rate This Was 2021 | WINNER!

[supaspaz]

 

The results are in! Nearly 30 voters sent a ballot to determine which early aughts R&B diva gave us the ultimate masterpiece. You loved this music and the final scores were close: Only one song averaged less than a 6 and only one finished above a 9. That means a fierce battle ahead, and perhaps some surprising rankings, though all three albums are well represented in the top ten. (Just for your information, scores have been rounded to two decimal places and one three-way was broken by the number of 10's each track received.) Thank you all for your patience while I put this together. I can't wait to hear what you think, so let's get to it!

[supaspaz]

The first elimination is sure to surprise no one.

[supaspaz]

EASY ON ME

with Chris Stapleton

 

Average score: 3.88

High score: 8.25 (@Ace Reject)

Low score: 1 (@ultraviolence.xx, @MP2K, @creativity., @Norte, @Born to Run)

 

 

Bonus tracks are often throwaways, but this rehash of 30's lead single is particularly pointless: Nearly a carbon copy of "Easy On Me," Adele adds nothing but a chicken-fried harmony from country star Chris Stapleton, who twangs along to every. single. line. like a glorified backup singer. It's not so much bad as utterly baffling, making it an easy choice for the first elimination.

 

Best bit: right before the bridge, when Chris Stapleton really lets loose and briefly makes his presence feel necessary

 

ATRL says…: “This left me confused,” @BnPac admitted. @madonnas noted that there was “not really a significant difference tbh. But why isn’t this on Spotify? Feels like a huge oversight.” He then expressed his disgust with the entire album:

[madonnas]

That wasn’t my post it was just a post on ATRL that made me scream!

 

well I can’t say I disagree with it though

[Ewan Chaos]

5 minutes ago, supaspaz said:

He then expressed his disgust with the entire album

 

Yeah bye to this song

[supaspaz]

PRECIOUS' TALE

 

Average score: 4.43

High score: 10 (@Ace Reject)

Low score: 1 (@ultraviolence.xx, @Insanity)

 

 

The titular tales of Heaux Tales break up the album with further observations on its main themes. These spoken interludes, some of which are wickedly funny, tie together Jazmine Sullivan’s reflections on modern relationships. But the voters in this rate had little use for them, starting with this lead-in to “The Other Side” about not wanting to date a “broke n----.”

 

Best bit: “To be honest/Money makes me cum”

 

[madonnas]

Just feels kind of ??? to do a quick little remix and then not put it on Spotify 

[supaspaz]

Just now, madonnas said:

Just feels kind of ??? to do a quick little remix and then not put it on Spotify 

Apparently they serviced it to country radio and it hit #25 there?

[supaspaz]

 

LITTLE Q, PT. 1 (INTERLUDE)

 

Average score: 4.55

High score: 8 (@Ace Reject)

Low score: 1 (@Born to Run)

 

 

Otherwise known as “Qudus’ Tale,” the first cut from Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is Little Simz’s cousin in his own words, before her song about his hardscrabble life as Black boy growing up in South London.

 

Best bit: “I just pray that you make it all make sense one day/And let me feel like it was all worth it”

[madonnas]

I believe that was my lowest rated Simz interlude?

[supaspaz]

1 minute ago, madonnas said:

I believe that was my lowest rated Simz interlude?

It's really a nothing. Some of the other Simz interludes give you a bit to latch onto, musically and conceptually.

[supaspaz]

ANTOINETTE'S TALE

 

Average score: 4.68

High score: 10 (@Ace Reject)

Low score: 1 (@ultraviolence.xx, @Insanity)

 

 

Podcaster Antoinette Henry revisits a double standard first brought to light by Christina Aguilera on her classic “Can’t Hold Us Down”: men cannot deal with women who own their sexuality as much as men do. It’s Sex-Positive Feminism 101, until a strange late turn that seems to blame women for their mistreatment because “we're out here telling them, that the pussy is theirs/When in actuality, it's ours.” The first of half a dozen interludes on Heaux Tales, it sets up the battles of the sexes on “Pick Up Your Feelings.”

 

Best bit: “Plus, their egos are often way too fragile/To ever handle a woman who owns and has any real agency over her body”

 

ATRL says...: “Good message, but it’s not really a song,” @madonnas said.

[madonnas]

Just now, supaspaz said:

It's really a nothing. Some of the other Simz interludes give you a bit to latch onto, musically and conceptually.

Yeah I gave a good amount of them 7s and 8s.  Jazmines we’re less engaging to me because they weren’t as musical 

[Ewan Chaos]

As long as Pt. 2 gets a good score that's all that matters...

[supaspaz]

What was great was how badass Antoinette Henry was at such a young age to then write "Antoinette's Tale"!

[Norte]

Yeah I didn't enjoy Easy on me with Chris, it was annoying, i think the interludes deserved a better average but ok 

[supaspaz]

THE GARDEN (INTERLUDE)

 

Average score: 4.84

High score: 8 (@Ace Reject, @Taemira)

Low score: 1 (@ultraviolence.xx, @Norte, @Born to Run)

 

 

One of several Sometimes I Might Be Introvert interludes featuring The Crown actor Emma Corrin, “The Garden” is a collection of self-help mantras often found on motivational posters in office break rooms that dissipates into haunting papal chanting.

 

Best bit: “Feelings of being misunderstood arе hard to fathom/But you were never brought here to fit in”

 

ATRL says...: @BnPac thought the album had “too many interludes” but enjoyed the “ooh ending” and the lines: “Masking your emotions is a weakness/It's a kindness to let people in…/All you give will be all you shall receive." @madonnas was “not as into the blatant self-love stuff as most people.”                                   

[supaspaz]

A real song is up next! From a main tracklist and everything! What did you all hate so much?

[Norte]

I guess is an Adele song 

[supaspaz]

1 STEP FORWARD, 3 STEPS BACK

 

Average score: 4.95

High score: 7 (@supaspaz, @MP2K, @Ace Reject, @Eric., @Norte, @Reverie, @Born to Run)

Low score: 1 ( @madonnas, @Invisibility, @creativity., 

 

 

Raise your hand if you expected this to be the lowest-ranking track from Sour. Me neither! (If nothing else, “Hope Ur OK” will always have that.) “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” is Olivia Rodrigo at her most Swiftian – and Swiftie-an – interpolating the chords of the Reputation ballad “New Year’s Day” for a soft piano lament about a roller-coaster lover who will walk her to the door one day and send her home crying the next. The title, a slight twist on the usual idiom, is a reference to Taylor’s favorite number, 13.

 

Best bit: “I'm the love of your life until I make you mad”

 

ATRL says...: “This is legitimately an awful song,” @madonnas raged. “Not a single good quality.” @Ewan Chaos noted that the title is “how I feel listening to this album after ‘Good 4 U.’”

[supaspaz]

Seven scores of 7...but it wasn't lucky for Ms. Rodrigo!

[MP2K]

We really packed Easy On Me right on the **** up huh

[supaspaz]

Just now, MP2K said:

We really packed Easy On Me right on the **** up huh

You all said, "Get that man out of this fucking rate!"

[Ewan Chaos]

I didn't expect this to be her lowest either, or the lowest main tracklist song Not mad about it tho. Any excuse to give Reputation a dragging-by-proxy doesn't bother me.

[MP2K]

Wasn't expecting that! Not her lowest but i guess no one thought it was outstanding enough.