i’m all for recognisable production styles - i mean i like nothing more than picking out the way a guitar is recorded or a handclap, or bass squelch as the leitmotif of a particular producer. and it can be a watermark of quality which’ll draw me closer to a recording like hand stitching on a lapel or limited print run publications but when a superproducer becomes so synonymous with a particular set of tricks or ticks within a particular genre then what happens?

its not something i’d particularly bothered thinking about before, i might find stephen street’s production relatively uninspiring or have got a little bored of chad n’ pharrell’s tweaking but amerie’s newest release produced by rnb brass obsessive and glitchy breakbeater rich harrison is so self-referential part of me is left wondering how it doesn’t implode. i even found myself checking the file size of my mp3 half expecting it to say 0kb.

now the latitudes aren’t for hatin’ and i’d like to make it clear i’m not ragging on this track.

in fact i think i love it.

i’ve certainly been hook repeating it all afternoon. but what’s bothering me a little is wondering whether i like it because its like simultaneously listening to the frankly amazing one touch and harrison produced superstomper crazy in love or is it something new? that opening bugle hook is semitones away from the chi-lites sample which drove crazy in love strutting into my headphones, and as much as i concede that a track with the same singer and producer is likely to bear more than a passing resemblance to any predecessor that stop start staccato verse brass-line/cymbal crash is also what made one touch and also tha rayne’s didn’t you know (one of my favourite rnb tracks of the last five years) so deliciously infectious. still, whats mildly unnerving is that harrison seems to have achieved a re-edit of his best work into one single track. and yes its derivative and familiar almost to the point of simulacre (check your baudrillard, scholars) but as someone very smart once said to me there’s a fine like between genius and p… well it works better if you say it out loud- but i’m sticking with the idea that this is genius if only for that last ten second percussion break.

amerie - gotta work (via idolator via kevipod music)

(apologies for the low bitrate too)