Superstar, now she smashed your car Hurting you is much to easy
A perfect couplet, perfectly sung. Koffee Brown were criminally slept on. This is Vee's solo joint, written by Lil Mo, and she runs with it. Her phrasing is spot on. The song could have been a typical angry rant, but she injects it with just the right mixture of sadness and resolute nonchalance. Note how she sings "she may be" each time.
It's a shame Koffee Brown fizzled out so quickly. Mars/Venus was a brilliant album and both Vee and Falonte (who went on to write some of the better songs on Destiny's Child's Survivor album) are major talents.
Any number of songs from Tank's three studio albums could have made this list. That's how deep - and dope - Tank's catalog is. It's a crime that he's not a bigger star. I chose So Many Times because I still think it's one of the finest songs he's ever sung and it's totally a song that could have been a huge hit had it been released as a single. Brilliant as Tank is, he hasn't always made the best choices in singles.
The song was written by Static/Major, the greatest songwriter no one knew they knew. This is his best song and Tank owns it. The song is basically about sex, but the melody is so tight, so smooth that you almost don't listen to the words. That is until the hook comes in: "I'm horny like I'm fresh out of jail." Tank makes it sound like the sexy, sly come on it is, without sounding cheap or silly. Few male singers can do that well.
Shanice is among a generation of singers that never quite found a suitable home in the industry because the music industry has never quite known what to do with vocalists who can pretty much do anything (see Melba Moore, Phyllis Hyman, Joi GIlliam, Betty Davis, Vesta, Stephanie Mills, and Minnie Ripperton, to name just a few). Often they get saddled with schlock, as Shanice often was, or they waste their skills on whichever power ballad or trendy-jocking sound they can ride to stardom (see Whitney and Mariah).
This song is more or less a power ballad, written by 'Face collaborator Daryl Simmons, who doesn't overdue the sentiment here. Shanice elevates the song effortlessly. Great vocalists make the best of power ballads, which tend to be driven more by overblown orchestration than melody or emotion. If you listen, her singing is strong and her phrasing more than does the job of injecting the requisite emotion into the song. Her gifts have rarely been so well-utilized.
There really isn't much one can say about how dynamite TLC was or how great their single choices were. They may be the greatest contemporary example of a perfect marriage of commercial and creative impulses.
That said, Chilli never quite got enough credit, in my opinion, for her emotive skills. Her voice is a sweet, surprisingly powerful marvel that wraps itself around the emotion of every lyric. This was often used on the bridge of TLC's best material. But Take Our Time is the first time she gets to be the sole lead voice on a TLC song and she runs with it. Her phrasing is flawless and she has never sounded as sexy, before or since. Though she went on to sing more solo lead stuff in the group, this song remains her finest lead vocal contribution to TLC and it should have been a single.
This closing track from Face's breakthrough album, Tender Lover, is the anti-power ballad power ballad and probably one of the greatest songs he's ever written and recorded. It has all the hallmarks of a great Face song, but with none of the melodrama and soulless "phoning it in-ness" of his post-Waiting To Exhale work. This is the case because of the one trait that Babyface possesses in spades that few of his other contemporaries do -- perfect phrasing.
This song should be a master class in how to approach a song as a vocalist. Every moment in the song is so perfectly, expertly performed that its quite surprising that the song is still so damn affecting. The vocalizing at the end is so precise, but it feels the way it should -- like an emotional release. Few vocalists can be so specific and yet sound fresh and spontaneous. It's a real gift.
Babyface has never really been given his due as a solo artist, but Tender Lover is an overlooked classic of the late-80s black music renaissance.
I chose Catch 22 for a very simple and obvious reason: a singer who tends to be rather harsh shows surprising proficiency with subtlety and vulnerability.
Truth Hurts' first album was beautiful in its toughness. Here was a vocalist who wrote songs about how tough she was and matched that with a phrasing that was like a brick. That's not to say the songs weren't emotional and engaging because they truly were, especially songs like Bullshit, Next to Me, and Jimmy.
However, on Catch 22 from her second album, her phrasing has a softness to it. It's more fluid, though she doesn't totally abandon her style. She just adds a few subtleties to her approach to show the cracks in the armor. And it works perfectly for the song.
Love Me Better might be the single greatest Stevie Wonder ballad that Stevie Wonder didn't write or sing. The late Kenny Greene cements with the first couplet - made you a crown to call your own, made out of grass just like your thrown - that he is every bit the lyric (as in poetry) songwriter that Stevie is, and nearly as good.
The thing about INTRO was that even though Kenny Greene handled all the leads, the songs were arranged so that all three voices make the song work. Here Kenny's tender lead singing is actually the part of the song that you get to last because the hook grabs you so totally. The vocal arrangement of it is so intricate and specific in the emotion it conveys that you almost don't hear the words. This is important because the lyrics are lyrical (again, as in poetry) and intimate more than they explain.
702 should have been huge stars. Jealousy is a perfect showcase for why I think this true. The song is not single-worthy in the conventional sense, as it structurally has small ebbs and flows instead of crescendos and sweeping arrangements. It is a wonderful mood piece that gives lead singer, Meelah, an opportunity to invest a very simple melody with stunning, subtle emotional beats, much the way great blues singers do.
On this song, she reminds me of Aaliyah on her greatest songs. With Meelah on lead, Jealousy is really about sadness. It's about disappointment. Rather than perform the song as written (anger or even denial), Meelah fills the song with a sadness that gives the song emotional resonance it wouldn't have otherwise. Particularly with the bridge and the final adlibs, Meelah slowly, artfully breaks down. And when the song just ends, you know there is so much left there.
Michel'le is one of the great forgotten singers of the New Jack Swing era. Her Anita Baker meets Cherrelle style immediately sounded dated when her second album, Hung Jury, appeared in 1998 after having been shelved for a few years. It's a pity because if you get past the fact that it does sound like a throwback to a bygone era, you get to enjoy a first-rate vocalist exercising a lot of pain (she dated both Suge and Dre) and making some terrific music.
Everyone remembers Michel'le for her beautiful ballad, Something In My Heart, from her debut album. Wasted My Tyme is more reminiscent of her other work, Nicety and No More Lies, but is a much more tightly structured work. The track definitely knocks (with a sample from Public Enemy, that's no surprise), but the melody drives the song. You immediately start singing along.
Lucy Pearl was chock full of gems, but for my money, Can't Stand Your Mother is the best song on the album. It's the song that makes the best use of Dawn's ability to be sassy as hell and still be totally convincing and totally compelling. Oh, and this joint knocks hard.
The interplay between her and Raphael is terrific, especially over the bridge. The bridge is actually what makes the song so memorable. What sounds like a crowd instigating a school yard fight gives the song a different kind of energy that kicks it up a notch. This would have been a terrific single and video.
Shai were too smooth, their harmonies too perfect, for the early 90s in which they tried to stake out their place. But interesting, that quality is what keeps their music from sounding dated or trite, especially Blackface, their sophomore album. It's probably the best male vocal group recording of the 90s behind Playa's Cheers 2 U.
Mr. Turn U Out isn't the best song on that album (that is reserved for The Place Where You Belong), but it's damn close. It should have been a single because it had all the elements that would have made it a quiet storm masterpiece. Most notably - Garfield Bright and his flawless, thick baritone on lead. Garfield on lead will always make the panties wet, and while he was all sly come on here, he is such a good vocalist that the song sounds romantic instead of corny. Also - listen out for Garfield and Darnell trading vocals at the end of the song. Tight!
This is one of the better songs from Alicia's debut joint, but a lot of critics called the song too childish and beneath the talent of an artist like Alicia Keys.
The song is a catty little ditty about not letting a man go so some other chick can take him, but the melancholy quality in Alicia's voice actually gives this song a bit more depth. More importantly, this is one of the best tracks Alicia has ever sung over. This joint knocks (check out the beatboxing) and co-writer Kandi's background vocal arrangement, with those ill ass harmonies, completely elevates the song. Don't sleep.
Read It In My Eyes is the best song on Dawn's criminally ignored debut album because it allows her to show her vulnerable side. Dawn is well known for the sass, the attitude, the slightly rocker chick element she brought to En Vogue, but she's most compelling when she's vulnerable. En Vogue only used her one time in such a way (on the Born to Sing bonus track Waiting On You).
The song, about the fear that expressing love can bring, gives Dawn an opportunity to show how versatile a singer she really is. She conveys the emotion with a delicate touch to the phrasing that is very precise, but wonderfully expressive. She's slight and almost airy at the beginning as she tentatively expresses her feelings, but as the song builds she uses her chest voice to capture a growing sense of empowerment. Dawn's vocal performance here shows us again that she's one of the best vocal stylists in black pop.
Someone should do a study into why a label as strong and deep with talent as Death Row reigned for so short a time. For my part, I'm convinced that the dumbest thing Suge ever did was keep his singers hidden away. Every one of them, from Jewell to Danny Boy to Michel'le (the woman singing over hip hop tracks before Mary J.) was a strong vocalist.
When Dre left to form Aftermath, his first album, Dr. Dre Presents The Aftermath, seemed to signal a shift toward highlighting the depth of singing talent on the West Coast. as it featured quite a few terrific R&B tracks. And while girl group Hands-On was foxy as hell on Got Me Open, I find that this Kim Summerson joint is actually the strongest of the sung tracks.
Though rather standard in lyric, Budda's production enhances Kim's vocal just enough to give it weight it might otherwise have lacked. But Kim doesn't cede the spotlight to the production, dramatic though it is. Her vocal is quite strong and reveals a singer with sharp phrasing and beautiful tone.
I love songs that have a subtext that reveals itself after a couple of listens. It makes multiple listens that much more enjoyable.
Sy Smith's Distance is one of these songs. On the first few listens, you think the song is about sexual desire, longing, separation. But the more you listen to the song, you realize it's really about guilt. You hear it in the way Sy sings the verse and how she calls him "darling" and "sweetness."
But you hear it most clearly in the couplet that ends each verse:
Cause I have needs And no discipline
The way she sings it is the key to the entire song. She rushes it.
Right there we know what's really going on. It's no accident, then, that the song is essentially a vamp from here on out. Sy is desperately, futily, trying to blame "distance."
From construction to execution, Distance captures an aspect of guilt - misdirection, deflection - in a way I don't think I've heard before. And it is compelling.
For 9 straight tracks, Keyshia Cole's The Way It Is is note-for-note a perfect embodiment of adolescent heartbreak (nearly matching Brandy's 10-track run on Never Say Never).
We Could Be is track 8, so its understandable that it gets lost amongst equally impressive material. I almost made the obvious choice of Love, I Thought You Had My Back for its brilliant last 2 minutes (I'm so wrong. I'm so WRONG), but We Could Be is a sly gem. This song stands out from the rest of the album for its relative subtlety.
And it's all about Keyshia's more plaintive vocal and a solid hook. Here the hook functions as the heart of the song and it is different every time you hear it. Keyshia's adlibs over the second time the hook comes in basically re-write the meaning of the hook, as the song becomes more desperate and pleading from the second verse on.
That there's no bridge is key. Bridges are often where a song turns. There is no turn here. Keyshia wants ole boy and that's that. So she forgoes the bridge for a chant-like , We could be friends baby, as the vamp kicks in.
It's a beautifully written and performed song and should have gotten more attention for these subtle nuances than it did.
Like Brandy, Usher makes fantastic single choices most of the time. But the biggest mistake he made in his career was not making Separated a single. In fact, the song only appears on the UK version of 8701.
Separated is a piano ballad. Nothing more. Nothing less. As such, what we notice is how perfect Usher's phrasing is. How the intensity of his vocal grows until he explodes on the bridge. In terms of sheer beauty, he has never sounded better or more convincing as a vocalist than he has here (rivaled only by earlier work like Let's Straighten It Out when he used his voice in a more technically specific way).
It is not discussed enough what a terrific singer Usher is. That said, what's more interesting to me is how his vocal persona was developed very quickly very early in his career. 8701 is the best full-length showcase of Usher's interpretive vocal gifts, even though Confessions contains three of Usher's most
brilliant vocal performances ever (Follow Me, Do It To Me and Caught Up). And more than any other song, Separated is the bridge between those two albums.
This was a no-brainer. Adina's catalog is much deeper than folks think, but there is nothing like Buttnaked in it. And for that reason, I had to include it.
Buttnaked is, hands down, one of the most romantic songs I've ever heard. Musically,the song is a murmur. Here Adina sings in a slightly lower register, which beautifully captures that calm, languid feeling right before (or right after) sex. Functioning as an internal monologue, the song's structure is all stream of consciousness. It's intensity then lies in the changes before the hook, not the hook itself. It evokes the sense that the more Adina looks at him, the more turned on she gets.
Men are too infrequently the object of the gaze, especially in music. Here we are treated to exactly what looking at us can do. If you think the song is about sex, you miss the point though. There's as much love in the lyrics as there is sex. To divorce one from the other here is to do real disservice to a beautifully written and expertly performed piece of music.
Choosing an album track to highlight from the Playa catalog is stupid hard. They literally have not recorded a single thing that I haven't loved. I initially wanted to highlight an unreleased song, LUST, which surfaced on Black's 2004 solo debut. Then I thought about the obvious, I-65 or Buggin' Over You, or the less obvious, I Gotta Know (which, trust me, knocks).
But, in the end, I chose this song, Birthday, which appears on the Tim's Bio album, because it highlights a point I've been making for a while: No one makes better use of a Timbaland track than Playa, Ginuwine, Missy and Aaliyah. Part of the reason for this is that the uniqueness of the track was matched by the uniqueness of the songwriting, the singing, and the vocal arrangements, which is all but missing from Tim's post-Ginuwine production.
Here Playa literally ride this Tim track hard. The track gives the song a rhythmic element that is often missing from romantic music of this type. Each vocalist takes time with the words, opening the phrasing up. Black, in particular, sings the second verse with a restrained intensity that we just don't hear enough these days. Playa are vocalists who understand intrinsically how to evoke a feeling with every element of a song from the lead vocal, to the arrangements, to the track. That has never been more evident than on Birthday, which does so much with so very very little.
I could go on and on because - with full disclosure - I don't think there's been a better self-contained vocal group over the last 30 years than Playa. Such thoughts lead one to gush...but just listen.
Yahzarah is a singer's singer. The kind of woman who genuinely does damage to a song and it feels like no one else could do what she does. She's major.
Featured on the standout track on producer Nicolay's 2005 album, Here, Yahzarah alternates between a light and airy vocal and a masterfully controlled intensity in her chest voice. The effect gives you the impression that adoration she feels is a bit wild, unhinged. The airy portions represent a kind of masking that gets ripped off when the chest voice comes out.
It's a meticulously built vocal that reminds me almost of great acting. Every choice exists for a very specific reason, as if she's building more than the emotion of the song but the person who feels this way.
