i am so damn excited about this lady. where are the posts about her!? did i miss one? also, trying to decide if i should spend $30+ to see her live as an opener for of montreal. any thoughts?

i would pay that much to see her, based on some live clips i've seen. i'd probably leave shortly after

the record showed up in the TWENTYTEN thread, possibly elsewhere

her gimmick is tired.

Saw her at SXSW last year. Great performer but I thought then and continue to think that the songs just aren't there and she's getting over on presence/image and Big Boi pedigree.

That said, I'd go see her with Of Montreal. Put together, that night is going to be a mindfuck.

my wife loves her. There's four or five of her songs that i absolutely love.

what gimmick is that?

jackson 5 meets rush

Good question! (I like toots' answer.)

I like her. The only real drawback to her music right now is that her voice doesn't really seem to be anything special. She's not bad, but as an R&B/pop-type singer, she needs a little more character and soul to her voice, I think.

The eclecticism of her music works in her favor for now. I think in time she'll either emerge with a style more clearly her own, or she'll fade into obscurity. For now she's got a handful of great songs on that album. Her song on the Big Boi album is really good, too.

She has a theme that she's working in and a definite philosophy for how she approaches her music and her image, but it's far from being a gimmick. Lady GaGa has a gimmick. M.I.A. has a gimmick, even. Janelle Monae does not.

she's friendly...I think she's good but I don't know how much she has in her.

real talk. the hook here is it's r&b without soul, style over substance. there're a couple good songs, but this is mostly being gobbled up by people who wouldn't know sharon jones from, like, sharon tandy.

exactly right. she's as much of a gimmick as Lady Gaga. it's a fashion show without any real soul.

it's the one song from the album that i deleted from my iPod.

Is Sharon Jones really the best example of "real soul" music right now? If so I'm glad to have someone like Janelle Monae around.

Yeah, I like some of her songs...I haven't heard full albums.

Her live show is fun, and so is Of Montreal's. Money well spent.

Also, you know what, just because she's black and sings doesn't mean she has to be a soul singer.

I realize I said myself right up there that I might like her more if her voice were more soulful or distinctive, but maybe that's not what she's going for.

no. that was only an example.

It's not really an applicable example, though. She's doing something completely different from Sharon Jones.

To me... she draws more from David Bowie and glam rock. I think the production values are great. I like alot of the songs, and think on the whole, she's pretty solid.

i like some of the songs on the album but don't think her voice is all that memorable. i think the problem for me is that the production on it, and to a lesser extent on the big boi album, seems to have never advanced past the mid-90's and makes it sound dated.

To me it's more early-mid 00s production sounding, like it hasn't advanced past Stankonia or Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.

But those are newer classic albums, to me.

I think it sounds way less dated than Timbaland's or Pharell's production values for example.

I've had a friend raving about her for awhile. I just can't get into any of the stuff I've heard.

that just means you don't like her fashion sense or her singing, which is fine, but you didn't explain what her gimmick is.

holy christ jewels.

"holy christ" what? He's right. What's her "gimmick"?