The UK's digging our boy!

[foxmonkey]

Woohoo! I think we've found the UK version of Kelefa Sanneh. Remember Peter Robinson, the guy who gave us this quote a week ago:

Schizophrenic is an innovative, sophisticated, risk-taking album; proof that while JC's fellow *NSYNCer may or may not boast a prolific trousersnake, Chasez has the biggest balls.

He's back with more, this time in the Guardian. Whee!

And Schizophrenic only debuted at No 17 in the States, shifting just 52,531 copies in its first week. But Chasez has still come up trumps, creatively and artistically at least, with a dark and unusually adventurous collection of 1980s electro and Prince-type funk.

Posted in solo_chasez by jchalo (via stamplet), and I snagged it so I'd have it for myself. :-) The entire fabulous article...

Face no more
Peter Robinson listens to the voice of reason

Saturday March 27, 2004
The Guardian

In an age when most boybanders look for the predictive text feature on a ballpoint pen, JC Chasez is a cut above. Last month, when the editor of Schizophrenia Digest criticised JC for the title of his first solo album Schizophrenic, Chasez (pronounced "Sh'say") quoted the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition ("contradictory or antagonistic qualities or attitudes"), announced that "it was this meaning of the word that I was using to describe my work", and moved on.

The *Nsync graduate's response to being axed from the post-Janet NFL Probowl was even more startling. "The NFL's shallow effort to portray my music as sexually indecent brings to mind another era when innocent artists were smeared with a broad brush by insecure but powerful people," he announced. A few days later he added, "The NFL's leadership has clearly become so disoriented it has reduced itself to bashing me and my music to divert attention from the fact that the NFL screwed up at the Super Bowl." And then, "What they are doing is hypocritical and it's stupid. They are smearing my name and I don't appreciate it."

This is not the behaviour of a generic, spoon-fed, happy-clappy pop mule. Nor is JC content to take the easy route with his music. Trotting out a few Pharrell collaborations might have been the route to surefire success, but Chasez went for the likes of Basement Jaxx, Rockwilder, BT and Dallas Austin. OK, so JC's claim that Schizophrenic was put together entirely on his own terms might be skewed by the fact that only 12 months ago his label published a free-for-all online survey asking fans for pointers on what the album should sound like. And Schizophrenic only debuted at No 17 in the States, shifting just 52,531 copies in its first week. But Chasez has still come up trumps, creatively and artistically at least, with a dark and unusually adventurous collection of 1980s electro and Prince-type funk.

This week JC celebrates his first sort-of-solo UK release: Plug It In, a frenetic Basement Jaxx collaboration first featured on last year's brilliant Kish Kash. JC ended up on the song by accident. Prior to Chasez turning up at the Jaxx studio to discuss their future production of one of his solo tracks, Simon and Felix had tried various vocalists on Plug It In, with disappointing results; JC was ushered into the booth and his vocal porridge was just right. One reviewer likened the Jaxx's choice of JC over Justin Timberlake as "kind of like choosing Ringo over Paul", and even Basement Jaxx briefly wondered what they were doing with a pop star on their record. In the end, common sense prevailed. "We used him," Simon Ratcliffe later reasoned, "because he can sing."

Yet the great thing about JC Chasez isn't his singing voice but that - rare in a modern popstar, almost non-existent in an American one - he has a voice, and seems happy to use it. It might not sell him any records, but with hair that high who's complaining?


I love JC getting props for standing up to the NFL. He has a voice, indeed.

JC!

Comments

[foxmonkey.livejournal.com]

Dude, that was on the JJB! But it was just one person, like you, who heard it from another source. It didn't explode, I think people are afraid to hope to much. Let me go find the post.

[foxmonkey.livejournal.com]

I think people are afraid to hope to much.

To hope *TOO* much, of course. I really can spell. ::le sigh::

[scot-ty.livejournal.com]

I really can spell. ::le sigh::

It's the bird, I tell you. The bird.

[foxmonkey.livejournal.com]

It's the bird, I tell you. The bird.

It's sucking the energy right. out. of. my. head! (to be read a la James T. Kirk) ;-)