The self-made R&B artist Joe Lington is now back with a new album titled SHE. With cross-cultural influences within his body of work and a penchant for poignant performance, he is an artist that I think has a lot of potential, however, citing previous reviews, the direction in which he chooses to primarily market himself seems to hinder his target audience from actually discovering the groundbreaking talent that he does possess. He sets himself apart from a lot of new-gen R&B artists by taking it back and giving his artistry many a sonnet to fall back on. A returning artist privy to our platform, he has had many releases that you can find easily on our website. However, for the sake of this review, I will reference my interpretation of his artistry shown in this particular link. As a refresher, Joe Lington is a Cameroonian-Irish singer who sings in multiple languages and personally cites artists like Sisqo and Keith Sweat as his direct influences. He has also dabbled in a bit of classical music training under the guidance of Lisa Gold Gervais, furnishing an untapped potential of musical genius. Without further ado, let’s analyse his new album and contrast it with his previous work.
The album itself is described as an open letter to the fleeting nature of information and relationships in this current day and age, with a definite emphasis on relationships- to be specific, romantic relationships. Joe ponders on the apparent perceived dysfunction of relationships with people’s need for instant gratification and the lack of commitment as well as the tenacity to pull things through and work together to build a healthy, long-lasting relationship. Themes of trust, loyalty, as well as disloyalty, litter the content of this album as he works his way through an attempt to build social commentary on this particular topic. As much as I think his concerns are valid, I do think that these points are certainly debatable given some of the ethics of relationship dynamics in the past. Moreover, a lot of R&B artists genuinely have taken this arc and premise to furnish their own bodies of work, making me wonder if it’s even an original thematic framework at this point.
As much as I think this is extremely myopic, the mainstream music industry (especially within the confines of the Western music sphere) tends to box themes of royalty within the genre of R&B and themes of disloyalty and opulence within the genre of trap without accounting for ‘conscious rap’ and other forms of rap. As a result, a kind of thematic fatigue arises because if a lot of R&B singers are already making commentary about the state of human relationships, what new idea can I gather from a new release? At this point, your music and compositional skills would have to be top-notch to supersede the thematic pitfalls… and that’s our cue to explore the music of the album itself.
The album starts off with the track ‘Pinkeen’, a track that truly has been heavily marketed and pushed by Joe himself. It bears a slight 80s bass, with its punchiness, and there’s definitely an attempt to pay homage to 90s hip-hop with the ‘hey, ho’ onomatopoeia. Yes, it’s easy to spot the influence in the track, but similar to the issues I’ve already pointed out in my previous review, the track has severe mastering and quality issues. The ‘hey, ho’ segment sounds incredibly lacklustre, and the vocals are not mastered well enough. It needs some sort of mastering and EQ’ing for the vocals to gel well with the rest of the instrumental. From personal experience, it isn’t an easy task, but you market yourself as a vocalist primarily, this is quite crucial with a polished single on a platform. I will say, that the rogue piano keys amid the song do sound like a lot of revivalist 90s R&B tracks, such as those that Ella Mai used. (Boo’d Up comes to my mind.)
Move Your Body follows the same problem as the first track. Some of the vocal tracks sound like as if they’ve been dipped in water. The composition is okay, I can hear the funk and the blues influence in this track. However, the production is quite unpleasant. Joe needs to work on using better quality VSTs and plug-ins for his instrumentation. I can hear the simple MIDI-fied track on the horn segments and it does not bear a sound that’s organic enough. However, the choice of notes and songwriting is EXCELLENT- ESPECIALLY with the Blues piano segments amid the track. I see the vision for this track: it’s extremely mid 2000s, but any segment with voices included, be it from the main vocalist or the co-vocalists, flattens the quality of the track.
Hypocrisy comes off as more organic and competent, weirdly enough. However, in my previous review, I have commented that he truly does not sound out of place when he sings in French compared to English. His mastery of English is not bad in any way, but his singing comes off extremely naturally- perfect phrasing and melody. Once again, the compositional aspect of this song is not bad. It almost sounds like a vintage Usher song. It just needs some tweaking with the choice of instrument clips as well as vocal mastering with the self-harmony segments within the song. I must commend the intent of the call-and-response between the strings as well as the bass. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but the heavy bass complements how delicate the strings are in the track. The claps should have been omitted in the track though, as it makes the track sound as if it was made in the 2010s.
Oh Yeah follows the same compositional intent of Pinkeen, but instead of paying homage to the 80s merely by the sound of the bass, the influence bleeds onto other melodic aspects of the song. It even goes into a little bit of New Jack Swing with its chord structure and choice of instruments. From a mastering perspective, this is one of the best tracks of the album thus far. I don’t know why this track is actually properly mastered, without any cheesy VSTs, but I’m absolutely digging it. It has aspects of everything that is funky- guitar licks, and slight ad-libs that remind you of Michael Jackson. Another plus point is the fact that Joe sings primarily in French in this song, making it where his vocals sound unconstrained and free to please the listener.
The tracks She Episode One, Two, Three, Four, Five, We Still Here, Talking About You and SHE remind me of Queen Majeeda’s ‘audiobook-cum-album’ concept, with once again, an overly-MIDI-fied orchestral sequence paired with a badly mastered spoken word piece. I really hope that Joe fixes the mastering and production issues within his albums, as this is a recurring pattern. The narrator’s voice almost sounds like artificial voice synthesis, and the background track is a little too dramatic to fit the theme of the album as a cohesive body of work. I get the artistic intent- these clips are probably meant for a cinematic music video, but it just doesn’t fit. Especially with the constant reoccurrence of these ‘audio diaries’. They do sound a little cheesy. Perhaps using a little bit of a different creative direction would’ve worked to boost the predictability within these spoken tracks.
Nos Actions is definitely one of the highs of the album. It bears the beautiful Central/West African guitar melodies characteristic of R&B from 2002-2005, or Wizkid’s brand of revivalist R&B with ‘Made in Lagos’. Even though this song is simpler, it does not bear too many production issues. The tone and timbre of the guitar are authentic enough to lure the listener in, his French singing covers the potential awkwardness apparently with his English spoken-word and singing segments, and the choice of instrument clips for the strings do not overtly scream in your face that I’m a ‘standard VST preset’. The song is quite beautifully made, and his ad-libs glisten throughout the song. My only critique is the EQ’ing of the percussion within this track, as it sounds a little off for such a tender song. The acoustic version of the track also delivers when it comes to quality.
WTPA mixes the digital age of the 80s with R&B-hip hop fusions of the same time period, sometimes sandwiched between ’04-’05. The female vocalist in this track gives me a little bit of Fergie vibes with the way she sings. I get the intent with her harmonized parts, but something is quite off in its execution. Further refining of the key and notes she sings in would help this song be elevated. I think this song is ‘okay’. The same issues with poor VSTs arrive, but this song isn’t too glaringly bad or mindblowing. I think songs with themes like these work better when the artist is a brand rather than an upcoming artist, if you understand the undertones of the music industry.
Give Me All then ventures into slight Maxwell territory- think of songs like ‘Til’ the Cops Come’ and ‘Sumthin’ Sumthin’ with its dark, broody bass, neo-soul undertones as well as floaty but decisive vocals. I actually really like the composition of this particular song. It’s extremely unique and compositionally interesting. I think if Joe dropped the early 00s R&B revivalist act and made more songs along the lines of this song, he would stand out more as an artist. It also reminds me of Loose Talk by Aaliyah with the odd time-signature quirks within this song. Surprisingly, with this track, there is no mastering issues at all.
Because of You – Remix has very warm undertones with its introductory chords, but a small problem arises and I think it’s the time signature and the relation of that to his vocal tracks. However, with slight tweaking, this could be the best track of the album. It gives me such a deep neo-soul vibe it ventures into Erykah Badu territory at some point. The elevation in his vocals also help to give this track a dreamyness. It also helps that the chord sequence also reminds me of space-age music, giving it a very interesting juxtaposition to the bass and the percussion. I actually really adore this track, even with the slight flaw in it.
JTGTY really confused me when I first listened to it. There was an attempt to create an acoustic vocal harmony, but there was a brash robotic feel to the vocals. Not in the Zapp & Rogers’ futuristic robotic sense, but like a pitch corrector. The tender trills of piano would’ve shined better if this track was completely organic. I will say, the harmony reminds me a little bit of the rhythm of the harmonies of ‘Liberian Girl’ by Michael Jackson. The piano work in this particular track is extremely sublime, with a slight out-of-tuneness and crystal feel to it. I think if the harmonies were filtered and a little hollowed out, the track would have a sense of balance. Definitely some potential with this track.
The remix of Pinkeen does not necessarily sound better or worse than the original. It loses its technological flair, and fits a true blue track of the 2000s, but it needs more refining within the production to help elevate the track. I’m not sure if the rap sequence helps the track in any form either. I do like the artistic direction this track intended to go in, though.
What do you do starts off quite strong, with a more tender and organic harmony sequence from Joe. This is the sequence that ‘JTGTY’ needed. The mixture of the electric guitar with the Rhodes-like piano makes it actually very classically R&B, as it was once seen as fusion but it was replicated so many times it’s almost second nature to the genre. I love the guitar sequence that accompanies the co-vocalist’s vocals, it gives the song a bit of spunkiness and musical variability.
Once again, the mix of proficiencies within this album does not necessarily deviate from the previous album that I’ve reviewed of him. As much as there were some peaks of artistry within this album, it was a little disheartening to see the exact same pitfalls from the previous release still strewn about this particular production- lack of a better choice/quality of VSTs, problems with vocal mixing as well as EQ’ing, and certainly stylistic fatigue when he definitely has potential to tap into other aspects of his artistry that he’s shown time and time again that he’s extremely competent in, but these aspects do not get instantly marketed towards his brand and his thematic choices.
He shines when he is given the range to be unique and compositionally competent. However, these pitfalls need to be fixed before releasing another album that repeats the same mistakes. Moreover, the constant flooding of semi-spoken-word throughout the album is going to turn off the average listener in this day and age because of the low production quality and the mere length of it. I get the need to merge artistic styles, but it just was not executed well in this particular body of work. If you aim to be experimental, you need to know how to blend it in well with the rest of your songs so that music-oriented people do not get ear fatigue.
Otherwise, the tracks that I think are definitely worthy of a listen are: Oh Yeah, Nos Actions, Give Me All, Because of You – Remix as well as What do you do. One thing that does make me give this album fewer points is the fact that with the last release that I reviewed, the same stylistic and production problems occurred, but the few tracks that I pointed out for consideration were extremely competent and mindblowing. In this particular instance, these tracks are not as mind-blowing as the standout tracks of the other album. They are good tracks, but five out of twenty-two tracks makes me wonder if this should’ve been an EP instead.
Score/Good: ‘SHE’ is an album that unfortunately repeats the same problems that have plagued Joe Lington with his previous release. There are five tracks on the album that will spark some sort of neo-soul revitalisation to your ears, and Joe is also a wonderful vocalist when compelled to make tracks that he sounds definitely comfortable in, but he is extremely capable of producing a body of work that is more competent than this.
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