Chess – ‘Tuxedo EP’ [Review]
Those who have been following The Musical Melting Pot since the start are likely to recognise Chess from this review. On Tuxedo, her second EP, Chess has discarded the girl-power platitudes familiar to fans of Nicole Scherzinger and remodelled herself as the female equivalent of Justin Timberlake.
This change is most evident in Tuxedo‘s classy-gangster cover art, and the markedly Señorita-inspired vibe of third track Dangerously Beautiful – on which featured guest Chris Bird takes the almost anticipated place of Pharrell Williams. Opening songs Vanity and Tuxedo each share ingredients that can probably be found in abundance within albums of the darker girl-pop variety, but to be perfectly honest my listening experience in that area is limited to a handful of P!nk songs and whichever Katy Perry track happens to be pumping out of my local Hollister store when I pass it by. In any case, both tracks showcase the same impressive songwriting and production skills as Babygirl, but used here to less bubblegummy ends. This, in my book, is a very good thing.
If I were sitting outside a high street shop’s changing room waiting for a female friend, and this EP came on, I’d probably use the spare time to buy it from beside the till, tell the cashier it was for said friend, and then keep it for myself.
Links
Check out the video for Vanity here:
Buy the Tuxedo EP on iTunes here.
Follow Chess on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/chessofficial
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