The-Dream - Kellys 12 Play

On this song, The-Dream sings about having sex while listening to R Kelly’s album 12 Play, which is almost exclusively about having sex.  I have several thoughts:

1. This song, like everything on Love vs. Money, is excellent.
2. I apologize in advance for bringing up me having sex, but I need to confess that I’m not the type of person that could have sex while listening to 12 Play.  And it isn’t merely the fact that Kells has been accused of having sex with teenagers on multiple occasions, or the supreme silliness of “Homie Lover Friend”.  The truth is I’m far too self aware to have sex while listening to anything that might be labeled a “sex jam”.  That includes Prince, obviously Let’s Get It On, any Al Green, and the gushier Isley’s stuff—all music I love deeply.  I’d just feel really, incredibly silly.
3. I suspect that being the type of person who enjoys having sex while listening to 12 Play is probably a prerequisite for making the type of insanely awesome music that The-Dream makes.  While it’s always been pretty clear that I’m never going to make awesome music, let alone awesome r&b, it’s always a difficult thing to come to grips with.
4. Especially in this situation.  Because, if I were the type of person who enjoyed having sex while listening to R Kelly, and also the type of person who could make awesome r&b, then I would absolutely make a song about having sex while listening to The-Dream’s song about having sex while listening to R Kelly’s songs about having sex.
   
5. Relatedly, The-Dream actually comes close to making the song even better with the last line, which is “Now we doin’ it to Dream’s Love/Hate”.  So, it’s pretty interesting that The-Dream has sex while listening to his own music, but ignoring that for a moment, how much cooler would the song have been if instead of Love/Hate they started having sex while listening to Love vs. Money, the album that “Kellys 12 Play” is on?  Then we’d get infinite recursion of The-Dream singing about having sex while listening to The-Dream singing about having sex while listening to The-Dream singing about having sex while listening to….and it just goes on like that, never even getting to the 12 Play level.  It’d be basically the Hokey Pokey of sex jams.

R. Kelly - Number One Hit

The Number One Hit Credentials of the things mentioned at the end of R. Kelly’s “Number One Hit”:

(All research comes from wikipedia, links from wikipedia, or boxofficemojo (which was itself a link from wikipedia))

• “my Elvis and Priscilla” -Elvis had ten number one albums and 18 number one singles.  Priscilla costarred in Naked Gun, the 8th highest grossing film of 1988, and the was a cast member of Dallas during season 6, a year it was the top rated show on television.  Neither Elvis nor Priscilla were themselves number one hits.
• “my Michael Jackson Thriller” - The highest selling album of all time, spending 37 weeks atop the Billboard chart.
• “Smooth Operator by Sade” - reached 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent two weeks at one on the adult contemporary chart.
• “baby let’s not forget the 12 Play” - Kelly’s first solo album peaked at 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and topped the R&B chart for 9 weeks.  “Bump and Grind” was also a number one single.
• “you’re my Titanic” - The second highest grossing film of all time.  Also won 11 Oscars.
• “my movie star” (or possibly “my moon and star”, it’s hard to hear for sure) - Alright, now we have a problem.  Neither of these seem to be number one hits.  This nearly ruins my favorite part of the album.  We will return to this point in a moment.
• “My Coming to America” - third highest grossing movie of 1988.
• “my Avatar” - highest grossing movie of all time, surpassing Titanic.

Possible lines to replace “my movie star” that would work better and still rhyme with “my Avatar”:

• “my Shining Star” - The Earth, Wind, and Fire classic reached number one on the Billboard 100 and R&B.
• “my Pixar’s Cars” - Third top grossing movie of 2006.  12th highest grossing animated movie of all time.  The rhyme is a little weak.
• “my Roseanne Barr” - Emmy winning star of the highest rated television series from 1989 to 1990.  Roseanne was not herself a number one hit.
• “my Teri Garr” - Starred in box office smashes Young Frankenstein, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Mr. Mom and Tootsie.  Teri herself was not a number one hit.
• “my Jurassic Park” - 16th highest grossing film of all time.  Only kind of rhymes, but Kells could pull it off.
• “my Dude, Where’s My Car” - 24th highest grossing PG-13 movie of 2000.
• “my lumpfish caviar” - best selling caviar in the world, due to its relative inexpensiveness.

R. Kelly - Love Signals

Why didn’t any tell me about Happy People by R. Kelly?  It’s probably the best album I’ve heard in some time.  I never owned any Kells albums before, and thought of him mostly as kind of a joke (or actually, I still think of him mostly as someone who has sex with teenagers).  I mean, I love the “Ignition” remix like everyone else, but between “I Believe I Can Fly”, “I Like the Crotch On You”, and all the Trapped in the Closet stuff, I just assumed there was nothing to take seriously.

And it’s kind of true.  There’s a lot of playfulness underlying everything on Happy People, but the playfulness seldom turns into the silliness I associate with R. Kelly.  Instead, you get a remarkably upbeat, completely coherent album.  The first four tracks in particular are just immensely fun.  I’ve listened to this album several times on the way to work, and I am in remarkably excellent spirits when I arrive.  When I arrive at work!

I feel kind of like an asshole for being six years late on this, but it’s in my life now and that’s what’s important.

Does anyone know what other R. Kelly albums I should be listening to?  I picked up 12 Play recently, which has some nice moments but there the silliness factor is a little too high for me to take it seriously.  Happy People is actually half of a double album; should I be listening to You Saved Me as well?  Any R. Kelly experts out there wanna help me?