To put it crudely, Erykah Badu’s “Neo-Soul” material on both
\nBaduizm<\/i> and
\nLive<\/i> is Jewel’s coffeehouse stuff set on rhythm and blues.
\nSometimes pretentious, sometimes poignant, Badu was perfect to
\nheadline Lilith Fair this summer. It’s obvious that
\nLive<\/i> was released to capitalize on the tour; there’s little
\nnew material, most of it from
\nBaduizm<\/i> with the rest of it being extended arrangements at
\nthe most..<\/p>\n
Soul Music doesn’t put up sophisticated aires; the “soul” part
\nin Neo-Soul always sounded like the artists involved are comparing
\nthemselves to the likes of Aretha Franklin or Chaka Khan. Badu has
\nthat contrived feel in “Next Lifetime” and “Ye Yo”, the only two
\nsongs sounding anywhere near Soul Music. Her cover of Khan’s “Stay”
\nexhibits her extraordinary voice (held in check for most of the
\nalbum) but doesn’t bring anything to the original; the voice sounds
\nsimilar, but what else?<\/p>\n
Pretentions aside, the bare-bones synthesis of jazz and blues
\nmakes for an experimental side of R&B hard to find nowadays.
\nThe near-scatting of “Apple Tree” can make any no-rhythm foot
\ntapping to time. “On & On” uses bazaar imagery along with its
\nbazaar lyrics (“cipher keeps rolling like a rolling stone”) to set
\nthe quasi-exotic mood for the rest of the album. This is not your
\nBillboard variety of predictable grooves and recycled lyrics;
\nR&B listeners are kept on the edges of their ears to catch
\nevery innovative phrasing, which
\nLive<\/i> has a satisfying abundance of (as there was in
\nBaduizm<\/i>).<\/p>\n
The standout track shows potential to this Neo-Soul thing;
\n“Tyrone” brings fresh air into the tepid, overused repertoire of
\nR&B lyrics (think Babyface) without going all artsy on us
\n(Missy Elliot). Terry McMillan could’ve penned the relevant,
\nrespect-conscious piece. Too bad the studio version overdoes the
\nrecord-static effects in their atempt to make it sound ’70s
\ngroovy.<\/p>\n
I know I’ve said all that in the beginning of this review but I
\nactually like this album. Innovation is too rare in R&B to
\nsimply ignore. For those of you who’re getting sick of Brandy’s
\nno-voice crooning (I couldn’t get myself to review
\nNever Say Never<\/i>), pick up something Badu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5971],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-35984","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-erykah-badu","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35984"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}