Umlauts:

Kayliah - Quand Une Fille Est Love

I'd like to think of this as a teaser for an upcoming "think piece" that'll be popping up on here some time during the future, largely on the topic of why obsessive pop nuts often are rather intolerant of R&B. No, I'm not writing it. Because I'm a teensy bit guilty of it myself.

And yet, along struts Kayliah, doing her woahs and her overemoting and because she does it in French, she gets a free pass. I'm not usually that enamoured of French as a language, so it's not the tongue. It might be the tin-clanging percussion. It might be the minimal, but definitely detectable bottom in the song - just enough bass to give it kick without dominating the song. It might be the vaguest hint of trembling in the chorus where Kayliah's steadied delivery in the verses becomes that little bit less confident as she's back-pasted into harmonising with herself.

It could be any of those things, or none of them. There's an attention to detail that it shares with its US cousins, indeed, but a great degree of subtlety at play - there's no chance Kayliah is going to bombastically throw the hook out of play by resorting to gigantic over-held notes and needless melisma, but she uses most of the bearable, even laudable, tricks out of the big bag of R&B persuasion.

Must be because it's catchy.

posted by Edward O @ 7:25 AM