μblog reviews

Reviews of recent and not-so-recent CDs

 

Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad January 11, 2008

Filed under: Album reviews— Tags: , , , — hugo @ 10:04 pm

Rating: ★★★½☆

Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad cover

I came across Rihanna for the first time on the radio when I starded hearing Umbrella. I hated this song, I found it repetitive, I couldn’t understand why people liked it, but for some reason my wife did, so Good Girl Gone Bad is another CD that I got her as a present. Once the CD was in our music collection, I got curious about why she was so popular and started listening to the album.

The album’s opening song is Umbrella, which gave the CD a bad start for me. However, I liked a number of subsequent songs quite well, such as Don’t Stop the Music, Breaking Dishes, Rehab, even though that’s a style of music that I don’t usually listen to. Question Existing is interesting, but I could not help but wonder how real the lyrics are; they try hard to show that she is a good girl, compared to today’s Hollywood’s crazyness.

Good Girl Gone Bad is also nice, but I really have issues with the repeated use of we was; I don’t like misuse of grammar in general, especially intentionally, and every instance of we was makes me cringe.

What I wasn’t expecting was that, after a few listens of the album, Umbrella would start growing on me. I now appreciate the rhythm of this song, and by listening more carefully to it, I really got into her voice.

There are other songs that I am still undecided on, such as Push Up On Me and Sell Me Candy, and others that I don’t like (e.g. Say It, which sounds like a Spice Girls song), but despite my first impressions, I quite like this CD in the end.

Listen to: Don’t Stop The Music

Listen to: Breakin’ Dishes

Click here to buy Good Girl Gone Bad by Rihanna .

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Emily King – East Side Story December 31, 2007

Filed under: Album reviews— Tags: , , , — hugo @ 12:58 pm

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Emily King – East Side Story album cover

I bought East Side Story by Emily King as part of my exploration of R&B, after she came to play a mini concert at work. I actually missed the concert, but it was enough to make me curious about her and try her album.

I really got into the first song, Walk In My Shoes, which has a very good beat. This is apparently the title that she tried to put forward, as the album contains a bonus track, with is an alternate version featuring Lupe Fiasco. Another song that I quite like is Alright.

Not all songs pleased me though. The rhythm box is really overused on You Can Get By. E Melody doesn’t do it for me.

The album also features a cover of Bill Whithers’s Aint’ No Sunshine. It’s a nice cover, and you can really hear that Emily King has a very nice voice on it, but it’s not that different from the original. I always wondered about the appeal of artists to do covers on album studios that are not radically different; examples of good covers in my opinion are Hey! Joe by Willie DeVille or All Along the Watchtower by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

As I’m really a beginner in R&B, I’m not quite sure how this album would fare with R&B fans. Coming with a rock background, I found it a promising but unequal first album. Emily King is only 21 years old, so I’m sure we’ll hear from her again soon.

Listen to: Walk In My Shoes

Listen to: Alright

Click here to buy East Side Story by Emily King.

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