FEATURE:
Second Spin
Ciara - Ciara
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AN artists whose albums…
have never quite got the credit they deserve, I think that Ciara’s eponymous album maybe won critics around. Released on 5th July, 2013, Ciara entered the US Billboard 200 at number two. Some critics felt there was a lack of identity and memorability. That the album didn’t remain with you after you have done listening. I would disagree. I feel it is an album that does not get played as much as it should. With a new Ciara song out there, JUMP, maybe she is getting ready to announce an eighth studio album (her seventh, Beauty Marks, was released in 2019). An album that takes risks and does not stand still, her fifth studio album was definitely a step up in terms of its quality and breadth. One of the most underrated artists there is, there is a lot to love when it comes to Ciara’s eponymous album. Incredible successful singles such as Body Party and I’m Out, this is an album that warrants new respect and airplay. I am not sure what direction a new Ciara album might take. If you have not heard the Texan R&B artist before, then definitely check out Ciara and her other studio releases. I can’t find too many interviews with Ciara from 2013. Instead, I am going to get to a couple of positive reviews for the album. It makes me wonder whether there will be a tenth anniversary release for Ciara next year.
The first review that I want to bring in is from AllMusic. Although some were mixed or had some negative things to say about Ciara, many were very positive when it came to highlighting the album’s strengths and terrific songs:
“Whether she was dropped, released, or merely shifted away from her deal with LaFace parent Jive, Ciara was displeased with the lack of support given to Fantasy Ride and Basic Instinct. Her self-titled fifth album sees her back with LaFace co-founder L.A. Reid, president of Epic, whose roster added several LaFace artists due to distributor Sony's consolidation of labels. Ciara took plenty of time to develop the album -- long enough for delays, a scrapped lead single ("Sweat"), the release of various non-album cuts, and even a change of title (originally One Woman Army). The result isn't a muddled mess but another lean and focused set, despite the involvement of several writers and producers. A full-length partnership with fellow Atlanta native Mike Will, specialist in woozy and entrancing trunk rattlers, would have been ideal -- if perhaps too obvious -- but they do connect on "Body Party," one of Ciara's most attractive slow jams, as hot as "Promise" and "Speechless." Slinking and slightly predatory or confrontational content courses throughout the album, including the booming "Sophomore" ("So you say that you a bachelor/Well step your game up and get your master's), the winding "Keep on Lookin'" ("Keep on lookin', keep on lookin' with your lookin' ass), and the steamier, more gleaming likes of "Super Turnt Up" and "DUI." Those are the highlights, while the more energetic and/or pop-oriented material -- "Overdose," the Kid 'N Play-quoting "Livin' It Up," the mature and middling Future duet "Where You Go" -- is functional if not as memorable”.
Just before round off, there is another review that I want to bring into the mix. The Guardian were among those who had lots of good things to note about the remarkable Ciara. The more I listen to the album, the more that I bond with it and dive deep:
“One of the most heartening moments on Ciara's fifth album comes when Nicki Minaj – with whom the R&B singer has built up a welcome chemistry of late, with three superb collaborations during the past year – devotes half her guest rap on Livin' It Up to affirming her partner's greatness. It's a sisterly riposte to Ciara's name having become a byword for commercial failure, which is a reflection less of her talent than of mismanagement and fickle pop trends. In fact, Ciara has quietly built up a formidable discography, and this eponymous set maintains the high quality. It finds Ciara at her most tender (the reverie of DUI; the voluptuous, My Boo-sampling Body Party) and authoritative (Keep on Lookin', a taunting repudiation of the male gaze; the hedonism-as-vengeance anthem I'm Out). At times she's both, as on the hypnotic, organ-underpinned Sophomore and the magnificent Super Turnt Up, on which she coos prettily over twinkling synths before contorting her delivery into a ferocious screwface. The infinitely more successful Rihanna has occasionally mocked her underperforming rival; in light of their recent artistic output, it's hard not to feel that in a more just parallel universe, their careers would be exchanged”.
A brilliant album that I would point everyone in the direction in, I was compelled to feature Ciara in this Second Spin. Perhaps her best-reviewed album to date, it gets me guessing what happens next and where her music might take her. With so much great music under her belt, I know we will be enjoying albums from her for years more. 2013’s Ciara proves that the Fort Hood-born artist is…
A truly amazing proposition.