ASHANTI

ASHANTI (2002)

Universal; ASIN: B000063UMO

I was telling Jonny how we should do some reviews of albums that are both current and that people have heard of. Jonny called me an asshole. Never the less, I went to www.billboard.com to see what was hot. I go there from time to time anyway to see what's popular and to see how like half of the people I went to high school with have already made more money than I will in my lifetime. But that's another story.

So at number one for three weeks, it's Ashanti, which means she sells more albums in a week than NOMEANSNO will in a career. I had no idea who she was. I don't say that to brag - like those idiots who when you say "that reminds me of the time Homer offered Apu's god a peanut" say "I don't own a TV." Uh, who the fuck asked you? People who don't own TVs spend more time telling people that they don't own one than I do watching mine. Sort of like how people in AA spend more time thinking about alcohol than I do. But anyway, I figured I'd download all of the songs of the album at check out the Ashanti craze. Hell, the name even passes the spellcheck, and Apu doesn't. Niether does 'spellcheck'!! 'Spellchecker' does. What does a spellchecker do?

Yeah, Ashanti. Ashanti is an average singer, by which I mean she could walk into a karaoke bar on a given night and be one of the two or three best singers there. This is kind of speculation on my part, in these days of over production. Her voice is clearly altered, and I think it must have been on about seventy-five tracks. It's possible that Ashanti can't sing at all. I like plenty of bands with people who can't sing, but since the R&B genre is largely about showing off your singing abilities as exemplified by everyone from Smokey Robinson to Boys II Men, it's got to count as a strike that Ashanti is an average singer at best. The music is original, or rather an original combination. It's a cross between wimpy hip-hop and the stuff they play on 94.7, The Wave, i.e. wimpy jazz. They put the 'G' in Kenny G! Yuk yuk! Even given the bland tastes of the multitudes, this can't be popular because of the tunes. My guess is that people think it's sexy. Ashanti's decent looking, and these songs are all about love and sex. Sometimes she does that Britney thing where she kind of lets her voice break. It didn't to anything for me because I had already developed an awful headache by the time I got to that part of the album.

Ruthless Ratings

Buy It Or Burn It: I downloaded and listened to eight whole songs, out of duty, then immediately purged them from my computer. I suggest avoiding steps one and two and thus saving yourself step three.

Quantify It: 2