![]() ![]() The song/video combo brought the Isleys back into the pop top ten for the first time since the mid ‘70s and started a surprising career renaissance. The brothers also appeared in the song’s dramatic video, with Ronald playing a mob boss named Mr. “Contagious” was released in summer 2001, but the song’s story really begins in 1995, when Kelly got The Isley Brothers (Ronald and Ernie) to sing and play guitar on his song “Down Low (Nobody Has To Know)”. But I’ve said several times that you can be an absolute shit canoe as a person and still make enjoyable art, and Kelly isn’t the only part of the puzzle that is “Contagious”. It should go without saying that writing about “Contagious” makes me feel a little icky. Although I guess that makes this moment no different from a million other moments that have occurred between 1994 and now. Kelly moment happening in the public discourse and it feels really weird to celebrate anything that man has ever been a part of. Kelly debut singleĪs I write this, there’s a major R. So…I’m gonna just settle the argument in my head (for the moment) and hopefully we can agree (or not) that “Back & Forth” is a great song from the “we’re not new jack swing” anymore era when hip-hop and R&B were just beginning to seamlessly intermingle.įour-star songs between “Baby, Come To Me” and “Back & Forth”: “Baby, I Believe In You” (New Kids On The Block’s tribute to yacht rock, 1990) | “Baby, I Love You” (Aretha Franklin, 1967) | “Baby, I Love Your Way” (Diana Ross, 1976…and for the record, I’d give Big Mountain’s version three stars, Frampton’s original two stars, and Will To Power’s “Free Baby” mash-up minus 77890 stars) | “Baby, It’s Tonight” (Jude Cole, 1990…had to talk myself out of making this 5 stars) | “Baby, This Love I Have” (Minnie Riperton, 1975…and hey “Check The Rhime” sample!) | “Baby, What A Big Surprise” (Chicago, 1977) | “Babyfather” (Sade, 2010) | “Babylon Boops” (Lovindeer, 1988) | “Babylon” (David Gray, 2000…another one that came close to a 5-star rating) | “Babylon Sisters” (Steely Dan, 1980) aaliyah 1994 R. And he wrote, produced and performed the song. And he has a rap break in the middle of the song. But he does shadow Aaliyah’s vocals with his. Kelly, which may help me create a little bit of distance here. Granted, the lead vocals on “Back & Forth” aren’t performed by R. ![]() What it boils down to, for me at least, is that while Kelly is a major creep, and a criminal, and I won’t spend any more money on him, and there are a lot of songs of his that I feel are beyond the pale (if you can still listen to “It Seems Like You’re Ready”-which I removed from my iTunes library years ago-and not feel like it’s a song about grooming someone, more power to you), his talent and his criminal behavior are (for the most part) mutually exclusive entities. In Kelly’s case, this dialogue has been going on for a decade and a half, at least. I’ve been having a lengthy internal dialogue on separating an artist from their art, and that dialogue has amplified in the past few weeks. Of course, that is due to the extremely dominant presence of R. I can’t write anything about Aaliyah’s first album without feeling profoundly icky. ![]()
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