A Beginners Guide to Solanges Music
By now you may be aware that Solange, Beyonc's younger sister, is in the news for allegedly getting into a fight with Jay Z on an elevator after the Met Gala. Probably inevitably, considering the number of stars and star-orbiters involved, the altercation spawned a lot of Internet jokes  there's about a 50 chance none of them will be remotely funny when the full story inevitably comes out, so caveat meme-ptor  and a lot of explaining by the media of who exactly Solange is, some of it rather silly. So here's who Solange really is an RB artist, director and tastemaker with label Saint Records, who's made music for about a decade that varies from hooky to restrained to wildly creative and to  for lack of a better word  "indie." She's rubbed off on her sister, too Solange has both directly written for Beyonce  B'Day's "Get Me Bodied" and "Upgrade U" were both her co-writes  and influenced her in subtle ways, like introducing Chairlift's Caroline Polachek to the Beyonc songwriters' circle. In other words, there's a lot in her career to catch up on, so we've put together a quick introductory course the big singles, as well as a couple of the best album tracks. A quick note on song selection A decade is a lot of music to cover, so we've limited this to solo tracks  no covers, which rules out her much-praised version of Dirty Projectors' "Stillness is the Move," and no collaborations, which rules out a lot., "Losing You", For a lot of people, this is Solange's best-known track. The critically beloved lead single from 2012's fantastic EP True, "Losing You" begins as a splashy street-party affair like Solange's previous album Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams  more on that later  but quickly settles into a more melancholy groove. Over brooding synth pads, Solange handles producer Dev Hynes' hymnlike melody like she's turning and turning over the memories of a snuffed-out relationship "Tell me the truth, boy, am I losing you for good?" The track doesn't mope it just doesn't know what to think. Which means it can go on forever. "Sandcastle Disco", Unlike True, Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams 2008 was a full album, both in terms of runlength and in terms of being a big statement Solange's first album in five years, and a musically omnivorous offering of bandleader Motown and dazzling pop that sounds flung into the future and past at once. RB isn't always too kind to these sorts of statements  for every Janelle Monae who's celebrated for this kind of musical creativity, there's an Amerie and dozens more, actually who slips mostly into obscurity  and it's a testament to Solange's connections and skill that it received the lasting praise it deserved. Sol-Angel produced a few singles, but "Sandcastle Disco"  a minor hit in the UK  is among the most immediately catchy. Written with a pre-overexposure Cee-Lo Green and hyperprolific if these days mostly, sadly, forgotten RB production duo Soulshock  Karmin, it's a sunny, shuffling cut that wears its vulnerability like sandals soon to be tossed off. A few more notes The video for "Sandcastle Disco" is Solange's directorial debut, and the clip's poppy and splashy and slyly self-aware  there's a takeoff of Andy Warhol's soup cans that shouldn't be spoiled if you haven't seen it. "Sandcastle Disco" is also one of those tracks that sounds even better remixed. There are several mixes most can be streamed, and in with the usual get-in-dance-get-out club remix fare are two standouts. King Britt's house-piano reduction is ahead of its time specifically, the house revival of the past two years, but I'm partial to Gomi's mix, a wind of sounds against which Solange's melody sounds as fragile as claimed. "Would've Been the One", If "Sandcastle Disco" is a bit self-conscious, a glitter-snowglobe version of its Motown source material, "Would've Been the One" is closer to the real thing a piano-led sparkler, Solange belting and cooing the melody as flashily as possible. It's one of the best showcases of Solange not just as a trendsetter or curator of sounds, but a singer, a song interpreter and a versatile one at that. The fact that it sounds timeless is just a bonus. "Wonderland", Solange's debut, Solo Star, often gets overlooked, probably because it's not trying to be an ambitious art piece with track titles like "Cosmic Journey" featuring Motown touches like historical nods, but a commercial RB album, at least theoretically intended to move units. That didn't quite happen, but it may just be a matter of luck, because Solo Star is a commercial album released in a year  2003  when commercial RB was really, really good. Solange has defended this point repeatedly in interviews, calling out people who pontificate about new RB without even being familiar with the old stuff. The stutter hook and skipping beat, by producer Rockwilder, are products of a radio landscape the Neptunes helped shape  and the fact that lead Neptune Pharrell's producing everything again should clue you in to how good that was  and the radical optimism of Solange's lyric is a nod to what she'd come up with next. "Bad Girls Verdine Version", True has yet to get a follow-up album, probably due to Dev Hynes' feud with Solange. Even the subsequent singles didn't quite connect  but it wasn't for their quality. It's just that True is a restrained, introverted kind of album, that works best as a whole, a sustained mood. "Bad Girls" is the moodiest of all, Solange taking a slow jam from Hynes' project Blood Orange and flipping the lyric into a sort of answer song. It's best if you listen to the two tracks in tandem., Oh, and the Verdine in the title? Bassist Verdine White of Earth, Wind  Fire. The past year or so have seen lots of artists re-recruiting the great disco, funk and session musicians of the 70s  chiefly among them Chic's Nile Rodgers  but true to True's form, Solange is restrained about it. Part of that's because she can be  it's a lot easier to get Verdine White on your song when your last name is Knowles  but even so, it's a statement, Solange claiming musical stature like it's no big deal. By this point, she's earned it.