Becoming a parent is a life changing experience, a fact which is borne out by the amount of songs which have been written by pop stars who have just knocked out a “sprog”. Often the resulting records are, let’s be honest, a bit shit. Phil Lynnot was apparently pestered into recording the dutiful Cathleen. But sometimes they are great. Loudon Wainwright III wrote Rufus Is A Tit Man about his son (well he got THAT wrong, didn’t he?), Stevie Wonder’s experience of fatherhood produced Isn’t She Lovely and now with her fifth album Kelis enters the pantheon of People Who’ve Written Quite Good Songs About Having A Kid. Several songs here touch on the subject of motherhood, including the intriguingly titled opening track Intro. Acapella has been hogging the chart for a month now and is damn near the best thing in the current top 40. “Before you my whole life was acapella”, it goes, “now a symphony’s the only song to sing”. It’s arguable whether a symphony is more meritorious than an acapella song but the point isn’t entirely lost – becoming a mother is a “kinda mind-blowing experience”. The point is laboured (ho ho!) somewhat with titles like Scream and Song For The Baby, but no matter when the music is a banging r’n’b dance hybrid as compelling as this. David Guetta is involved in some of the best bits here, including Acapella, and that other pop maverick Will.I.Am is also much in evidence. While there are only nine official tracks on the album, there are lots of housey sounding interludes which follow the trend in recent r’n’b for harking back to late 80s Chicago house. Like Kid Sister’s recent brilliant Ultraviolet album, Fleshtone brilliantly fuses that Wax Trax sound with something more contemporary. When you consider the attention which is rightly afforded to Rihanna and Beyonce, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that Kelis is massively undervalued in her field. Perhaps Fleshtone will nudge her into the limelight she deserves.
Ciaran Gaynor
