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Lil' Sis is Worth the Listen
Robert McElwee
 You may have missed it last week, but a little known R&B star decided to have a hissy fit on Fox News when she heard that she was to be asked not only about her recently released album, but also about controversy surrounding her stepbrother’s nightclub. When your stepbrother happens to be Jay-Z, maybe you can have those fits on live national television….but that may be questionable if your album debuts at no. 9 on the Billboard 200 with 46,000 copies sold.
Very few probably remember Solange Knowles’s debut effort, “Solo Star,” released back in 2003. Yet with the release of her second album, “Sol-Angel and the Hadley Street Dreams,” the second Ms. Knowles is out to make a name for herself, distinct from that of the more popular Knowles sibling, Beyonce. Named after a street in Houston where her father once told her he was going to build a studio, Solange embarks on a journey to not only stake out an identity but also to take the listener on an interesting musical roller coaster.
With that in mind, a big slogan in the Solange music camp is that of “difference,” and compared to the current R&B music scene, that’s what she’s giving. The album takes a very 70’s influenced sound, apparent in the first and second singles, “I Decided” and “Sandcastle Disco.” Both videos are also very psychedelic, with many bright colors, zooming angles and background dances fit for an R&B group of decades past. Another track, “Dancing in the Dark,” could be music for a scene in an Austin Powers movie with its horn-oriented rhythms.
Solange furthers the sound with arrangements not exactly in the usual order of verse – chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus until the song ends. She has a knack for inserting spoken world dialogue, some of which touches on the use of Mary Jane, a.k.a. marijuana. The best reference comes on the bonus track “ChampagneChroniKnightCap,”where she asks her man to pass her “That good ooh-woo,” and a lighter flickers in the background music.
All in all, the younger Knowles successfully distances herself from big sis by being a little deeper lyrically and going for an R&B sound out of left field. “T.O.N.Y.” which speaks of her regret about a one-night stand, and her interesting look at the world of relationships and what could have been on “Would’ve Been The One” are examples of why she actually writes some of big sis’s music. “An Ode To Marvin” almost plays as a rebuttal to the classic “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye, which it samples.
The album is a must listen for any fans of the Motown sound, those wishing contemporary R&B had a little more creativity or for those who are musically adventurous.
Questions? Comments? Contact Robert McElwee at mcelweer@msu.edu
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