Jagged Edge - JE Heartbreak II

My earliest experiences listening to R&B have to with projects Jermaine Dupri was involved with. The first Jagged Edge song I heard was the "Where The Party At" remix on the Hardball soundtrack. Needless to say, I've been riding for JE for a while. Even as their career seemed to be winding down, Jagged Edge would come through with songs like "Good Luck Charm" and "Put A Little Umph In It." Those albums didn't make much noise, but that's how the game goes.

With all this said, I find it a huge cop out for older artists to complain about the state of R&B when they're really just mad they're not poppin' anymore. R&B is in a weird place. Every single needs a rap verse, and the genre as a whole doesn't seem to mean as much as it did even six or seven years ago when piracy was already a huge problem. But if you look at Billboard and radio, you'll see names like Jeremih, Miguel, Trey Songz, August Alsina, Drake, The Weeknd, Jhene Aiko. These are artists that — with rap features and without — have established themselves as new and relevant ambassadors of the genre, like them or not.

Jermaine Dupri is heavily involved with both the production on the album and its promotion. He, too, is on the we-must-save-R&B bandwagon. While there's no doubt Dupri is an amazing songwriting talent across multiple eras, he's had a quiet few recent years. Especially with Mariah's album flopping, he needs a win.

JE Heartbreak II is a logical step for both parties involved. Let's bring back R&B. Let's remind people what R&B really is. Let's make it a sequel and invoke as much nostalgia as we can. The songwriting is the main focus. It is focused on global topics – I see my "Future" in you; All I want to do is put her "Hope" back into a man. There's a crowd that probably appreciates this that'll cry, "This is it!" But great R&B isn't limited to slow love songs. In fact, the only criteria for truly great R&B are an inescapable melody and a groove. "Future" and "Hope" are fine, but "Things I Do For You" is it. You can try to prove to the world that "real R&B" is here to stay by making "Getting Over You" a single and including inspiring songs with no drums, or you can give the world songs like "Wanna Be" and "Ready."

The album is not only serviceable, it's pretty good. And there isn't much out like it. That in itself should be enough.

TV Recap: Marry Me, Black-ish, Mulaney

Black-ish
From the announcement of the show at the top of the year, nothing good seem to be coming from Black-ish. In retrospect, it's funny how a terrible name can make you second guess everything about a television show. Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross? On ABC? That's gonna crash and burn! My goodness, this is a terrific show. It's funny. It's topical. It puts people of color on primetime television. There's cute kids and funny parents. What more could you ask for? The best part of the show, I'll repeat, is that it is just plain funny. That's all you really want from a sitcom. Forget whether it's cable or network or single cam or multi-cam. The makers of this show pulled off something many of their contemporaries struggle to get even close to.

Marry Me
Having high hopes for a show based on its cast and creators can be dangerous. Happy Endings was amazing! Casey Wilson is awesome. Ken Marino has been great in so many things. Marry Me didn't take off quite like I had hoped. But it isn't bad. The pilot is a little too cute for its own good, but these later episodes seem like they're building towards something. The cast definitely isn't as strong as the one Happy Endings had, and I like how they fulfilled their gay and black characters quota with the same actress.

Mulaney
This show is just terrible. It's not even close to good. I consider myself a fan of John Mulaney's stand up. I only really started watching SNL a few years ago, so I can't say that's a part of his career I paid any attention to. But by the time the show had been picked up, I had enough confidence in him and Fox's then president Kevin Reilly to be okay with the multi-cam setup. Fox had New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. By good sitcom standards, they were on fire. This show is bad. The writing is not good. The premise is sort of stupid. You hope it gets better as sitcoms tend to do after a trial period.

Book Club: Nick Offerman's "Paddle Your Own Canoe"

Like many, I am an avid Parks & Recreation fan. So of course I love Ron Swanson. I've been reading a lot of biographies lately, especially in the comedy realm, so "Paddle Your Own Canoe" wasn't necessarily something I wanted to jump to. There were works of fiction that probably had higher priority on my list. But then I saw Nick Offerman promote the book on a re-run of Fallon and I saw him perform on Comedy Central's Meltdown show and just thought, "Why not?"

This book is Offerman's biography. It's not a Ron Swanson instructional manual. And while it's hard to believe, Offerman and Swanson are two different people. I love hearing about how people in the entertainment industry grew up and what pushed them into it. As someone who grew up in the suburbs of California, reading about Offerman's country Illinois upbringing was pretty interesting. He was an actor first and a serious one at that. He started off in the theatre. This isn't a world I'm all that familiar with and one that I wish I supported more. It's nice hearing about how he met his wife Megan Mullally.

He of course talks about interest in woodwork and physical activity and shit that I have no knowledge about. He suggests every human be able to, you know, build a chair or whatever, and I was almost inspired to do so for like a full 15 minutes or so. There's also plenty of parts of the book in which he speaks against intolerance, separation of church and state, a good diet and other such topics. It comes off a little preachy at first until you realize many people probably misconstrue the Ron Swanson character as very "America, fuck yeah!" and that both the character and the man behind the character must dispel that illusion.

Jessie Ware - Tough Love

Jessie Ware has a magnificent voice. Some of the music on her debut were a little too "big" for my taste, but it was refreshing to hear a white female (sorta?) media darling that wasn't some faux-modern R&B that people would compare to The Weeknd or an overrated mess like Lana Del Rey. While "Sweet Talk" is easily one my favorite songs of the last decade, that album as a whole didn't quite sell me on her as an artist.

"Tough Love" isn't perfect, but it is a vast improvement. Songs are tighter and more melody driven. The album is mostly produced by Benny Blanco (Katy Perry, Taio Cruz, Wiz Khalifa) but also employs Miguel and Dev Hynes. Her sound — a modern spin on alternative, with drum machines and reverbed vocals — is very much present. There's no pop standout like "Sweet Talk" — "All On You" is close — but that wasn't the song that garnered her attention anyway. This is an album literally full of love songs, like songs and lust songs, and that should really be celebrated.