Thursday, November 30, 2017

Tasty vs. PCD vs. Dangerously in Love REVEAL DAY 3




















After finishing the hack job that Dangerously in Love started and even broke some kneecaps on the other two albums, Unintentionally RATESist welcomes you to Day 3/the Finale of the Tasty vs. PCD vs. poor little tink tink.

To refill your cups of Earl Grey, here's the Top 10 vying for not only a place on the podium [Top 3] but also the title of WINNER of the rate:

Tasty: Trick Me, Keep It Down, Flashback, Protect My Heart, Stick Up & Glow


PCD: Beep, Stickwitu, Buttons & Wait a Minute


Now the time has come for a bit of a cull of the wild...

10. Kelis - Glow (feat. Raphael Saadiq): 10 Kelis can handle very mature R&B/crossover pop and Saadiq’s production here works very well on the album.

9. Kelis - Stick Up: 10 easily the best non-single cut on the album. Contemporary for the time of release but also very stark and almost lo-fi for something with the “urban pop” label to it. Kelis usually sounds great on tracks where she can exude power in some type of “I got you”/allegiance manner.

8. Kelis - Protect My Heart: 10 the production is pert near immaculate and Kelis’ delivery can make an admittedly tacky sounding chorus sound so heartfelt.

7. Pussycat Dolls - Wait A Minute: 10 when Timbaland ruled the world of production, this was one of his crowning achievements. Years later, it holds up very well while also recalling the magical time of the mid-00s.

6. Pussycat Dolls - Buttons: 10 the solo…the PCD only edit I mean…or the version you’re expecting with Snoop Dogg, this song kicks so much ass and if you don’t have a stripper routine to this, you’re not human.



Breaking the Top 5 is...
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5. Kelis - Keep It Down: 10 easily one of the most unique songs to a pop diva’s name. Guitar and a touch of rock is one of Kelis’ greatest assets as very few black women in major label pop explores rock elements at all despite Tina Turner being the face of Rock and Roll.

Oh look a 2 on 2 match. See what happens when I rate good albums? Now onto to the part that should hurt...

Narrowly missing the podium is...
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4. Pussycat Dolls - Beep: 10 one of the few things will.i.am has done right and in all honesty is the best pop song to The Pussycat Dolls’ name. The beep itself is used really well and is oh so cheeky in the best way.

Say hi to the podium, Stickwitu, Trick Me and Flashback...

Now on to the top results...




3rd place...Kelis - Trick Me: 10 The 2nd single released, exceptionally made and should’ve been a bigger hit. Goddamn Arista records going bankrupt right when this was released.


It now comes down to an underappreciated single from the Dolls and a song that made two albums and still didn't get released as a single...
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Runner-up...Pussycat Dolls - Stickwitu: 10 if you ask me and only me without fear of ridicule what I consider the greatest Pussycat Dolls song is, it’s this one. Stickwitu showed off the group [or at least Nicole’s vocals and Melody’s ad-libs] in a different light that actually worked for them.


Having nabbed my 11...

WINNER - Kelis - Flashback: 11 Ported from Wanderland and should’ve been a single because it manages to blend in on not just one but two albums. Summery, catchy pop is tough to do right without being kitschy or corny but this is so fucking great.


Now for the roundups of both PCD and Tasty



PCD: 6.1

Taking a burlesque troop and turning them into a pop group seemed like one of those decisions that should’ve been made earlier so that it could be an everlasting trend. In the case of the Pussycat Dolls’ music, it operated like most new acts; their debut album is built around mega singles and the album largely sucks or underwhelms. The thing that worked against them, even from the jump was the over emphasis on Nicole Scherzinger’s disciplined but almost heartless vocals. Melody Thornton was right there with ad-libs galore [and was a promising talent for the time] and even Carmit Bachar had her own vocal style in “Beep”; but as the lead’s shelved debut re-affirmed, Her Name is Nicole.

Other members of the group including Dance chart goddess Jessica Sutta, UK reality star and pretty decent singer in her own right Ashley Roberts and better dancer than singer but still fierce Kimberly Wyatt would get one moment of glory alongside Thornton on a deluxe edition of the group’s second album, Doll Domination which will be rated way down the road. PCD as an album and only an album is a case of 5 back to back hits and then one hell of a nosedive to kind of good, eww this sucks and kill it with fire levels of quality. Pussycat Dolls as a group is a case of unchecked lead singer ego, squandered talent in other members and overall, turning a great idea of a burlesque pop group into some 20 Feet from Stardom shit.

Tasty: 7.6

Kelis’ 3rd album was already a departure when longtime collaborators The Neptunes wouldn’t be the sole force to produce her album. Meaning, Tasty would be the less “weird”/experimental version of both Kaleidoscope and Wanderland. The thing of it is, Kelis wasn’t actually that “weird” in terms of music. Believe it or not all her albums prior to Kelis Was Here were forthright pop/R&B/crossover material with dabbles of electronic music.

In terms of how well it worked, The Neptunes and Dallas Austin [Austin famed for his work with Madonna and TLC] ended up winning by bringing about Kelis’ natural abilities. Raphael Saadiq had a major victory with “Glow” so he also brought about something great in Kelis. The less said about Andre 3000’s effort on the album, the better. With contemporary urban labeled pop material on her side with “Milkshake” and the album itself both going gold, how did things for Kelis not happen like they should? Sadly, around the time “Trick Me” was picked as a single, Arista Records [her label by way of Pharrell’s Star Trak Entertainment] had folded and the song never saw release in the U.S.; in fact, “Milkshake” was the sole U.S. single release for Tasty. [she was eventually on Jive Records for one album and yikes is all I can say about that release.]


The fact that 4 singles total [at least in the UK] were released and all but “In Public” were Top 5 hits proves that Kelis was on to something great and that a breakthrough was pretty much set because she took from her first two albums and made something accessible to new listeners of hers. The album is sedate compared to the left field status of Kaleidoscope and Wanderland, but it still showed that the 3rd time was the charm but rotten luck got in the way of a promising career in the U.S. #Justice4Kelis

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