StopSmiling

• + FEATURES
• + FILM
• + MUSIC
• + BOOKS

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

By Sam Sweet

R. Kelly: Double Up
(Jive)

Like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Ray Charles before him, Robert Sylvester Kelly has reached the point where his albums transcend failure. He’s so far past the point of being “bad” or “good” that no amount of criticism will diminish his permanent niche in the pop landscape. No one listens to the new Kells album to see if he’s dropped off or not: We listen to the new Kells album to hear Kells do what he does best, which is, undeniably, something that no one but he can do. 

##--banner--##

Kelly has mastered a tone that fuses the facile with the farcical — a rare accomplishment, and one that has helped make him a hero among a public that is as enamored of irony as it is in need of heartfelt ingenuity. This tone is on full display on Kelly’s two signature styles. In one, Kelly designs an entire song by developing a single, outlandish double entendre, a method that was perfected on Kelly’s timeless 2003 hit “Ignition” (with its refrain “Let me stick my key in your ignition, baby”). In the other, Kelly recasts the R&B ballad as a multi-person conversation in which Kelly may or not play all of the roles; this style was introduced to the world in 2005 with Kelly’s phenomenal twelve-part song series “Trapped In The Closet.” These may seem like gimmicks, but Kelly’s trademark styles are no different than James Brown’s string of grunted chants, or Teddy Pendergrass’ endless come-hither narratives. Devising personal song styles has been the stock-in-trade of soul singers since the beginning, and like Brown and Pendergrass before him, Kelly is at his best when he’s riffing his signature techniques on Double Up songs like “Same Girl” and “Real Talk” (both cut from the cloth of “Trapped in the Closet”) or “Sweet Tooth” and “The Zoo” (descendants of “Ignition”).

However, the best of Kelly’s singular talent is on display in Double Up’s one indisputably perfect track. “I’m A Flirt (Remix)” modifies the loping piano riff of “Bennie and the Jets” into something funkier and sexier, as Kelly delivers verse after preposterous verse in punch-lined conversation: “She be calling me daddy / I be calling her mommy / She be calling you Kelly / When your name is Tommy”. A lesser performer would bludgeon us with clumsy braggadocio, but Kelly’s lyrics are strictly tongue-in-cheek. His real boast is the song itself: simplistic to the point of boneheadedness, “I’m A Flirt” would be unbearable if it weren’t for Kelly’s boundless style and charisma. The message of “I’m A Flirt” is clear: “Give me any phrase, and I will give you a hot song. I’m that good.”

Double Up was conceived to cash in on the string of memorable cameo appearances Kelly has made on songs by other artists in the past year (including Snoop Dogg, Young Jeezy, and Ciara), and the bulk of the album is devoted to collaborations with rap’s current crop of hitmakers. The titles get straight to the point. “Double Up” is about bedding two women at once; in “Same Girl,” Usher and Kelly discover they are bedding the same girl; “Tryin’ To Get A Number” is about tryin’ to get a number. This fodder might sound cheap, but Kelly’s sly way with a precise concept is what makes his songs memorable. A shallow concept sharply executed will always trump a sharp message poorly executed: a rule of thumb grasped by few songwriters save for Kelly.

Of course, when Kelly loses the plot, the results are disastrous. Double Up ends with “Rise Up,” a song Kelly recorded in the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Kelly has been recording “inspirational” songs like this — with varying degrees of success — since his “I Believe I Can Fly” became a gargantuan hit in 1996. “Rise Up,” however, with its canned orchestral instrumentation and choral backing, is particularly lukewarm.

Like so many R&B singers before him, Kelly’s internal moral conflict has been reflected in his recorded output, which is divided between church-inspired fare and raunchy club tunes. Yet Kelly’s best work is resounding proof that a song’s meaning is derived not from its content but from its style. Kelly’s club hits are more inspirational than “Rise Up” could ever hope to be, for this reason: any high-school band teacher could write a telethon tribute number like “Rise Up,” but there is only one person on earth that could triumph with “I’m A Flirt.”