Track Review ⊙ Daily Ops Home
R. Kelly v Broken Social Scene :: "I'm A Flirt (Shoreline)"Mash-Up (2007)
Music is some powerful shit, right? Exhibit A: Hood Internet's wunderkind ABX takes "7/4 Shoreline" and adds another beat to make it an up-tempo 4/4, lays it down beneath the vocal gyrations of Kels and co.'s ridonkulous steal-your-girlfriend anthem, and in so doing destroys the original's meaning. What once slunk around with Cartier love bracelets linked around its neck ready to be passed off to any significant other that hits these vultures' radar now tumbles forward with giddy, magnetic momentum, sweeping up and holding on to anything its path like some corn-rowed Katamari. When I first heard it, I could feel the repugnance draining from my face.
And now I'm flushed with acceptance. No longer about individual sexual hijackings, this whole song has become a flirt, and it's a stupendously successful one. Like, jam of the year successful. I can't think of a more effective example of mash-up potential, the way ABX converts prowling into bounding by basically just swapping out the background with something from a completely different context. Cheap mixing issues aside, the drops and the breakdown at 2:50 are dynamite, and the way the track recklessly progresses is flawless and unstoppable, those sighing Leslie Feist vocals but a memory. And in this aftermath I hear something that not only could blow up clubs but could make people smile for real, and that makes me wonder just how much more R&B could be doing if it was ingesting this sort of hybridization into its form. Kels has gotta hear this shit. His wang won't know what to do.
Chet Betz :: 8 May 2007 |
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