Sunday, December 27, 2009

Love & Happiness.

The Albums: 2009.



8/Amerie/In Love & War

Fearless. If you were to ask me to, in one word, describe Ms. Amerie Mi Marie Rogers, I’d shout out, with a quickness, FEARLESS. “No one on the corner has swagger like I”, she proclaims on the easy, breezy, contemplative ‘Swag Back’, to which I must reply, “gurl, sho’ ya right!”; Especially when one comes armed w/a CD as fiery and ferocious as this. Unlike her current contemporaries in the field, Amerie always sound genuinely hungry, fiery, and full of something to prove, track for track, note for note. Give her a beat, give her a melody, no matter the speed, no matter the tempo, she’ll ride it, she’ll KILL IT, she’ll tell it like it’s what she was born to do. The music doesn’t ask much of Amerie, but she asks much of herself, and more so than any other female R&B artist this year. Amerie unleashes what comes as it may, whether it be a heart felt yelp, a simmering coo, or an abrasive in your face declaration, highly reminiscent of the passion and fire present in a James Brown or a Tina Turner. Her “head is clear”, she’s “soul survivin’”…and she’s finally got her “swag back”, but honestyly, if you ask me, and as is evidenced by this hard-hitting LP right here, it ain’t ever really left.
KEY TRACKS: Higher/Swag Back/Different People

  • 9/Mos Def/The Ecstatic


  • 10/Yeah Yeah Yeahs/It's Blitz!


  • 11/The Flaming Lips/Embryonic


  • 12/Phoenix/Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix


  • 13/Artic Monkeys/Humbug


  • 14/Wale/Attention Deficit


  • 15/Devendra Banhart/What Will Be


  • 16/Grizzly Bear/Veckatimest


  • 17/Chester French/Love the Future


  • 18/Jay-Z/The Blueprint 3


  • 19/Discovery/LP


  • 20/Mariah Carey/Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel


  • 21/Franz Ferdinand/Tonight: Franz Ferdinand


  • 22/Peter Bjorn And John/Living Thing


  • 23/Peaches/I Feel Cream


  • 24/Karen O and The Kids/Where the Wild Things Are Motion Picture Soundtrack


  • 25/Tegan and Sara/Sainthood

  • No comments: