LITTLE JACKIE: CONTENDERS OR PRETENDERS?
Little Jackie: "The World Should Revolve Around Me"
Little Jackie: Crying For the Queen
All from The Stoop (S-Curve, 2008)
There is something richly ironic about Little Jackie not-so-subtly slapping at troubled British singer Amy Winehouse on "Crying For the Queen."
judging from your behavior and your junkie routine
it's time for you to get clean and stop creating a scene
girl you ain't got shit on me.
It's not that Winehouse doesn't deserve the spite; god knows her tabloid exploits have all but exhausted the good will created by her Back to Black album but if Little Jackie really wanted to make a point about the new Queen of Royal Badness, perhaps they could have done so without, you know, sound like a bite of Back to Black and it's retro-soul sound.
A pairing between singer Imani Coppola and producer Adam Pallin, Little Jackie's new The Stoop shares an eerily similar aesthetic with Winehouse's Mark Ronson/Salaam Remi-produced album, both in terms of Coppola's acerbic, humorous songwriting and especially in Pallin's pastiche of 1960s soul and funk styles. The comparison between them and Winehouse/Ronson/Remi isn't merely reasonable; you'd have be deaf not to at least raise an eyebrow.
And yeah, I know - Coppola's been in the game for minute, with at least three albums to her name, so she's no upstart but she also wasn't on any kind of retro-soul tip before Little Jackie. If this new group is meant to be a reinvention, the direction it's taking certainly seems post-Winehouse.
Then again, if they're simultaneously dissing and riffing on Winehouse, at least the latter is done well. Pallin's production retains the bright shine and pop of classic Motown and Philly Int'l on songs like "Crying" and their current single/video, "The World Should Revolve Around Me. Other songs on the album range from slick, mid-tempo ballads ("28 Butts") to frenetic funk slabs ("The Kitchen") to some straight-up '60s girl group/jukebox sides ("One Love"). Coppola is pleasant though undistinguished vocally but her songwriting retains much of the bite and spark it's had for 10 years now; she's long had a tongue-in-cheek swagger that certainly predates Winehouse or any similar singer. In short, The Stoop will deservedly draw many comparisons to Back to Black but on its own merits, it has a winking charm and rollicking, savvy music that's timed well for some summer fun.
Little Jackie are also indicative of how much this season is going to be dominated by an R&B sound that sounds more 1968 than 2008 as everyone else sounds like they're surfing off of Winehouse's wake. Shall we run down the roll call thus far? Solange Knowles, Duffy, Gabrielle Cilmi, Adele and that's not even including the folks that Amy Winehouse bit off of, including Sharon Jones and Nicole Willis.
This is how pop cycles work: a big, new star is bound to lead to a wave of artists hot to replicate that formula (see how many "new Mariahs" there's been in a generation). Still there is something strange about this new crop of R&B hopefuls all turning back to classic soul like Motown, Stax, Hi, King, etc. to craft the "next big thing." For fans of that aesthetic and/or folks nonplussed by contemporary R&B's more hip-hop-flavored styles, it's a welcome alternative. However, as artists like Little Jackie wait to see with their upcoming release, is this a trend big enough for others to ride off of or is Winehouse the lone queen bee?
Tags: amy winehouse, little jackie
de.licio.us
digg
Furl
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Comments
There are no comments on this entry. Be the first!