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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Dirty Laundry- Kelly Rowland (What no one wants to admit)


              If there was ever a tell-all song that people have been itching to hear it would be from the oh so secret, extremely confidential, gossip proof life of the Carter-Knowles family. Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland and Michele Williams have spent years developing this sexy squeaky clean image in the shadows of the superstar that is Beyonce Knowles. Somehow they have also managed to convince the world that everything is all compliments and kisses in the huge, growing shadow of King Bey.  But anybody with estrogen pumping through their veins can’t find it in them to believe for one second that one once of jealousy hasn’t formed in the 10 plus years of watching someone you consider your sister slay the stage. That reality along with other juicy secrets reared their ugly heads with the release of Kelly Rowland’s second single off her fourth struggle album titled Dirty Laundry.

                Now I along with the rest of the world viewed the hype that was circulating around the song with a raised eyebrow. “Damn, a Kelly Rowland tell all song?...Finally a member of Destiny’s Child turned their microphone up and admitting some hate toward King Bey?...hmm this might be something I gotta hear” But before lending my ear to the song, I found that the hype that was flooding my twitter feed quickly died after the next day. And it wasn’t until getting 30 seconds into the song that I realized why.  Other than the simplistic diary-like lyrics, and the steady blues-like piano rift, the song is pretty forgettable. And after being played in heavy rotation on local radio stations, I’ll even dare to say that the song is annoying. One has to give credit to Miss Rowland for her bravery  touching on daring subjects such as domestic violence  in a song that was apparently close to her heart, but the sympathy and love I feel for Kelly doesn’t drown out the strong feeling of boredom I feel seconds into the song.

                As much as Kelly’s sad singing voice attempts to move you tears, it dryly falls flat. The simplicity of the lyrics along with the lack of noticeable musical structure lacks emotion. Now, agreed everybody doesn’t think or feel in beautiful, rhythmic, poetic, word play like J Cole, and in some instances simple lyrics are best especially in R&B, but Dirty Laundry doesn’t require any type of thought process at all. I got a sort of “I’m sad. Wrote a song about it wanna hear it? Here it go.” type of feel from it, which somehow works better for Drake than it does for Kelly Rowland. The lyrics seem to just drag on with no real connection to the beat, leaving you to wonder what the hell she is whining about by the second verse. And what is more interesting than the song is how people love for the beautiful Kelly Rowland simply over powers the dryness of the song. It’s sort of like it’s this unspoken secret that this song sucks. It seems like people got so wrapped up in the content of the song that they didn’t recognize that the song is trash. It’s almost similar to the unspoken secret that Kelly Rowland has been shooting blanks musically since Dilemma with Nelly in 2002.

 Honestly, I feel like a good sit down on the couch with Oprah would have sold the album better than wasting air wave time with this song, because the song sounds like one drawn out interview.  I can’t help but feel that if Kelly just dropped the spoken word ,“oh woah is me” approach and actually SANG the damn song like we all know she can and gave it a more distinct chorus and verses, maybe it would move people to want to listen to the song a second time. But somehow as bad as this song is (along with the other sucky, ass sexed up songs she drowns us with), we still root for Kelly and anticipate a hit with every song she releases.  Why? Because she’s strikingly beautiful, she can actually sing and she is and always will be everybody’s second favorite member of Destiny’s Child. Sorry Michele

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