Behind the Scenes – Monica: The Single

Sandra you have made my day!! I promise you have all the latest info on Monica for the fans….we appreciate that! Now on to the single. Im so glad they chose a ballad. Every ballad Monica releases becomes a hit! They always fair better than her mid/uptempo. Smart move Monica! She better bring it on this song too!! Now since they have the first single picked, they need to focus on finding a second single. J Records, Melinda, and Monica always manage to drop the ball with the second single. They either chose the wrong follow up or wait to late to release the video (sometimes they do both) We do not want another Knock, Knock or Dozen Roses situation. Or more recently, Mary J. Blige fiasco. They didnt know what to do after Just Fine and all the momentum for the album went out the door. Monica should also focus on a great video. I know people do not spend allot of money on videos and thats cool. Just make sure its a quality video. I was watching some old Monica videos and they were def on point back in the day. One hot video director of today is Melina. Ive never known Monica to work with Hype Williams. Paul Hunter is great. I like Chris Robinson, but he is hit and miss. Oh an oldie but goodie, Billie Woodruff. He directs great ballad videos..(Toni Braxton videos) Monica needs to make sure she is on magazine COVERS and not just FEATURES. I understand some people may not think your relevant and thats cool, but hell, You have been the game for about 15 years. Vibe OWES you a cover story. Please dont let them focus on the negative. I hate the way Vibe twisted your words about your father teaching u how to shoot a gun. Or how Torrey started your Blue Print off with, so you collect guns (or whatever he said). You are a working mother with two beautiful boys. Thats your story. Youve weathered many storms. Thats what people wanna hear. The fans have been dying to see you on MTV Cribs. Speaking of, where was MTV the last couple albums? The played a major part in your success during The Boy Is Mine era…They def need to be on bored this time around. Larry Jackson and all them at J need to choose singles that have crossover potential. Sideline Ho was great, but its didnt push units and everybody cant relate to it. If you look back at your past success, all of your songs were pretty much crossover. Thats what your fan base is. True fans always knew u were hood, cuz when we bought the album, we got songs like, Ring Da Bell, Angel(Miss Thang), Too Hood, What Part of The Game e.t.c. Promo Monica! Promo! Tour! I know you can do House of Blues tour dates. People will come pay to see at least at House of Blues. Hell Keyshia did it before her album dropped and her cd was a hit. Something that I was thinking was maybe after the House of Blues, hook up with Brandy. She got a cd coming out soon. Between the both of you, I know yall can cell tickets to theaters and amphitheaters. The fans would LOVE it. Especially since yall both tryin to reclaim ur spot. You, J Records and Melinda cant drop the ball this time. Yeah the market was bad, Beat Drop wasnt a fair representation of what the album was, but allot of that was lack of promo and very bad single choices. I still dont know why Raw wasnt released. It was such a refreshing sound for you. Not to mention u sang the hell out of that record! Or Why Her wasnt released. That song was an obvious smash! All across the board. Cross over Mo! Cross over! All of your fans are not from the hood! Im still a lil disapointed Turner Networks couldnt put the reality show on TBS, but hey its all good. Atlanta is a major market, so some promo is better than none. Maybe after the show premieres, Turner Networks will allow you put the show on Myspace and Youtube so it can reach a much broader audience. I am a firm believer that you can come back and be successful and compete with the big dawgs, Beyonce, Rhianna, Christina, Mariah and Mary. Yall just gotta get ur shh together! Monica rulled in 98,99,2000 and can rule again!! We (the fans) love you Mo and cant wait to see u back on top…Shout out to Marilyn Best, M.C. Arnold, Aunt Laura, Montez, Rev Best, BAM, and everybody thats been holding Mo down! She about to do it big in 08! RIP Jarvis and Troy Weems

Monica has yet to REALLY establish herself and her identity, if you want to say that, in more of a monumental way. So, I do see in some ways why people are always bashing and doubting her. It doesn’t help the fact that she has the gaps in between her each album release. In order to establish yourself within the industry, an artist needs to keep it coming with releases for atleast 3-5 years. Not only that, the material has to be great and inventive, thematic/expressive of what an artist wants to say overall during that particular period. Basically, Monica’s material comes across as uneven (“The Boy is Mine” and “After the Storm” albums for the most part). For example, “Control” helped in establishing Janet Jackson. I’m not talking about just releasing JUST to release. Looking at some of her great “Miss Thang” era performances, if she kept all of that rolling, while remaining true to her personal growth as a young women heading in to adulthood, Monica would be a legend right now. She took a 3 year break in between “Miss Thang” and “The Boy is Mine,” but her career reached new heights, yet the more pop sounding “The Boy is Mine” left SOME of Monica’s fans yearning for the more urban/soul sounding Monica. If they had released “Ring the Bell” with a video right after “The First Night” that song would have definately spoke more to what most Monica fans knew her for.

After “The Boy is Mine” era we didn’t get a new Monica album until 5 YEARS LATER although she did a few uneventful things here and there in between (MTV’s “Love Song,” “Just Another Girl,” Micheal Jackson’s 30th Anniversary performances, and the horribly uneven and spotty “All Eyez on Me” album, which just through everyone off including Monica because the AEOM single wasn’t what people knew her for and the album was bootlegged heavily). Ideally, Monica should have released another album in 2000 or 2001, but as a lot of people know her boyfriend committed suicide, her grandmother died, as did one of her cousins which helped prolong her absence form the industy. Basically, Monica is an urban-hip-pop-soul singer and she must not EVER forget that. She has to always go back to that in order to regain some type of success because she always leaves her audience.

For example, “So Gone” was what people wanted to hear and that was the biggest R&B song out that year according to airplay. “U Should’ve Known” was a semi-popular, top 10 R&B hit in 2004, notice the trend? Monica has what it takes to do pop music in the vein of Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, but she needs to learn who her base is and remain in touch with them and evolve from there over a 3-5 year period before she can experiment with a pop or inspirational album. Like it or not, Monica has Ms. Brandy beat by quite a few margins as far as what she possesses naturally, she just seems to need to learn to take direction from somebody. There is so much more that makes a star a star than how many records an artist sells or how many number ones an artist has…because a great amount of that has to do with people behind the scenes that you can’t see.

Brandy has faded out of sight for a particular reason while Monica has continued to remain relevant and will, but Monica is pretty much JUST HERE and there is no excuse why Monica is not a legend by now. Monica has never seemed driven to WANT it and its just as plain and simple as that. Monica had had her baby when “The Makings of Me” came out, SHE chose to release the more like a mixtape, teaser song instead of an actual first single “Everytime the Beat Drops” and not Clive Davis. Even Hot97’s Ms. Jones went on a rampage about how Monica continues to try to lower herself as an artist and singer…I said nothing because I had said the same thing BEFORE Ms. Jones did and I was hoping the Ray Kay video would help get me amped for the song after I heard the song initially. Nobody can tell me that J Records put real money in to the whole ETTBD situation. Both the ETTBD and “A Dozen Roses” videos looked cheap as could be. By the time “A Dozen Roses” which didn’t really thrill me a lot either was released, I don’t think anybody cared. She needed a killer first single and it just wasn’t found on the album although the album is great and her most consistent feeling album since “Miss Thang.” I just really hope Monica gets it together this time around. Hopefully she is hungry enough make her mark.

LOL LOL I knew that was coming….its all good. Trust me, Im not crazy. Ive just been a huge fan of hers since 95 and want to see her succeed. Another reason I’m so into her is, I would like to become an A & R for a record label one day and help guide artist’s careers. And Monica’s would be the first I try to salvage…lol.

brwnsugga4you Says:

wow…@dallas214 Says: keep the comments to a few lines boo..goodness.

No prob brwnsugga4you….after saying all that, I have nothing else to say, lol….