Kelis – «Kelis Was Here» альбомы туралы

2006 studio album by Kelis

Kelis Was Here is the fourth studio album by American singer Kelis, released on August 22, 2006, by Jive Records. Originally titled The Puppeteer, the album features production by Bangladesh, Raphael Saadiq, Max Martin, Sean Garrett, and Scott Storch, among others, and also features collaborations with will. i. am, Nas, Cee Lo, Too Short, and Spragga Benz. It is Kelis's first album not to feature longtime collaborators the Neptunes. Kelis Was Here received a nomination for Best Contemporary R&B Album at the 2007 Grammy Awards.

The album's lead single, "Bossy", features rapper Too Short. The song peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on December 11, 2006. The second single from the album, "Blindfold Me", featuring Nas, was released solely in the United States. It failed to enter the Billboard Hot 100, "Lil Star", which features Cee Lo of the duo Gnarls Barkley, was released internationally as the album's third and final single. The track reached number three on the UK Singles Chart, earning Kelis her fifth UK top five single as a lead artist. Due to the use of "I Don't Think So" in a promotional advertising for Big Brother Australia 2008, the song entered the Australian ARIA Singles Chart at number 49 on April 21, 2008. The following week it rose to number 29, ultimately peaking at number 27. It also reached number eight on the ARIA Urban Singles Chart.

Kelis Was Here received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 70, based on 23 reviews. Ann Powers from the Los Angeles Times praised its eclectic music and said that it "mines a memory of R&B as the playground of category dismantling individualists." NME magazine wrote that it feels like "a wildly ambitious Warhol esque art project." Kelefa Sanneh from The New York Times described the album as "typically garish and glorious", with sounds that range from "space age hip hop to space age guitar pop". Q magazine said that the album is "chock full of surreal soul diamonds." Pitchforks Tim Finney wrote that, like Wanderland, the album is "formally varied but feels consistent—even monochrome in parts." In a review for The Observer, Peter Robinson commented that the album "occasionally misfires but there's still sass and creativity here." MSN Music's Robert Christgau gave Kelis Was Here a one star honorable mention, indicating "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like." He cited "Blindfold Me" and "What's That Right There" as highlights, and quipped, "Good for sex and not much else, which in a fantasy object is plenty." Chris Salmon of The Guardian wrote that without the Neptunes, "contributors such as Black Eyed Peas' Will. i. am and [ ] Shondrae reject all subtlety for songs that caricature Kelis as sexy, bolshy and not much else. The results are shallow and unconvincing, driven by the kind of brash holler and breathy schmaltz you would expect from J Lo or Pussycat Dolls (complete with the rubbish guest raps)." Mikael Wood of Spin said that Kelis "consolidates" her previous "allure" and "turns up sex, turns down sass". Andy Kellman of AllMusic felt that it lacks first rate material and "the range of emotions to match the varied backdrops." Quentin B. Huff of PopMatters argued that "[t]he songs are individually good, but don't really sound like they should have been grouped together on an album." The album was nominated for Best Contemporary R&B Album at the 2007 Grammy Awards, but lost out to Beyoncé's B'Day.

Kelis Was Here debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 with 58,000 copies sold in its first week, becoming Kelis's highest peaking album on the chart to date. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album had sold 160,000 copies in the United States as of May 2010. The album debuted at number 41 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 6,709 copies in its first week. It was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on September 29, 2006,

+ Release history for Kelis Was Here Region Date Label Ref. (Reference) Canada August 22, 2006 Sony BMG United States Jive Netherlands United Kingdom September 11, 2006 Virgin Sweden September 13, 2006 EMI Italy September 15, 2006 Australia September 16, 2006 Japan September 29, 2006