince (God, make him taller) album, is annoyingly catchy, and you can't help but find yourself humming the tune way after the song ends. Although it only peaked at number five in the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the single has sold over a million copies in the US already. Not only does the song sound extremely 1970s disco, the video is equally a blast to the past as well. Bruno in a fitted red suit and mini-afro seems very well like a man of the era as he awkwardly dances from one end of the dance floor to the other. Oh well, there have always been people dancing awkwardly on the dance floor except that now, it's known as doing the Harlem Shake instead. Well, while it's nice to see the boys taking the spotlight this summer, we need to find a way to get this message across to Beyonce Knowles, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and all the other music making ladies out there. All y'all girls better get your perfectly round derrieres into the studio and release a single pronto because the boys have been dominating the music charts and we are starting to forget what you sound like. Well, maybe not so much of Britney ... how different can auto tune get anyway, right? Related story: |
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