Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 27:13
Size: 62,7 MB
Art: Front
(3:56) 1. Hello Happiness
(4:59) 2. Like A Lady
(3:18) 3. Don't Cha Know
(3:43) 4. Too Hot
(3:59) 5. Like Sugar
(3:31) 6. Isn't That Enough
(3:45) 7. Ladylike
On August 31, 2018, a magenta-haired, fan-carrying Chaka Khan stepped onto the stage of Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple to honor her friend and mentor Aretha Franklin. I’ve watched the video of her performance a good 20 times, mainly because of how remarkable Chaka Khan’s transformation is, how powerful she grows. She begins with “Good evening” before correcting herself and saying, “Good afternoon”; the music comes in, and her voice famously elastic and raw slips out, warbly and tentative. She glances a few times at the back of her fan, where the lyrics to the hymn she is singing, “Going Up Yonder,” are conspicuously pasted. There’s a good 30 seconds, the first time you see the video, where you begin to silently pray to yourself, Please don’t let this be a disaster. Several bishops sit behind her, nodding respectfully.
Then the choir starts to sway and a smile breaks out on her face. She paces the stage, a bit dazed, but in full control. Around the 2:30 mark, you can tell that Chaka Khan’s got the hang of it she just had to warm up. The choir swells like a tidal wave and the band is locked in. Going into the third chorus, it finally happens: The Chaka Khan cry is unleashed. Pained and piercing, she summons it from somewhere deep in her stomach. It’s the same cry that punctuated the last choruses of “Ain’t Nobody” and “Through the Fire.” The respectful bishops stand up instantly, the choir sings at the top of its lungs, and Chaka Khan has risen. The performance, complete with an encore, lasts over nine minutes. She smiles as she surrenders the mic at the end, as if to remind us: She might not remember all the words or hit all the notes, but, at 65 years old, she remains the undisputed Queen of Funk.
Hello Happiness, Chaka Khan’s first album of new music in 12 years, unfortunately frames her as a novelty past her prime. Released as the first project on Diary Records, the vanity imprint of Switch better known as an original member of Major Lazer and the man half-responsible for “Bubble Butt” it’s an album shockingly devoid of the expert musicianship that has defined Chaka Khan’s career. Instead of emphasizing the live instrumentation, hair-raising harmonies, and goosebump-inducing modulations of Funk This, the 2007 album anchored by longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis that maximized her talents, Hello Happiness is a messy, overproduced, anonymous set of hotel-lobby beats that makes woeful use of one of the greatest voices of all time.
Single “Hello Happiness,” featuring deconstructed disco violins and a thumping bassline from Sam Wilkes, could conceivably make for a good time on the dancefloor. But Switch and Ruba Taylor’s mind-numbing, budget-Jamiroquai instrumental is shockingly bland; if anything, the production here, as on the rest of Hello Happiness, makes it feel like Switch and Ruba Taylor in drastic comparison to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s careful work on Funk This have never before listened to a single Chaka Khan song. Of course, Chaka Khan isn’t free from blame she’s spoken of how inspired she was meeting Switch and Ruba Taylor in the studio, and she has co-writes or production credits on every song. But no matter who's at fault, having Chaka Khan and Switch together on wax feels like washing down a $40 ribeye with a Four Loko.
There’s a moment when Hello Happiness works. On the sensual and affirming closing track, “Ladylike,” Chaka Khan finally breaks free of vocal effects, and, accompanied by feel-good guitar by funk legend Ricky Rouse and backup vocals from her daughter Indira, the contours of her voice, worked like cracked leather, are allowed to emerge. But that’s about it.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that Chaka Khan is clearly in a better place than she was a few years ago: The album has been touted as marking a new chapter in her life, following a dark moment when she returned to rehab in the aftermath of the death of her close friend and collaborator Prince. If Chaka Khan’s found the happiness she’s so doggedly searched for and deserved over the course of a life plagued with difficulty, then we should celebrate that, despite the album’s soul-starved production. As she sings on the title track, “Love is what I’m here for/So don’t give me no bad news.”
Still, that happiness doesn’t feel truly genuine across the album. In Chaka Khan’s life and music, happiness has always been accompanied by bad news. It’s what’s made her who she is. There’s a reason she chose to sing “Going Up Yonder” at Aretha’s funeral and sang it the way she did. “I can take the pain/The heartaches they bring,” the song goes. “The comfort in knowing/I’ll soon be gone.” Now that sounds like Chaka Khan. And when she sang those words on that church stage in Detroit, the smile she unleashed one of relief, and knowing, and strength said it all.
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/chaka-khan-hello-happiness/
Then the choir starts to sway and a smile breaks out on her face. She paces the stage, a bit dazed, but in full control. Around the 2:30 mark, you can tell that Chaka Khan’s got the hang of it she just had to warm up. The choir swells like a tidal wave and the band is locked in. Going into the third chorus, it finally happens: The Chaka Khan cry is unleashed. Pained and piercing, she summons it from somewhere deep in her stomach. It’s the same cry that punctuated the last choruses of “Ain’t Nobody” and “Through the Fire.” The respectful bishops stand up instantly, the choir sings at the top of its lungs, and Chaka Khan has risen. The performance, complete with an encore, lasts over nine minutes. She smiles as she surrenders the mic at the end, as if to remind us: She might not remember all the words or hit all the notes, but, at 65 years old, she remains the undisputed Queen of Funk.
Hello Happiness, Chaka Khan’s first album of new music in 12 years, unfortunately frames her as a novelty past her prime. Released as the first project on Diary Records, the vanity imprint of Switch better known as an original member of Major Lazer and the man half-responsible for “Bubble Butt” it’s an album shockingly devoid of the expert musicianship that has defined Chaka Khan’s career. Instead of emphasizing the live instrumentation, hair-raising harmonies, and goosebump-inducing modulations of Funk This, the 2007 album anchored by longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis that maximized her talents, Hello Happiness is a messy, overproduced, anonymous set of hotel-lobby beats that makes woeful use of one of the greatest voices of all time.
Single “Hello Happiness,” featuring deconstructed disco violins and a thumping bassline from Sam Wilkes, could conceivably make for a good time on the dancefloor. But Switch and Ruba Taylor’s mind-numbing, budget-Jamiroquai instrumental is shockingly bland; if anything, the production here, as on the rest of Hello Happiness, makes it feel like Switch and Ruba Taylor in drastic comparison to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s careful work on Funk This have never before listened to a single Chaka Khan song. Of course, Chaka Khan isn’t free from blame she’s spoken of how inspired she was meeting Switch and Ruba Taylor in the studio, and she has co-writes or production credits on every song. But no matter who's at fault, having Chaka Khan and Switch together on wax feels like washing down a $40 ribeye with a Four Loko.
There’s a moment when Hello Happiness works. On the sensual and affirming closing track, “Ladylike,” Chaka Khan finally breaks free of vocal effects, and, accompanied by feel-good guitar by funk legend Ricky Rouse and backup vocals from her daughter Indira, the contours of her voice, worked like cracked leather, are allowed to emerge. But that’s about it.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that Chaka Khan is clearly in a better place than she was a few years ago: The album has been touted as marking a new chapter in her life, following a dark moment when she returned to rehab in the aftermath of the death of her close friend and collaborator Prince. If Chaka Khan’s found the happiness she’s so doggedly searched for and deserved over the course of a life plagued with difficulty, then we should celebrate that, despite the album’s soul-starved production. As she sings on the title track, “Love is what I’m here for/So don’t give me no bad news.”
Still, that happiness doesn’t feel truly genuine across the album. In Chaka Khan’s life and music, happiness has always been accompanied by bad news. It’s what’s made her who she is. There’s a reason she chose to sing “Going Up Yonder” at Aretha’s funeral and sang it the way she did. “I can take the pain/The heartaches they bring,” the song goes. “The comfort in knowing/I’ll soon be gone.” Now that sounds like Chaka Khan. And when she sang those words on that church stage in Detroit, the smile she unleashed one of relief, and knowing, and strength said it all.
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/chaka-khan-hello-happiness/
Hello Happiness
