Kelis Flesh Tone

I finally got a chance to listen to Kelis’ new album Flesh Tone.  She has always had an unique sound and I was looking forward to having a pleasant listening session, well at least get my $8 worth.  Despite the negative press Kelis got from her very public divorce from Rapper Nas, the child and spousal support orders, I wanted her to do well.

Lets go through my emotional journey as I listened to this 9 track album.  Yes, that’s right just 9 tracks.  Yikes!  First, the intro… Whoa, whats going on here?  Why does Kelis sound like that?  Is she purposely going off key?  Is this some sort of bad homage to Gwen Stefani?  Either way, not a good start.

I thought this was supposed to be a dance album, why am I uninspired?

As I drudge through the tracks I get a glimmer of hope on “4th of July”, then back down to mediocrity, back up at “Brave” and rounded out the bad experience with track 9, who cares!

When I hear “Dance album”, I assume the tracks are going to make me want to move, jump up out of my chair and hurt myself.  Instead I listened to this album with a Shabba Ranks screw face.  Kelis sounded like someone made her do this.  She was flat, off key and it was painfully obvious her voice was not made for this type of dance music.  We all knew she was well… quirky, is that a fair to say? However, her singing  style did not blend with the throwback late 90′s, early 2000′s music.

Now for the awful reality:

Kelis did not sound HUNGRY, like she wanted it, like she knew she had a string of hits on this album – and you can hear it.  She was uninspired and so was I. On most tracks her vocals were too loud and scratchy, instead of complimenting the music as good dance songs do.

Awful album, even die hard Kelis’ fans will be left scratching their heads after this one.

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