Posts Tagged ‘Babyface’

When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: R. Kelly, “R. Kelly” (1995)

If you’re anything like the latest artist in this series, then you probably like your women how you like your coffee: dark, young, and soaked in your urine.

Yes, Robert Kelly has interesting tastes to say the least. Luckily, he also has effective lawyers and P.R. people, because he is still able to continue making slow-jam bump and grind music to this day, instead of being jammed and ground from behind in a federal prison as an incarcerated child molester.

And while Mr. Kelly apparently owns a predilection to pubescent women and water sports, one thing that he doesn’t seem to have is a sense of shame: when the heat is turned up on Kelly, he revels in it, sometimes turning it into a big joke. Take for instance one of the nicknames which which he has glossed himself in recent years: The Pied Piper. Yes, that’s right, the man who married a 15-year-old, who was arrested on multiple counts of child pornography, who is infamous for a predilection towards female partners under the age of 18, now proudly refers to himself under the name of a fairytale musician who stole KIDS away from their parents and took them away to his “magical land.”

Kelly’s infamy is so great that it isn’t necessary to go into detail about his two most extreme cases of notoriety, but at least a glance is required for completeness:

On August 31, 1994, Kelly married Aaliyah D. Haughton, niece of Kelly’s manager Barry Hankerson, in a hotel room in Rosemont, Illinois. According to a number of sources, including (in 2000) Kelly’s own spokeswoman, Kelly and Aaliyah had been dating for months prior. Unfortunately, Aaliyah was also 15 years old at the time of the wedding, and the marriage certificate had been secured with a fake ID obtained by one of Kelly’s assistants, which listed the young singer as 18. While both singers denied the marriage and any relationship, a Chicago Sun Times investigation found a certificate of marriage for the two on file with the Cook County Registrar. The marriage appears to have been almost immediately annulled with the help of Aaliyah’s parents. (more…)

Michael Jackson: Invincible

Because his personal life eventually turned into a very public media circus, it’s easy to forget that Michael Jackson — a lifelong professional musician — was still making good music into this decade, as Mike Heyliger illustrates in the following piece he wrote for Musichelpweb.com on Jackson’s 50th birthday. —Ed.

If you bought into the hype spewed by the mainstream press and Michael Jackson’s detractors, 2001’s Invincible was a flop of colossal proportions. Of course it was no Thriller or Off the Wall, but it stands as a fairly contemporary, often good, and occasionally awesome album from the King of Pop. Was it a sales bust? Considering only 20 or so albums a year sold more than two million copies at the beginning of this decade and Invincible broke that barrier, I would say no.

After the debacle that was 1995’s HIStory, Michael retreated back to the lab to create an album that would focus less on his personal problems and more on good music, period. In the six years between HIStory and Invincible, the entire teen-pop industry had been rebuilt on top of a sound he created. From Sisqo to Usher to Beyoncé to Britney to Backstreet and ‘N Sync, damn near every pop or soul artist coming up owed a big debt to Mike, a trend that’s grown even more prevalent in the seven years since Invincible’s release.

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CD Review: Frank Sinatra, “From the Heart”

Frank Sinatra – From the Heart (2009, Legacy)
purchase this album (Amazon)

Valentine’s Day – depending on your walk of life, it’s either a splendid day of warm, romantic thoughts and a gimme so far as “gettin’ some tonight,” or it’s a Hallmark sham of an institution to remind us that all our friends are happily married and having kids, but we’re about to dip our Doritos into another vat of guacamole all alone. Since I’m flying solo this year, guess who’s fattening up on avocado?

You don’t have to be a heartless cynic to see the strings attached to this high holiday of chocolate-covered, heart-shaped, red crepe emotion. Take, for instance, Sony Legacy’s From The Heart collection. Eight CDs cut and pasted together to capitalize celebrate the spirit of l’amour, all representing a different demographic: Billie Holliday and Miles Davis if you love it jazzy, Babyface if you love it smooth and sensitive, The Isley Brothers if you don’t mind a little rugburn with your affection, Dolly Parton if you like doin’ the nasty while the livestock watches, and Air Supply if the woman in your life is actually a dude (sorry, cheap shot.)

But what to make of Frank Sinatra’s From the Heart? It doesn’t seem right to co-opt the Chairman of the Board for such a crass cash-in, and besides, we remember him more for his zingers and sad songs than for mushy love. “The Lady Is a Tramp”? How about “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)”? Worse, it’s the same album the label released last year under the umbrella of Beautiful Ballads & Love Songs, so not only are they messing around with Ol’ Blue Eyes, they’re regifting him too. Yet there is one saving grace to this: if you are not an aficionado and have been looking to get your feet wet, this is an affordable starter set that’s full of appeal. (more…)