Did the Lyrics on Donell Jones 'Lyrics' CD Meet the Singer's Reputation?
Donell Jones Releases Fall 2010 CD
"The World Is Yours" and "Your Place" seemed like filler material and had too much talking at the beginning. Then classic Donell Jones showed up on "Love Like This" and the CD picked up a bit.
Then it evened out with "Imagine That." By the way, that song title is way overused (ex. LL Cool J, Immature, R. Kelly, Nas and Lauryn Hill's "If I Ruled the World" alternate name). The song idea isn't original either. Joe, Beyoncé and Ciara already covered the idea of men switching roles with women when it comes to cheating.
I'm joining the bandwagon with Jay-Z for "Death of Auto-Tune." Donell Jones is using a vocoder on "Backdoor," but I don't understand why he made that decision. It worked for Roger & Zapp's "Computer Love" and Cher's "Believe," but now it's just plain annoying. The only person I give a free pass to is T-Pain because he's built his career off of it. On "Backdoor," it was just plain annoying and used too much for the song.
"Blackmail" sounds like an anthem for a stalker, with descriptions of sending photos, sex videos and ruining a wedding.
By the time I got to "All About the Sex," I was completely disappointed. Donell Jones can sing his heart out, but these lyrics are not very good. "The dark-skinned version of Brad and Angelina" makes sense, but then why follow it up with "The opposite of Ike and Tina"? Why even bring up the latter nightmare couple? This song struggled too much to rhyme, but the chorus was okay. However, considering the album title is "Lyrics," I paid even more attention to the songwriting.
The beat for "Stripclub" with Yung Joc started off pretty good, but when it smoothed out it seemed too slow for a song about lap dances. As far as the lyrics, it's about as blunt as you can imagine. Pole dancing experts may be interested in making this their theme song though. Yung Joc's lyrics were about as challenging as Soulja Boy's "Pretty Boy Swag." I can guarantee I'll never listen to this song again, especially with a vocoder again making an unwelcome visit towards the end.
On "What's Next?" I found it a little odd that Donell Jones says he's not into astrology even though his 2006 album is titled "Journey of a Gemini." And what is the lady who sounds like she's from a Black Eyed Peas song ranting about? Next!
"You Can Burn" was okay, but after not having Donell Jones around for several years, I just wanted to hear him. "The Finer Things in Life" would've been great, but he sounded almost sad about showing the lady the finer things in life. I wish he would've taken a more confident approach instead of laid-back.
Finally I smiled at "Just a Little." Like "Love Like This," the beat matched the song. "Chi-Town boy bout to drive you crazy" was right. Donell Jones clearly has the swagger, but too many songs tried to blend into what's popular now versus the style we've become accustomed to. His confidence was there. The instrumental was just right, and the lyrics were on the same level as all three. "Just a Little" is the type of song I immediately plan to purchase. It leaves me humming the beat and is the first song on the entire CD I wanted to replay.
I also enjoyed "O How I Wonder." John Legend tried to make inspirational R&B that could connect to the streets, but Donell Jones did a better job of it. Donell didn't scream-sing any lyrics, but he gave us some heavy topics (ex. terrorism, gun violence, bombs, nuclear war). I love the beat, but it's what he's saying that matters more.
Overall I have to say I only enjoyed and wanted to purchase three songs "Just a Little," "Love Like This" and "O How I Wonder." That's not enough for a full CD, but it was enough to still keep me as a Donell Jones' fan. While it's not mandatory to like every single thing an artist puts out, I'd certainly be open to his next CD. I give this one 2.5 out of 5 stars though.
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5 Comments
Post a CommentGeneration gap: "who's making love to your old lady while you are out making love" came quickly to mind when I read "men switching roles with women". Could go back in time even more to "Runaround Sue" and other gals cheating on guy tunes. Or even "Part Time Lover" by Stevie Wonder.
Hey Alyce, yes, that's why he brought it up--because they were the opposite, but it was still kind of strange lyric to add. That's just my opinion though. I'm certainly no songwriter.
Searching lyrics to last song mentioned, computer froze. Keep forgetting which lyric site does that every time and it comes up at the top of Google searches all the time. I wanted to read the entire song lyrics because I was confused by "the opposite of Ike and Tina". If Pitt and Jolie are the loving couple, that would make Ike and Tina the opposite, which may be why he brought it up.
Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Vonda. I'm sure it is selling. It's Donell Jones. I'm still very much a fan of his voice, just not this particular CD. I'm still blasting his other music and owned almost all of his CDs. I think "The Lost Files" was better than this new CD though, and I definitely think "Where I Wanna Be" was best of all. As far as the best CDs everyone else put out, I have to disagree with that completely. I like Fantasia's "Back to Me," but another R&B artist who put out an excellent piece of work is Trey Songz with "Passion, Pain & Pleasure." Until I hear Ne-Yo's CD next month, I'd say Trey put out the best R&B CD for 2010. If I include Nas and Damian Marley or Drake's CDs, I say those are in my top five favorite CDs for 2010.
I personally love the album and heard it's selling pretty well even though it have little promo...I think he has one of the best albums out of 2010 if you listen to what everyone else has put out.