Kelis, Kelis Was Here
(Virgin)
Chris Salmon
Thu 7 Sep 2006 19.34 EDT First published on Thu 7 Sep 2006 19.34 EDT
"Your children's babies' babies' babies' babies' babies' babies will know that Kelis was here," boasts the R&B diva during the intro to her fourth album. Perhaps so, but if youngsters in the year 2156 do add Kelis songs to their MindPods, it is unlikely they'll select many from this disappointing record.
Kelis Was Here is the successor to 2003's Tasty, which contained several moments of skewed R&B-pop brilliance. The singles Millionaire, Trick Me and, particularly, Milkshake established Kelis as the thinking person's Beyoncé, an artist with a powerful (and empowered) voice taking challenging pop to the masses. In the UK, where Kelis's riotous first single, Caught Out There (of "I hate you so much right now" fame), won her the Best International Newcomer Brit in 2001, Tasty realised her potential. In the New York native's homeland, where she had not matched the European success of her first two albums, it provided her breakthrough.
Unfortunately, having achieved that global chart success, the sole ambition of Kelis's new record seems to be to maintain it. Not by matching Tasty for ideas and innovation, but by embracing the obvious and the banal. Gone, bafflingly, are production duo the Neptunes, who have worked with Kelis since her 1999 debut Kaleidoscope. She has used other producers before - notably Dallas Austin (Trick Me) and Andre 3000 (Millionaire) - but, from Caught Out There to Milkshake, the Neptunes have consistently defined and redefined Kelis's edgy sound. They are badly missed, with most of the producers used here coming up short in both inspiration and tunes.
Contributors such as Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am and Ludacris producer Shondrae reject all subtlety for songs that caricature Kelis as sexy, bolshy and not much else. The results are shallow and unconvincing, driven by the kind of brash holler and breathy schmaltz you would expect from J-Lo or Pussycat Dolls (complete with the rubbish guest raps).
There is some class among the dross. The album's first single, Bossy, features Kelis boasting of past achievements over an addictive Tetris-esque hook, while the belligerent bonus track, Fuck Them Bitches, offers the edge and bounce that's missing elsewhere. And the album's highlight, Lil Star, is a woozily tender soul nugget that comes courtesy of Gnarls Barkley man Cee-Lo.
The problem is those are just three tracks of a whopping 18 on a bloated 77-minute collection that badly mistakes quantity for quality. If Kelis deserves much better material than this, so too do the people who buy her records.