FEATURE:
Second Spin
Kelly Rowland - Talk a Good Game
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IN another Second Spin...
I wanted to spotlight an album from an artist who remains underrated. Formerly of Destiny’s Child, Kelly Rowland’s solo material is exceptional. I think a lot of former band members struggle to adapt solo or create something that is different from their former self but is relatable. Like her former bandmate, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland releases music that is personal to her. Rowland’s latest studio album, Talk a Good Game, is one I want to talk up. Though she has released E.P.s since that album was released in June 2013 (last year’s K is amazing!), there are many who will ask if a new studio album is planned. An artist I love loads, Talk a Good Game is a great album that did not get the respect it deserves. I will end by sourcing a couple of reviews. Following on from 2011’s Here I Am – another undervalued album -, she put out an L.P. with some of her best solo cuts to that date. Freak and Kisses Down Low epically and beautifully opens Talk a Good Game. Although there are a few producers and writers in the mix, this is very much Kelly Rowland’s album. She wanted to nod to personal heroes like Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder. Talk a Good Game is a celebration of womanhood. It is a very passionate and powerful album. A commercial and chart success, I love how her Destiny’s Child bandmates Beyoncé and Michelle Williams join her on You Changed. One of many highlights from Talk a Good Game, this is an album that everyone needs to check out!
Her most vulnerable and personal lyrics, Talk a Good Game goes deep. I am surprised that it did not score bigger reviews across the board! That said, there were some positive reviews. People that were listening hard and properly. This is what SPIN said in their review:
“The ballad “Down on Love” precedes “Dirty Laundry” on the track list, a sort of prequel to the deep shit, detailing another man with commitment issues and hoping for someone good enough. “Gone” flips a “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone” hook (Janet Jackson via Joni Mitchell) into a sleeper banger with cloudy synths and a snap beat. “Talk a Good Game” is a dating-standard-setting guide for K-Row’s potential suitors; the awesome “Red Wine” makes good use of her breathiness. “Street Life,” featuring Pusha T, has her getting gritty over a summery, ’70s-funk-meets-2070 Pharrell production — the only song here not directly dealing with matters of the heart, it had better be released as a single before August, and should come with subwoofers as a matter of courtesy. Another banger, “I Remember,” is reminiscent of the Jamie xx beat that powered Drake and Rihanna’s “Take Care,” with residual effects of U.K. funky house that make it perfect for Rowland’s British audience, who were holding her down for those first two solo albums when the U.S. was busy gawking at Beyoncé.
Speaking of: Inevitably, Rowland reunites with her girls here, which feels like proof that the jealousy rumors were unfounded. “You Changed” is essentially a classic Destiny’s Child song, but each vocalist gets equal billing: Kelly Rowland, featuring Beyoncé and Michelle Williams. Better than recent trio single “Nuclear,” it’s got a midtempo funk bass line propelling the sisterhood to gang up on an unworthy dude so effectively that it’s the best girl-power break-up song that never dropped in ’99, and that’s no dis: It’s worthy of Destiny Child’s classic catalogue, their chemistry unscathed by time. It also makes sense to put a reunion joint on an album this good: A sliver above 2011’s hit Here I Am, this one shows that even when she’s going through hell, Rowland steps out with sure footing, a girl-next-door who belongs on top”.
Just prior to round off to let people listen to Talk a Good Game, FACT wrote this in regards Kelly Rowland’s amazing fourth studio album. There is definitely appetite for a fifth studio album – or a reunion release with Destiny’s Child:
“It’s been a standard story in the post-Destiny’s Child years that Kelly Rowland has some baggage but with Talk A Good Game, it turns out we didn’t know the half of it. Selling upwards of 25 million solo records still hasn’t quelled jokes about her career being a side note to Beyonce’s stratospheric success, and Rowland has repeatedly dismissed rumours of in-fighting as tabloid fodder. They’re the best of friends, sisters if you will, and to suggest otherwise is merely a callous attempt to drive a wedge between them. This is something at the very heart of Talk A Good Game and on lead single ‘Dirty Laundry’, Rowland addresses years of repressed suffering with stark honesty and self-awareness, and in turn shedding new light on an artist that, after nearly 20 years in the game, we still know remarkably little about.
The confessional element is on the one hand a standard R&B trope – tales of being head over heels in lust, unrequited love and the heartache born of it – but Rowland uses ‘Dirty Laundry’ to detail a violent relationship and how it reinforced a sense of inferiority initially born of a faltering solo career with a rawness largely absent from previous work. It’s hard not to take in a sharp breath to lyrics like: “Post Survivor, she on fire, who wanna hear my bullshit? / Meanwhile this nigga putting his hands on me” and “I was battered / He hittin’ the window like it was me, until it shattered / He pulled me out, he said “Don’t nobody love you but me / Not your momma not your daddy and especially not Bey / He turned me against my sister, I missed you.” In laying herself bare, Rowland is as much reflecting on pain and the path it took her down as her desire to reach out to Beyonce from the better place she’s on her way to.
As ‘Dirty Laundry’ closes Bey extend both hands out by introducing ‘You Changed’ with “Ladies, y’all wanna do it again?”, flipping this pain into a slowly forming peace within through a sort of grown woman reflection on solidarity-in-sisterhood jam ‘Emotions’. Over a decade on Kelly, Beyonce and Michelle still sound in good company, and ‘You Changed’ likely follows ‘Dirty Laundry’ as a way of quashing rumours of in-fighting as much as being symbolic of Rowland’s healing process. It’s an interesting doubling that bolsters the albums thematic core of making peace with the past and holding onto the promise of the new, yet also doesn’t make Talk A Good Game a heavy listen overall.
It’s a taut balancing act that is reflected back onto the production. Having worked with The-Dream, Pharrell, Mike Will Made It and Boi 1da amongst others, each with their own signature sound within the R&B sphere, it remains a very cohesive and easy-going listen. It doesn’t stray too far from a palette of restrained and steady percussion and twinkling key arrangements on the bridges and hooks, but there’s still surprises to keep things interesting. The line “Tell Obama about the street life / The recession eating me alive” on ‘Street Life’ comes out of nowhere: because Rowland’s storytelling is almost exclusively confined to romance, it doesn’t pack much of a contextual punch and sticks out awkwardly amongst the rest of the writing. Sonically, a highlight comes in ‘Down On Love’ when Boi 1da sample The Whispers’ ‘Rock Steady’ to glorious effect, turning it into the kind of sultry after hours jam that would be the envy of most female R&B singers working today.
These kind of surprises are minimal, but Talk A Good Game carries itself with the kind of relaxed poise that Rowland’s keen to show us in herself. Mike Will Made It executes super lush romantic R&B on ‘Kisses Down Low’; muffled hi hat crashes and light and loose MPC drum patterns giving plenty of breathing room for Rowland’s well-honed vocals to take centre stage on her most sexual track since 2011’s stellar ‘Motivation’. This is what stands out most on Talk A Good Game overall: Rowland is an excellent R&B singer who has, perhaps for too long, lingered in the shadow cast by Beyonce’s immediately recognisable, stadium-sized vocal range. Considering her career so far, this is super cool, contemporary grown-up R&B that shows just how far Rowland has come”.
If you have not checked out the brilliant Talk a Good Game, I would definitely recommend it. Even if you are not a big Kelly Rowland fan, the 2013 album stands aside as a brilliant listen. I don’t think we really hear R&B like this anymore. Even though Talk a Good Game was nine years ago, it is a nod to a bigger and more visible time for R&B. Packed with amazing material and some of Rowland’s best vocals and songwriting, the stunning Talk a Good Game…
LIVES up to its title!