The Peril of The Dream| Trademark Style or Lack of Artistic Growth?
Feb20
The trouble of being a producer in an ever changing musical climate is finding the balance between keeping a personal style, a trademark production style that is unique to you, while also staying modern and fresh and bringing something new to the table. The same goes for an artist and their image. Show me a picture of Janet Jackson, and i’ll most likely be able to tell you around what year it was taken or what album was being promoted at the time. Why? Because her image changes from project to project. Now lets play the same game with The-Dream’s production? Wait…can we play this game? The-Dream’s latest single “Love King” dropped a couple of days ago and it has all the elements of a great Dream song. As Vibe Magazine stated it has the “fingersnaps, repetition, and an unescapable catchphrase (you don’t know me like that!)” , but this song could’ve been on any of the last two albums he released. The same issue also occurred on Mariah Carey’s Memoirs of An Imperfect Angel, which was predominantly produced by The-Dream, Tricky Stewart and Carey. Though the material is good, it all lulls together after a while becausoe of the similarities within the production. Its an interesting problem to have to say the least.
