Santigold

Santigold | Format: MP3 Music

Product Details

• Original Release Date: April 29, 2008
• Release Date: April 29, 2008
• Label: Downtown Recordings
• Copyright: 2008 Downtown Music LLC. Downtown Records Is A Trademark Of Downtown Music LLC.
• Record Company Required Metadata: Music file metadata contains unique purchase identifier. Learn more.
• Total Length: 41:19
• Genres:
  • Alternative Rock
• ASIN: B0017T6FSY
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,012 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Gold!! May 17, 2008

By Nse Ette TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Audio CD

I first heard of Santogold late last year when a few sites, Rolling Stone and The BBC included, raved about her being one of the faces to watch out for in 2008. I later found out she contributed her vocals to "Pretty green" on Mark Ronson's "Version" album.

First of all, I was amazed to find out she's American, I think she sounds very British, not unlike M.I.A. whom almost everyone keeps comparing her to, but with more pop appeal. Her voice is something of a raspy yell, not unlike Gwen Stefani's, and her sound is a hodge podge of eighties music styles.

Determined not to get pigeonholed as an R&B singer on account of her race, she tackles electro dub; the moody "Shove it", "Creator" (laden with electronic buzzes and effects), the fantastic "Unstoppable" (with jittery sounding synths, a favourite of mine), and the remix of "You'll find a way". The last pair are the most M.I.A sounding on the album.

The rest is electro rock/pop. Opening cut "L.E.S artistes" has chugging synths and wouldn't sound out of place on a No Doubt album. Bouncier are "You'll find a way", and "Say aha". "My superman" (with a laid back vocal delivery) is a creepy sounding song with an echoing riff, it sounds like the soundtrack to some spy thriller and is a favourite of mine.

"Lights out" has her singing in a smooth cooing voice not unlike Debbie Harry in Blondie, set to a chugging riff (and jangly guitars). "Starstruck" is a slow grinding number with moody sounding synths and electro flourishes, and also downtempo is "I'm a lady" (think Gwen Stefani's "Cool"), and the mellow "Anne" with ghostly wailing and a gently pulsing synth riff is awesome.

Listening through the entire album, I found there wasn't any single track I wanted to skip. Diverse sounds and intelligent lyrics which all stand well together. Pure Gold in my opinion, and yes, she's definitely one to watch out for!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great new Artiste May 1, 2008

By cxd

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

I too saw Santogold open for Bjork last year and have been eagerly awaiting her debut CD. I bought the singles when they became available a while ago & now the entire CD. I am not disappointed in the least! Great music, infectious beats, a truly distinctive voice - the CD is 5 Star all the way. I cannot wait to see her in person again. Hopefully she will come back to her native Philly!

Standouts are L.E.S. Artistes, Creator, and Shove It!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a new creator with fierce realness yes! May 3, 2008

By S. Newport

Format:Audio CD

If you haven't heard of Santogold yet it's about time that you did. She's written with Lily Allen and Mark Ronson, and has been compared to MIA and Karen O. She is a college-educated singer-songwriter and producer, whose singles Creator/LES Artistes and LES artistes are released together.

Her Myspace site describes her as a basement rock and Bananarama-soundclash artist, which is a wild combination but pretty accurate.

She's an American lady doing an almost tribal-dancehall-electro-grime-punk-ragga fling. Creator/LES Artistes uses haunting, shrieking voice and electric whines with wonderful shifts of tone throughout aided by Freq Nasty's sublime rhythm section. Simultaneously she has a slight old school humour to her, it's reminiscent of the routes and roots of the most innovative Missy Elliott material. It's very exciting to be so close to something so rare and so new.

She has this fantastic ability to blend into two tracks which sound so different and yet so the same. Her voice shows off its versatility in tone and delivery. In LES Artistes it is quirky and fine somewhere between Rihanna and Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife, while in Creator/LES Artistes she aggresively, rapidly, fluently raps as well as anyone.

LES Artistes addresses the issues of pretentious followers and standing up for what she believes. It's a nice reminder that she had unmitigated creative control over the forthcoming album. Creator/LES Artistes sharply brings out this theme again "Me, I'm a Creator/LES Artistes, thrill is to make it up, the rules I break got me a place, up on the radar". I'm very glad she has.

The suspenseful escalating drama of the single is her lyrical and sonic manifesto, and hopefully the world will listen up.