Ryan Leslie. What can I say that hasn’t been said already? You gave us Cassie and Diamond Girl, and for that I am grateful but conflicted. Cassie is hot, but she’s a mess as a performer. Diamond Girl was a hot track but the video tried too hard to channel OutKast and Michael Jackson. Well, I finally got around to watching the new video for Addiction and it’s more of the same. Read on for more.
The Track: The beat is mellow and I’m all about that. Not every track needs wicked knock. I didn’t like the synth at first, but I’ve really warmed up to it. The percussion is well designed too. Hand drums playing off a synth? Yes. Cassie provides the backing vocals, natch. She sounds a little flat and detached, like she’s in a daze - perhaps that’s the point? It’s sort of hypnotic in its monotony.
Fab’s verse had me hooked because of how it handles a pet peeve of mine. I have reviled name-dropping in the past, but Fab turns it around. He incorporates the names into the verse as punchlines and not just as obnoxious references. His lines get better and better: ‘I got you Amy Winedout’, ‘I hop out the suicides looking so Cobain’, and ‘They come back want more grams, right back, like Lindsey out the program’. If that doesn’t get a rise of out of your punchline meter, perhaps you should stop listening to hiphop.
The Video: The ‘official’ video is your typical ‘white background’ video but in gray. The treatment must have read like this: 2 guys, 4 models, all gray. The ‘2 guys and some models’ concept is not new either. Schwayze did it. So did Lil Wayne and Lloyd. Remember Golddigger? SAME THING. There are plenty more examples. It’s the buddy cop equivalent of music videos: you’re not really sure if Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan belong in the same movie, but it’s easy to watch and you’re too lazy to change the channel.
The ‘alternate‘ version of the video is fairly unremarkable except that it is in color. Alternate videos strike me as a sign that the album isn’t going to stand by itself without being crammed with extras.
Remember George Michael’s Freedom video? No one ever does stuff like that anymore, which is sad. It is the closest thing to a perfect music video I have seen to date. It had models, explosions, good set and costume design, new technology, replay value, and it wasn’t just a taped performance!
The Bottom Line: Decent track, routine video. It happens.
track sounds like a Neptunes / John Legend collabo. not necessarily a bad thing, but this would be one of the weird “alternative drums” style tracks by the Neptunes and one of Legend’s more generic performances. it just goes to show that getting play as an artist has more to do with who you know and who you can convince to finance your music than anything else.
I feel like all these people getting deals now are producers and song writers who got tired of being faceless, i.e keri hilson, kanye, ryan leslie, cassidy, and like a hundred other people.
The recent success of producers on both sides of the glass has pushed a lot of people to crossover from their traditionally out-of-sight roles.
Am I just stating the obvious? I know this has been going on for a while (Puff, The Neptunes, etc) - but everyone is a producer these days.
it’s always been like that from Run-DMC with Jam Master Jay in the group to NWA and Dre’s solo projects. there have always been producers as part of the acts. its just that hip hop as a mass market genre is starting to fade a bit so now we’re getting these guys that have been largely unknown producers move up to put out singles because record labels and financial backers are willing to try anything to see what will make money now that there’s no longer a sure-fire “get a gangsta and put him on top of a sample from a well known song” formula to make a hit nowadays. not that i’m an expert - that’s just my educated guess.