Nick’s Quick Review: Cassie

September 8th, 2006

Okie now. Cassie, also known as Casandra Ventura is a young girl. She was born in 1986 and she’s released a huge album. And straight up this album is huge. This is serious R&B which I personally am not into, however I’m trying to step aside from my personal preference and be as objective as possible.

You’ve probably heard the song Me & U (video link) if you’ve ever turned on an R&B station. It’s a truly bumpin’ track. I hit the club, The Palace, a couple weeks ago in Halifax and when that track came on. The floor started movin’!!!

Cassie, the formal model for Adidas and Abercrombe and Fitch, got a record deal when her mother got her a record session for her birthday with record industry big-wig Ryan Leslie. Once Leslie got a feel for her style, he gave her a management deal and they recorded a few tracks.

This album, which I’ve been lilstening to all day, is good. The first run I gave it today (which wasn’t the first time I had heard it), I enjoyed it for the high quality production. Cassie has a soothing voice that’s easy to listen to. Because I’m not a fan of R&B the second time I listened to it, I wanted to destroy the CD. But the third time through it started growing on me again.

Cassie sings about love and loss and love, and she does it well. Though this album really does resemble Brandy’s last album Aphrodisiac. There’s also some tracks that really remind me of Nelly Furtado and Gwen Stefani’s latest work. If you have an ear for it you can pick out some flavour from Toni Estes and AAliyah. The glacial production on this album elevates Cassie to the stands with these established artists. The reason for that being, she’s signed to Bad Boy, with Diddy as the executive producer.

Lately Cassie has been getting some serious flak for her live performances and the media has been ripping into her hard. I can’t comment on whether or not that’s ligitimate, but with a former model as a rising pop star, produced by Diddy, I don’t blame critics for the scrutiny.

There are some things I would’ve liked to hear on this album. One being at another up and coming artist collaboration. It’s a little dry. Producer Ryan Leslie does sing and rhyme, but he doesn’t do the songs any justice, I think he takes the style in the wrong, Boys II Men direction. Another thing I’d like to hear different subject matter. Once again, it’s a little dry, but you can’t loose points for that. It’s uncommon to rise above a single topic on an album now in days. Finally, Cassie should have writing credits on more than 3 songs. But hey, Beyonce has writing credits on the songs Kiss Me.

The best songs on this album are Me & U, Call You Out and Long Way to go

This CD is good but not great. It is worth having in your collection.

I give this CD 3 out of 5 Trashed Party Houses

Posted on Friday, September 8th, 2006 at 4:50 pm by Nick and is filed under Blog.