On Repeat: March 2024
Don't call it a newsletter. Or maybe do. At any rate, here's a thing!
I’m still trying to figure out how to do these newsletter things and when to do them. This is supposed to be a newsletter site, but I’m using it a little differently. That aside, since it’s been a while since the last newsletter-type post, here’s the next one.
First off, expect something else from me tomorrow. Diva Week cometh!
I’m still stuck on the new Ariana Grande record. If you missed my review last week, here you go. I highly recommend it.
I haven’t had a chance to fully dive into Kacey Musgraves latest, Deeper Well, but I got a few tracks in and couldn’t help notice how similar the opening song’s verses sound to Nelly Furtado’s “Say It Right.” Right?
While we’re talking about new albums, Paloma Faith’s new album The Glorifcation of Sadness features a stellar club record that she made especially for the gays, “Cry On The Dance Floor.” I was fortunate enough to see her perform it at an NYC gay club a few weeks back, which was not long after she performed it at the legendary G-A-Y in London.
Shakira is also dropping a new album tomorrow, Las Muheres Ya No Lloran (Women No Longer Cry)- her first in 7 years. I’ve been doing some catalog listening and stumbled on this very of-it’s-time bop from 2009’s She Wolf. Produced by Timbaland and featuring Lil’ Wayne, who delivers the absolute bar, “Shakira, swing them hips like nun chucks,” I can’t help but love it.
Moving right along… one of my favorite things about streaming is randomly discovering a remix I love suddenly popping up on streaming via a random compilation album. Such is the case with Love To Infinity’s fantastic remix of Faith Hill’s classic “The Way You Love Me,” which even more strangely appears on a compilation that caters more towards album versions than remixes. For context, there are exactly 2 other suites of official Faith Hill remixes that exist out there, and none are on streaming.
And just for fun, here’s Faith performing the Love to Infinity remix on Top of the Pops. Apparently the remix was commissioned to help break her in the UK.
Something else I found myself revisiting is Mariah Carey and Jadakiss’ “Miss You,” a record from 2002’s Charmbracelet sessions that got relegated to the UK & Japanese editions of the album, and later, the 2003 compilation album The Remixes. Mariah adds melody to the same sample that illuminated “It’s All About The Benjamins” half a decade earlier, on which Jadakiss also dropped a verse. Only Mariah (and Mary J. Blige) can sweeten a hard rap record with melody like this.
And while there are other recordings with both Mariah and Kiss (and others), if we’re talking about them I must give credence to 2004’s “U Make Me Wanna.” It always tickles me that Mariah doesn’t even show up in the video until almost 3/4 the way through.
I also want to point you to the British Ambassador of Soul David Nathan’s Substack, and something he shared recently. In celebration of Roberta Flack’s birthday last month, he shared a 1973 interview he did with Roberta. Something interesting that I took away from that: There is an extended version of her classic duet with Donny Hathaway, “The Closer I Get To You,” that clocked in around 8 or 9 minutes. 50 years later, it still has not seen the light of day! I wonder who we have to talk to in order to make that happen…
Two Aretha Franklin albums are celebrating anniversaries this week: her 1962 sophomore album The Electrifying Aretha Franklin, and 1998’s A Rose Is Still A Rose. I’ve written extensively about both, including an accidental tour de force essay on “A Rose Is Still A Rose,” (which was written, produced, and video directed by Ms. Lauryn Hill) to commemorate the song’s 25th anniversary last year.
Full lengths retrospectives:
https://the97.net/artists/aretha-franklin/the-electrifying-aretha-franklin-arethas-sophomore-album/
https://the97.net/music/a-rose-is-still-a-rose-arethas-90s-classic/
And one last thing… as you probably already know, Beyoncé’s new album, act ii: Cowboy Carter drops next Friday, March 29th. Expect more on that next week. For now, let’s go back to the performance that in-part motivated Beyoncé to explore country music further…