Standout "Do You." unfolds in an ethereal cloud of synth, voices streaming like angelic choirs before stumbling into a verse buoyed by its own euphoria. The plush, lightly psychedelic production buffers the record's more barebones moments, and Miguel's precocious vocals take flight on the bombast rather than drowning in it. Even more affecting is the acoustic murmur "Pussy Is Mine", which deflates masculinized hip-hop tropes with insecurity, pleading, "Tell me that the pussy is mine/ 'Cause I don't wanna believe that anyone is just like me." The sentiment turns sardonic on the Ryan Leslie-like jaunt of "How Many Drinks?", where gorgeous falsetto verses are offset by uncertain pleas of "I don't wanna waste my time." There's the tender "Use Me" where he admits being nervous about having sex with the lights on. That touch of modesty colors most of Kaleidoscope Dream. But I'll be damned if it doesn't pull you in and make you feel it. It's definitively, deceptively simple, a nugget of concentrated sunshine, and not necessarily all that original. "Adorn" also showcases Miguel's secret weapon: modesty. He rockets off into falsetto for irresistibly brief moments, and a new outro spirals elegant, trained vocal gymnastics around the song's chorus. It's one of the giddiest love songs of the year, a track where ecstatic infatuation is hemmed in by Miguel's understated vocal dexterity, and this album feels like its proper context. Kaleidoscope Dream starts off with "Adorn", also found on the first Art Dealer Chic EP. And now, with his second full-length, he's delivered on that early promise. They also contained his best songs to date. Free and widely available, they earned him some well-deserved re-examination.
Those mostly self-produced songs at times sounded like rough sketches, but they made it up for it by sounding personal and liberated from the demands of the industry. He returned earlier this year with a free trio of EPs under the self-conscious title of Art Dealer Chic, showing a newfound entrepreneurial sensibility and a streak of independence. It sounded like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to be a Salaam Remi faux-nostalgia crooner or a smart hip-hop crossover star, and the indecision hung over the record like a cloud (it didn't perform well commercially either). It does not store any personal data.Miguel's 2010 debut album, All I Want Is You, was flanked with some stellar singles but weighed down by a lack of identity as he flitted from producer to producer. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.