Jessie Ware and her devotion

I don't really remember how I got to know Jessie. I guess I had heard about her music sometime in the past, and in a rush I listened to onw of her songs, discarding the sound for some reason I can't remember. How stupid, I remember saying after listening to the entire album, "Devotion".

This is one of my fav albums from 2012, one that makes me shiver and remember everything I've gone through with my boyfriend, ex-lovers and fictional stories I invented in my head.

This album is absolutely delightful from beginning to end. And this is a powerful woman, too. Her voice, sometimes fragile, sometimes a voice that stands for what she believes, is the center of each song. I particularly like one of the singles, "Wildest Moments", which is simply a cry in the city. Maybe in our wildest moments, we can be the greatest, we can be the greatest. Maybe in our wildest moments... we can be the worst of all. There are also some sexy tunes that Ware fills with her outstanding voice, like "110%", which has R&B colors and it's intimate and warm, but innocent at the same time. The album closes with "Taking In Water", deep and nostalgic, and "Something Inside", which makes us want to whisper in our boyfriend's ears Offer me something inside, a place to go, a place to hide.

And this is the part where this gets professional. The Pitchfork review says: 

"Her voice is a marvel throughout, often gaining power by holding back or briefly teasing its scope while staying faithful to melody over melisma. Her words are in tune with this refinement as they chronicle the in-betweenness of love, dismissing easy pleasures for feelings that are more hard-won, confusing, and frightening." 

I had to look up in a dictionary for a couple of these words. No, actually I just went for "melisma" (can't help it, after all I'm an English literature graduate). And this is Merriam Webster:

Definition of MELISMA

1

: a group of notes or tones sung on one syllable in plainsong

2

: melodic embellishment

So, I agree. "Devotion" is full of melismas and stuff I don't know. I only know that Ware sounds beautiful, bewitching and incredibly feminine. I just love this woman. She's incredibly classy in her videos. She reminds some of Sade, but I'm not sure. I don't like labelling people according to their looks. Jessie's just unique.