{"id":138,"date":"2023-04-02T14:16:05","date_gmt":"2023-04-02T18:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/?p=138"},"modified":"2023-04-02T14:21:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T18:21:08","slug":"in-pieces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/in-pieces\/","title":{"rendered":"In Pieces<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Chl\u00f6e<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"chloe<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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By Heven Haile<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
GENRE: Pop\/R&B
LABEL: Parkwood Entertainment \/ Columbia
REVIEWED: March 31, 2023
Beyonc\u00e9 prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Chloe Bailey is a generational talent, but the generic songwriting and chemistry-free features on her solo debut don\u2019t make the case.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re well acquainted with\u00a0Chloe x Halle\u2014\u201cgospel-raised,\u201d genre-bending\u00a0wunderkinds who\u00a0didn\u2019t utter a curse word until their second studio album, 2020\u2019s\u00a0Ungodly Hour<\/em>. Now a 24-year-old solo star,\u00a0Chl\u00f6e\u00a0is ready to\u00a0flaunt her goodies to a pop-trap beat, capitalize on the\u00a0\u201990s R&B revival, and tell anyone who disagrees how much she doesn\u2019t give a fuck. Her debut solo album\u00a0In Pieces<\/em>\u00a0is a compilation of soulless singles curated to produce kiss-off captions. It\u00a0spends so much time defining what\u00a0Chl\u00f6e isn\u2019t\u2014Halle, a Bible-thumping prude, a moral absolutist\u2014that by the end, we have no clue who the\u00a0mononymous singer actually is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyonc\u00e9, Chl\u00f6e\u2019s mentor, set her star project into motion when she stepped onstage at the\u00a02003 BET Awards\u00a0to perform \u201cCrazy in Love.\u201d\u00a0Chl\u00f6e\u2019s solo debut single, \u201cHave Mercy,\u201d aspired to a similar \u201cdebuting on top of a neon sign of her name\u201d moment, but landed like a song from the\u00a0Empire<\/em>\u00a0soundtrack\u2014\u201cbody language like speaking Spanglish\u201d is something Lucious Lyon would come up with. Eclectic, hands-on production and crafty hooks were a huge part of Chloe x Halle\u2019s magic as a duo, but\u00a0Chl\u00f6e\u2019s solo material feels manufactured to the point of sterility. The\u00a0forced strut of her delivery and\u00a0unimaginative \u201cMs. New Booty\u201d sample made \u201cTreat Me\u201d feel optimized for mainstream radio, and album cuts \u201cWorried\u201d and \u201cLooze U\u201d (the latter co-written by\u00a0The-Dream) suffer similar genericism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chl\u00f6e pulls some high-profile features, but they\u2019re all clinical. \u201cTold Ya\u201d wastes a\u00a0Missy Elliott\u00a0collab on vocal warm-up exercises. (Meanwhile, the rising British group\u00a0FLO, who\u2019ve been out for less than a year, managed to refreshingly reimagine one of Missy\u2019s hits and host her brilliantly on their recent \u201cFly Girl<\/a>.\u201d)\u00a0In what reads as a desperate attempt to secure a hit,\u00a0Chl\u00f6e aligns herself with \u201cbad boy\u201d and notorious abuser\u00a0Chris Brown\u00a0for \u201cHow Does It Feel,\u201d a song with the sexual appeal and emotional intimacy of Apple\u2019s Terms and Conditions. She recruits\u00a0Future\u00a0for \u201cCheatback,\u201d an acoustic ballad that relies on his playboy persona as a sort of meta-commentary on infidelity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s credited\u00a0Imogen Heap,\u00a0Donna Summer, and\u00a0Kelis\u00a0as influences, which helps explain some of the album\u2019s jarring vocal experimentations. But her yelped \u201cshiieeett\u201d and \u201cwiieeth\u201d on \u201cTold Ya\u201d are mystifying because\u00a0Chl\u00f6e is one of the greatest vocalists of her\u00a0generation. Dipping into her lower register, she stuns as a contralto. I found myself rewinding her runs on hymnal parts of \u201cHeart on My Sleeve\u201d and could\u2019ve sworn I was levitating during the awe-inspiring bridge of \u201cPray It Away\u201d and \u201cMake It Look Easy.\u201d This is the\u00a0Chl\u00f6e with an ear for otherworldly vocal arrangements that caught the attention of Parkwood and the world. Her first entertainment jobs were as a gospel singer in the Disney Channel movie\u00a0Let It Shin<\/em>e and as a church girl\u2014the younger version of Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s character\u2014in the 2003 musical comedy\u00a0The Fighting Temptations<\/em>, so it was a given that she was gonna take us to church. The operatic arias and bluesy cadences of opener \u201cSomeone\u2019s Calling\u201d would\u2019ve been the perfect introduction to an infidelity album, in the vein of\u00a0Lemonade<\/em>\u2019s \u201cPray You Catch Me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But In Pieces<\/em> is not a concept album. If it is, someone please tell everyone involved in its production. The emotionally charged conversational interludes and narrative intros (\u201cDo you ever wonder, like, who else is fucking your man?\u201d) are out of place amid the redundant themes and mind-numbingly online songwriting. It\u2019s like a choose-your-own-adventure with only two endings: There\u2019s a good-for-nothing man in her life who keeps betraying her, so will she A) give it to God or B) shake some ass and show him what he\u2019s missing? The unfaithful men and nameless \u201cfuck niggas\u201d she croons about are so abstract it\u2019s impossible to connect with her devastation. Does he buy you nice stuff? Is the dick good? Do you not want another woman to profit from your emotional labor? Moments that could\u2019ve built up to rewarding catharsis are dead on arrival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standout single \u201cBody Do,\u201d a bumping dance track overlaid with ethereal falsettos,\u00a0is flirty and upbeat: a convincing introduction to\u00a0Chl\u00f6e the pop star. Still, her most compelling work has been with Halle by her side, complementing her maximalist tendencies. Together, their music struck a golden balance of lively, introspective, and evocative.\u00a0Though they\u2019re two years apart, the sisters\u2019 matching outfits and roles on the TV series\u00a0Grown-ish<\/em>\u00a0had people confusing them for twins. As the younger sister of identical twins, I know firsthand the lengths they will go to differentiate themselves when they come of age. Now that Halle is a\u00a0Disney princess, Chl\u00f6e cosplays as a dominatrix.\u00a0In Pieces<\/em>\u00a0meets a fate worse than controversy: banality.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chl\u00f6e 2023 By Heven Haile GENRE: Pop\/R&BLABEL: Parkwood Entertainment \/ ColumbiaREVIEWED: March 31, 2023Beyonc\u00e9 prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Chloe Bailey is a generational talent, but the generic songwriting and chemistry-free features on her solo debut don\u2019t make the case. We\u2019re well acquainted with\u00a0Chloe x Halle\u2014\u201cgospel-raised,\u201d genre-bending\u00a0wunderkinds who\u00a0didn\u2019t utter a curse word until their second studio album, 2020\u2019s\u00a0Ungodly Hour. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabriafreeman.com\/nmc\/webdev\/project-three\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}