Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Albums : Iggy Azalea : The New Classic

Albums : Iggy Azalea : The New Classic

Listen To Iggy Azalea : The New Classic


Despite mix reviews on her debut album "The New Classic", Iggy Azalea storms the iTune charts in United States a day after its release moving ahead of the animated soundtrack Frozen.

Released along with another rap album "Honest" by Future on Tuesday, the Australian rapper's debut album is expected to move 50-55 thousand copies on the opening week and will most likely create a huge wave at US official album chart Billboard 200 within the week.

The debut album contains 10 songs in the track list namely: Walk the Line, Don't Need Y'all, 100, Change Your Life, Fancy, New Bitch, Work, Impossible Is Nothing, Goddess, Black Widow, Lady Patra, and F**k Love.

To promote her new album, Iggy Azalea has scheduled a series of album tour across the various cities all over the US states such as Philadelphia, Brooklyn, New York, Atlanta, Georgia, Sta. Ana, and Los Angeles. The complete details of her "The New Classic" tour can be found at Ticket Master.

According to the album review of Craig Mathieson from Sydney Morning Herald, Iggy Azalea's debut album skillfully upset the convention with her ability to create a fascinating blend of hip-hop and pop into an affecting club music. He gave a 3.5 star rating to the album and stated "On her long-awaited debut album, the Mullumbimby-via-Miami rapper Iggy Azalea gets the job done."

However, a review from Time Magazine made by Nolan Feeny on the 23-year-old platinum-blonde's album has a different take. For him, Iggy Azalea has got ambition but her debut album fails to live up to her own propaganda. He stated: "Azalea gets brownie points for the gutsy name, but simply calling your record a classic does not a classic make - rather, her debut is a paint-by-numbers exercise in what a modern rap album should be: a song name-dropping brands here, a chilled-out track asking for alone-time and admonishing hanger-ons there."

Even with the negative comments from various critics, Iggy Azalea's feat of making a name in the arena of rap music is a pride not just for all Australians but for all rap music lovers all over the world.

The New Classic Review
It's been a long time coming, since we've been waiting on this album since she first shoved her "Pu$$y" single in our faces way back in 2011, and Miss Azalea has been busy in the interim. Three EPs, countless stop-start singles that eventually become the dreaded "promotional songs", appearing on tracks with everyone from Diplo to Katy B to Ariana Grande, a Twitter tirade with Azealia Banks, and passing a record deal with Interscope to sign up to T.I.'s label Grand Hustle. And now here we are with The New Classic, an album title just begging for music journalists to make fun of.

First thing you'll notice is that some of Iggy's attention grabbing pre-singles, such as the base-rattling "Murda Bizness" and high-energy "Bounce", are nowhere to be found on here, the latter only appearing as a bonus track on the Deluxe Version. Present and correct, however, are some of the other official (in hindsight) singles, such as the schizophrenic "Work", the ego-boasting "Change Your Life" and the ratchet-y sass of "Fancy" which comes complete with a killer hook provided by indie pop princess Charli XCX.

The second thing you'll notice is that there's still plenty of potential single fodder elsewhere on the album. "Black Widow" has future hit all over it, from the trap-pop sound that makes it sound like a darker alternative to Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" (probably not a coincidence, since its co-written by Perry), and then there's the fantastic production by Stargate and Benny Blanco, as well as the sing-along chorus by Rita Ora. Hit hit hit! "New Bitch" sounds like David Guetta, even if the girl-power message on the rest of the album takes a leave of absence here.

Elsewhere, we've got "Goddess", a fierce and vaguely sinister sounding call to arms for females, taking the vibe of Beyonce's "Bow Down" and running with it. "Lady Patra" is full on reggae, based on a beat of looped chants, video-game SFX and Iggy's breathless, almost break-less vocals. "100" is the oddest track on the album, all warped and chopped and screwed guitars and guest slot by trapstep trio Watch The Duck, and last and far from least, there's album closer "Fuck Love". The closest thing you'll get to a mix of both "Murda Bizness" and "Bounce", it's got the former's profanity and ego, and the latter's overwhelmingly busy (in a good way) production. Plus, a chorus of "I don't need a boyfriend, I'm already in love with myself / Fuck love, gimme diamonds" is to be applauded for its simplicity!

The issue here is that with all these mish-mash of styles, Iggy doesn't really present a personality of her own. The New Classic sounds like a hip-hop version of a Britney album, a sense that a series of singles were selected, and put into the same album that could've been rap-sung by literally anyone. The fact that production duo The Invisible Men provided nine of the twelve songs here is a compliment to their chameleonic work, but a detriment to the album as a whole.

Much like Nicki Minaj's Roman Reloaded album, by trying to retain hip-hop cred AND have some Top 40 hits, Iggy is going to be left with an audience who'll remember her songs, but forget who sung them.


Contact Iggy Azalea
Website | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Soundcloud | Last.fm | iTunes | US Press | US Booking | UK Press | International Booking

Contact International Business Times
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Google+ | Pinterest | Foursquare | YouTube

Contact Entertainment.ie
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Email

Sources : Iggy Azalea Photo | Listen To The New Classic | Iggy Azalea Article | The New Classic Review

Purchase : iTunes (Deluxe Version) | Amazon (Deluxe Edition) | Walmart (Deluxe Edition)

0 comments: