“Rain”
by Dear Jayne
(Music Line/Capitol)
What’s even better than a slow jam? A slow jam with really loud
snares—snares like a combination of hand claps and wood
blocks, designed to cut right through the dense underbrush of the mix’s
Missile Command effects, R&B-gone-trance synth arpeggios,
harmonies, and vocal cross talk. Not to mention lyrics like “You’re not
gonna get the privilege/Until you prove you’re with it,” or “I’m gonna
lock the doors so there won’t be a disturbance” (a smirk at the
seducer’s art, devastating in context), or the for-the-ages “I can’t
wait to hear us make those ooh-ahh sounds.” The chorus is a lot
simpler: “When we’re kissing, when we’re kissing, boy/It feels like
rain, rain, rain, rain.” You’d think I’d have figured it out a lot
faster than the three days of obsessive replaying it took, but this is
an answer record—Rihanna offered shelter from the downpour, but
Dear Jayne wants to drench you in it. Advantage: Dear Jayne. Or: What’s
even better than “Umbrella”? “Rain.”
“My Love”
by Jill Scott
(Hidden Beach)
Minimalism: After the intro, for two minutes we get a nylon layer of
gossamer-thread string pad, chimes, two thuds and a finger snap,
occasional guitar plucks, sparse violin squiggles, and Scott
enunciating every letter, holding back and thus keeping an edge. On the
second verse, the edges go soft—every t no longer crossed,
a preparation for the effective outbursts on the bridge and thereafter.
Nevertheless the first verse and chorus (“My love is deeper, tighter,
sweeter, higher, flyer/Didn’t you know this/Or didn’t you notice?”) are
what hold me in place every time with their absolute tautness.
“Just Fine (Remix)”
by Mary J. Blige, ft. Lil Wayne and Swizz Beatz
(Geffen)
It’s 2008—that must mean it’s time for the Chubb Rock revival.
The version of “Just Fine” on Blige’s late-December Growing
Pains is an easy tribute to late-’80s mall-aerobics music with a
lyric that, impossibly, sounds even more self-helpy than usual and
works for just that reason. But the remix is even better, and not
because of Lil Wayne (though he sounds just fine), but because Swizz
Beatz switches up the backing track completely, layering Mary and Weezy
over Chubb Rock’s “Treat ‘Em Right.” Instead of implying musical
nostalgia, this maneuver puts it right up front the way the lyrics do
their recovery dogma. 