Monica – Still Standing. (album review)

Still Standing is Monica’s first album since The Makings Of Me 4 years ago.  Like that album, Still Standing stands at a brief ten tracks (bonuses excluded), and the font on the album cover is the same.  Missy Elliott has a strong presence in the album’s production, and in case you forget this fact, she grunts and shouts at the beginning of some of the tracks to announce “New Monica! Hot shit!” This annoying tic disrupts the flow of an album that is largely slow to mid-tempo, and is unnecessary since we know we’re listening to Monica and we don’t need Missy Elliott to bludgeon us over the head with her opinion of her own track.

Unlike The Makings Of Me however, Still Standing is “hot shit” from beginning to end.  Representing the strongest album Monica has released since The Boy Is Mine (or possibly  All Eyez On Me), Still Standing contains one uptempo track, “If You Were My Man”, which is tellingly the album’s only weak point, riding an 80s groove that sounds genuine and laid back even as the bass knocks hard.  Apart from this song, the album runs at a slow, leisurely pace that really invites the listener to sink into the songs and contemplate the alternately loving and lovelorn lyrics accompanying the tracks.  Despite the album’s slow tempo, the 10 tracks seem to be over too soon, and when an album makes you want to press repeat immediately, that’s a good sign that it’s a decent effort.  What’s more, although there was a real danger that with so many slow songs, they might melt into one another to become a big treacly mess, the lyrics, melodies and production are all immaculate throughout and each song is distinguished from the next.  “Still Standing” (the first song we heard from this project way back in 2008, which opens the album with a declaration of strength and resilient and deserves to be the title track) and “Mirror” employ persistent, menacing synths and underlying piano to emphasise the empowering nature of their lyrics, and are two highlights from the album.

“Everything To Me”, the album’s first proper single, has been an unlikely hit considering its radio-unfriendliness (a 3/4 time signature? How refreshing!).  However, its soaring declaration of love is elevated by Monica’s stellar vocal delivery, and while sonically she sounds more and more like a young Mary J. Blige (Still Standing is the album Stronger With Each Tear should have been), it is becoming more and more apparent that Clive Davis was right all along and Monica is truly the vocal heir to Whitney Houston.  “One In A Lifetime” (which couldn’t sound more like a Mary J. Blige track if it tried, robbing liberally from her mega-hit “Be Without You”) is radio-ready but still sincere, while “Superman” employs a plethora of hero metaphors over a slow-jam beat.

In contrast to these romantic songs stands “Stay Or Go”, another album highlight which takes the flowing piano from Chris Brown’s “So Cold” (the best song from his mediocre Graffiti), slows it down and adds more mature lyrics and beautiful vocal stylings to the mix to serve up an effective ultimatum to Monica’s love interest.  Album closer “Believing In Me” sees Monica heartbroken, defiant and finding her strength of heart and soul all over again in the wake of a broken relationship.  Just as “Getaway” was a declaration of vulnerability at the end of The Makings Of Me, so is “Believing In Me” a declaration of vulnerability but also independence, which one might relate to Monica’s recent split from her long-time partner Rocko.  It closes the album well, with Monica’s vocals on the edge of tears close to the song’s climax.

Still Standing succeeds because while it sounds current, it doesn’t pander to radio’s demands for disposable fluff and instead hews close to Monica’s strengths as a supreme R&B vocalist, giving her solid melodies to express heartfelt lyrics.  Every song is strong and uncompromising, standing on its own merits and together these songs form a cohesive whole.  Annoying grunts aside, Missy Elliott handles production duties well, as do the other producers (particularly Bryan-Michael Cox), and if the album is brief at 10 tracks, at least it serves up excellent quality and is markedly better than The Makings Of Me which contained the same number of songs.  It feels like Monica has really hit her stride after previous album wobbles, and it’s so refreshing in 2010 to find some artists making true R&B still enjoying commercial and critical success.

Rihanna – Wait Your Turn / Te Amo / Hard reviews. (from Rated R)

EDIT: peep the full Rated R album review HERE!

Thankyou to everyone for reading my review of Rihanna’s first single “Russian Roulette”, from her forthcoming album Rated R. Together, you guys have made it the most popular post out of all of the posts on my blog!  So I really appreciate that.  If you get a moment, please also take a look and a listen to my new album, Quiet Storm, available on this post here.

So since my review of “Russian Roulette” seems to have gone down well, I thought that I would review the other songs that we now have from Rated R, which are: “Wait Your Turn”, “Te Amo” and the recently-leaked “Hard”.

Wait Your Turn

Before “Russian Roulette” was officially released on Rihanna’s website, there was a metallic “R” (her new logo, as you can see in her album cover above) and a countdown timer bearing the message “The Wait Is Ova”; that message is this song’s main refrain.  Although the production of the song is suitably dark and the lyrics are tough, the song takes a while to stick in the listener’s mind, especially as the chorus seems somewhat weak.  Out of all the songs we’ve heard from Rated R so far, this is the weakest track, despite the fact it is the first one we have a video for:

The plus sides to this song: Rihanna embodies swagger, which comes across in both the dark, grainy video with her strutting through various shadowy landscapes in fashionable outfits, and in the thick island accent she employs on the verses: “I pitch wit a grenaaayaaaade”! The electric guitar in the background amplifies the song’s confidence.  Overall, it’s not awful, but still far from Rihanna’s best, and falls short as a declaration that she is ‘back’ – if anything, it plays more like a buzz single than a confident statement of intent.

Te Amo

This song was the first track to be leaked from Rated R, though nobody knew this at the time; it only became apparent when the album’s tracklisting included this title.  Of course, it’s possible that the song may have been remixed or improved with additional production / vocals, but the song as we have it currently is an undulating, mid-tempo ballad (if there can be such a thing).  Rihanna sings about a female friend who tries to express her love for her while they dance together; however, Rihanna is happy to have a friendship but wants nothing more.  Nevertheless, their dance is depicted with a sense of romance and longing, and the sadness in her voice when she sings “‘Te amo’, somebody tell me what she said, don’t it mean ‘I love you’?” is palpable.

The setting of a dancefloor “underneath the candelabra”, followed by seemingly walking along the beach gives the song an exotic setting to match with its use of Spanish phrasing.  Production wise, this track could have easily fit within Good Girl Gone Bad, but nevertheless it carries itself well and along with “Russian Roulette”, displays Rihanna’s more vulnerable side, which contrasts with…

Hard

The most recently-leaked of the Rated R tracks, this song really does go hard!  The most urban of the Rated R tracks (and it features a rap from Young Jeezy), it once again embodies swagger and non-stick confidence.  “Meet me at the top top top, it’s gettin’ lonely”… Rihanna sees herself as a “lion”, a fierce defender of her crown as a survivor (hmm, of what? Chris Brown and domestic violence? Bloggers and haters (who are picked up on in the lyrics)? General negativity and envy?) and as a superstar.  The clashing drums and sinister trumpets give the song a menacing, dense backbeat over which Rihanna yells what sounds like a call to arms.  It’s a very confrontational song in its production, vocal delivery (none of the light fluff of “Shut Up And Drive” here!) and lyrics: the opening lyric in one way says it all: “They can say whatever, I can do whatever, no pain is forever, yep, you know this”.

Out of the three songs, “Hard” is probably the best of the bunch, and I’ve heard some people saying that it should have been the first single.  I think that a video for this track has to happen, as Rihanna’s dark fashionista style and haughty pout would suit the message of the song perfectly; it’s easy for me to imagine the video for “Wait Your Turn” suiting this track much better.

Nevertheless, both “Hard” and “Te Amo”, like “Russian Roulette”, are promising indicators of an album which shows not only a growing maturity but also a hardening and darkening of Rihanna’s persona and style (only “Wait Your Turn” is a bit of a disappointment). Whether this is a result of just being older and more experienced in the music industry, having survived her turbulent relationship and subsequent media hoopla in the past year, or worshipping Satan (!!!!!!!!!!! I had to LOL when I read that story!  But you never know…), it seems like Rated R will be a cohesive work and an evolution from Good Girl Gone Bad.  Whether the new album has the hit factor that its predecessor contained is debatable – Good Girl Gone Bad was an album chock full of production-savvy uptempos and attitude-laced bangers that might prove hard to top – but what’s evident is that Rihanna’s not afraid to do something different from the other big females in the game, and she’s not afraid to take it to a darker place, as evidenced by the “Wait Your Turn” video.  I eagerly await the album, and when it leaks, you know that you’ll be able to catch my review of it right here soon after!  Thanks for your support, keep it locked kids 🙂