Happy Tuesday everyone,
I hope you all had a good weekend, I actually went out and unfortunately managed to only get 6 hours sleep total for the whole weekend, which explains my current cold situation. When given the opportunity to rest what did I do, with my musically addicted self, I stayed up to wait for Ciara’s album to drop and I must say I am really happy that I did. The Jackie album which is her 6th album and named after her mum is one that has catchy hooks and after the second listen I was singing along to beats that had me bobbing my head into a dream world.
At 00:10 I got my notification from Apple to say my pre-order was ready to download and I was excited. I downloaded it straight away and then ended up staying up until 3am listening to the ‘Jackie’ album. I listened 3 times in total before I fell asleep and found myself humming along to the songs and even knowing some of the hooks (yes I know I am sad). Obviously I knew ‘I Bet’, her first single from the album which I adore and I also love the video, which was directed by Hannah Lux Davis, who previously directed ‘I’m Out’ from her album ”Ciara’. The second single release I have heard was ‘Dance Like We’re Making Love’ as you can see from my lip sync video, this is one that I anticipate to do just as well as ‘I Bet’ and I would say that this song is her updated version of ‘Body Party’.
The album starts with a song called ‘Jackie B.M.F.’ and I loved the beat, unfortunatey I cannot say what B.M.F. stands for but let’s just say Ciara uses the F-Bomb quite a bit on this first track. She has a short intro at the beginning of the song, which is followed by her telling Harmony Samuels who co-produced ‘I Bet’ with Chris O’Ryan to ‘drop that beat’. She goes on to say she’s bad and that she even dropped a 9 pounds 10 ounce baby, Ciara definitely gets a thumbs up from me for that because that could not be easy, my son was only 6 pound 4 ounces and that was hard enough. The beat then switches again and she tells us that she is a bad motherf****, Ciara has always inspired me with her powerful ballads but this new abbreviation, I am sure will earn her a trending hash tag.
The second song on the album that I was drawn to was Lullaby, a song about putting a man to bed and I am sure you know what she means. If not she most definitely spells it out in her lyrics and Ciara has kept nothing secretive about what she wants to do to her man so he does not need to ‘count sheep’. I don’t know how many of you managed to catch the boing at the weekend as well (Mayweather won via a unanimous decision) but she even says “I can be your Mayweather knock you off your feet” in her song Lullaby. The song like it’s title has a real tinkle to the tune and does sound like a lullaby by all means except it is not one that you would play to your child.
I must admit I did not sit down to write this review straight away because I actually cried when I got to her song ‘I Got you’. An ode to her son, it couldn’t be more accurate for how I feel about my own son, Antoine Hoyte-Lovell. When I picked him up from my mum’s house after I finished work I told him I had heard a song that had reminded me of him. I took him to the cinema to see Avengers Assembly (a brilliant film by the way) where he told me Thanos is his favourite bad character and he’s actually from Guardians of the Galaxy. When I returned from the cinema Antoine asked me to play him the song I said made me think of him ‘I Got You’. He sat quietly on my lap before bed and listened to the lyrics, when the song finished he got up and hugged me. Antoine is a very caring child and I constantly tell him ‘I love him and I am proud of him’, I think he appreciates that. This song in particular really touched me as the intro begins with a lullaby again ‘Hush Little Baby’ but she has remixed it as a dedication to her own son. When the introduction finishes she goes on to say that she would ‘do anything’ for him. I can most definitely relate to that and I am sure there are a lot of you that either have mums that will do anything for you or you would do anything for your own children (Empire). I myself thought of the support I have had from my parents in writing my book and also the support I give Antoine in chasing his dream of acting or directing.
Ciara really seemed to put a lot of emotion into this album especially in ‘I Got You’ and the production of the album is put together well which you would expect with producers like Harmony Samuels on writing and producing beats for it. I must say I prefer the tracks with a more R’n’B vibe but that’s just me, however, everyone I know who has listened to it has said that ‘I Got You’ is one of their top songs. It’s been a long time coming from Ciara but the ‘Jackie’ album has definitely been an album worth waiting for in my eyes. I would love to know what you think of ‘I Got You’ or even the whole album, let me know? I think you’ll agree with me that we can definitely only expect Ciara to get better and evolve like she has been over the years.
XOXO