Kenna - "Better Wise Up" (mp3)
The media campaign that surrounded The Clipse's label drama leading up to their second album was silly for a lot of reasons, but one of the foremost of which that I never saw anyone point out is that virtually every other artist affiliated with the Neptunes and Star Trek has suffered label troubles and botched releases just as much, if not worse (not counting people like Snoop and Thicke who'd already had deals before signing with them). Kelis's second album never even came out in the U.S., and N.E.R.D.'s first confusingly came out in completely different domestic and overseas versions. Spymob's incredibly underrated album Sitting Around Keeping Score was quietly released 2-3 years after it was finished, and then there were guys like Fam-Lay and Rosco P. Coldchain that are still on the shelf almost a half decade after they were supposed to release albums. I don't know if Pharrell and Chad are just really terrible label owners, have lousy luck in that area, or simply don't have the juice to get their more offbeat projects off the ground no matter how many hits they produce for established artists, but Star Trak's track record is pretty damn spotty.
Maybe the saddest case of all of those is Kenna, whose first album New Sacred Cow, got a big boost when MTV2 picked up on his video for "Hell Bent," then was tied up in label politics for 2 years, during which time most of it leaked to the internet and the album's buzz and momentum had all but evaporated by the time it was released in stores in 2003. The fact that it was a dour synth pop album and not straight up R&B, and that it was produced by the half of the Neptunes not named Pharrell, couldn't have helped its mainstream prospects either. But it was a fantastic record, announcing both a promising singer/songwriter talent, and the fact that Chad Hugo can do great, unique things when out of the shadow of his falsetto-happy production partner (I'm sure I just sound like a total Pharrell hater, but it really doesn't feel like a coincidence that my 2 favorite albums with the Neptunes or Star Trak brand on them, New Sacred Cow and Sitting Around Keeping Score, are the ones that Pharrell doesn't sing or play or produce a note on).
Kenna's second album, Make Sure They See My Face, was delayed a bit before being released last month, but it seems like he was taking his sweet time to follow-up New Sacred Cow anyway (btw, did the creepy four-fingered hands on the album cover make anyone wonder for a second if there was some kind of tie-in with Year Zero and "the presence"?). This time around, my anticipation was dulled, in part by the advance track "Face The Gun" that was posted on his MySpace page (which sounds better now in the context of the album), and in part because it was pretty disappointing to hear that the Neptunes had roped Kenna into their for-hire songwriting service, which I might be optimistic about if not for the fact that he'd been paired up with Ashlee Simpson of all people.
For the most part, though, the new album contains the same pleasures as New Sacred Cow, although it is weighed down a bit by some tedious and vaguely pretentious interstitial pieces between songs. One of the biggest and most unpleasant differences on Make Sure They See My Face, though, is that instead of Chad producing the whole thing, Pharrell steps in for two tracks. One of them, the single "Say Goodbye To Love," is pretty good, but the other, "Loose Wires," is a nightmarishly perfect realization of my worst fears about how badly Kenna and Pharrell's differing songwriting styles could mesh. It sounds exactly like a Pharrell song, which in 2007 is pretty much all a song needs to sound awful to me. But with Kenna singing, while still not breaking out of the fake Brit accent that suits his own songs fairly well, yelping Skateboard P-style ad libs like "run for cover!" is so traumatically awful that it kind of casts a shadow over the first half of the album, until Kenna settles into a groove of sticking to what he does best. That's really only the one most conspicuous example of Kenna's vocal performance going out of his comfort zone or range of abilities, though, his voice strains a bit on several other songs. Later on in the album, though, there are two songs, "Static" and "Be Still," with no Chad or Pharrell credits, and some pretty impressive drum programming that implies that Kenna is starting to figure out how to do this just as well on his own.
The new element on Make Sure They See My Face that I really like, however, is Kenna's newfound leaning toward guitar rock. Chad's drum programming on New Sacred Cow was a revelation because of its liberation from the rigid funk loops that had come to define "the Neptunes sound," with cymbal-heavy patterns that emulated loose-limbed rock drumming, and responded to the rising and falling dynamics of Kenna's songs in a pretty organic way. The energy of the drums on the first album was well matched by the distorted synth tones, but on the new one, guitars fill that role on almost half teh tracks, and it works better than I would've expected, particularly on "Better Wise Up." But at the same time, there's really nothing on this album that I love as much as "Siren" or "Freetime." For all the talk in the reviews and promotional campaign for Make Sure about how Kenna is an artist that thinks outside the box, and how there isn't any radio format that his music fits into, there are a bunch of songs on this album (none of which have been singles yet) that would've sounded right at home on alt-rock radio at any point in the past 10 years (although decidedly more in the late 90's than right now).
The media campaign that surrounded The Clipse's label drama leading up to their second album was silly for a lot of reasons, but one of the foremost of which that I never saw anyone point out is that virtually every other artist affiliated with the Neptunes and Star Trek has suffered label troubles and botched releases just as much, if not worse (not counting people like Snoop and Thicke who'd already had deals before signing with them). Kelis's second album never even came out in the U.S., and N.E.R.D.'s first confusingly came out in completely different domestic and overseas versions. Spymob's incredibly underrated album Sitting Around Keeping Score was quietly released 2-3 years after it was finished, and then there were guys like Fam-Lay and Rosco P. Coldchain that are still on the shelf almost a half decade after they were supposed to release albums. I don't know if Pharrell and Chad are just really terrible label owners, have lousy luck in that area, or simply don't have the juice to get their more offbeat projects off the ground no matter how many hits they produce for established artists, but Star Trak's track record is pretty damn spotty.
Maybe the saddest case of all of those is Kenna, whose first album New Sacred Cow, got a big boost when MTV2 picked up on his video for "Hell Bent," then was tied up in label politics for 2 years, during which time most of it leaked to the internet and the album's buzz and momentum had all but evaporated by the time it was released in stores in 2003. The fact that it was a dour synth pop album and not straight up R&B, and that it was produced by the half of the Neptunes not named Pharrell, couldn't have helped its mainstream prospects either. But it was a fantastic record, announcing both a promising singer/songwriter talent, and the fact that Chad Hugo can do great, unique things when out of the shadow of his falsetto-happy production partner (I'm sure I just sound like a total Pharrell hater, but it really doesn't feel like a coincidence that my 2 favorite albums with the Neptunes or Star Trak brand on them, New Sacred Cow and Sitting Around Keeping Score, are the ones that Pharrell doesn't sing or play or produce a note on).
Kenna's second album, Make Sure They See My Face, was delayed a bit before being released last month, but it seems like he was taking his sweet time to follow-up New Sacred Cow anyway (btw, did the creepy four-fingered hands on the album cover make anyone wonder for a second if there was some kind of tie-in with Year Zero and "the presence"?). This time around, my anticipation was dulled, in part by the advance track "Face The Gun" that was posted on his MySpace page (which sounds better now in the context of the album), and in part because it was pretty disappointing to hear that the Neptunes had roped Kenna into their for-hire songwriting service, which I might be optimistic about if not for the fact that he'd been paired up with Ashlee Simpson of all people.
For the most part, though, the new album contains the same pleasures as New Sacred Cow, although it is weighed down a bit by some tedious and vaguely pretentious interstitial pieces between songs. One of the biggest and most unpleasant differences on Make Sure They See My Face, though, is that instead of Chad producing the whole thing, Pharrell steps in for two tracks. One of them, the single "Say Goodbye To Love," is pretty good, but the other, "Loose Wires," is a nightmarishly perfect realization of my worst fears about how badly Kenna and Pharrell's differing songwriting styles could mesh. It sounds exactly like a Pharrell song, which in 2007 is pretty much all a song needs to sound awful to me. But with Kenna singing, while still not breaking out of the fake Brit accent that suits his own songs fairly well, yelping Skateboard P-style ad libs like "run for cover!" is so traumatically awful that it kind of casts a shadow over the first half of the album, until Kenna settles into a groove of sticking to what he does best. That's really only the one most conspicuous example of Kenna's vocal performance going out of his comfort zone or range of abilities, though, his voice strains a bit on several other songs. Later on in the album, though, there are two songs, "Static" and "Be Still," with no Chad or Pharrell credits, and some pretty impressive drum programming that implies that Kenna is starting to figure out how to do this just as well on his own.
The new element on Make Sure They See My Face that I really like, however, is Kenna's newfound leaning toward guitar rock. Chad's drum programming on New Sacred Cow was a revelation because of its liberation from the rigid funk loops that had come to define "the Neptunes sound," with cymbal-heavy patterns that emulated loose-limbed rock drumming, and responded to the rising and falling dynamics of Kenna's songs in a pretty organic way. The energy of the drums on the first album was well matched by the distorted synth tones, but on the new one, guitars fill that role on almost half teh tracks, and it works better than I would've expected, particularly on "Better Wise Up." But at the same time, there's really nothing on this album that I love as much as "Siren" or "Freetime." For all the talk in the reviews and promotional campaign for Make Sure about how Kenna is an artist that thinks outside the box, and how there isn't any radio format that his music fits into, there are a bunch of songs on this album (none of which have been singles yet) that would've sounded right at home on alt-rock radio at any point in the past 10 years (although decidedly more in the late 90's than right now).
This entry was posted
on Monday, November 12, 2007 at 10:35 AM.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Post a Comment