On the music, I'll simply say the largest tracks on here sound like they could play Q102. Depending on your perspective that's either a compliment or an insult. My biggest nod to Candiace with CANDIACE (that "i" always trips me up) is "you did it."
Not knowing this artist as the personality on TV, or outside the music in any way, certainly reduces the total experience. That a famous TV show character (?) would talk about releasing an album on the TV show and then do it in real life feels like a minor plot point from a novel, or even better, the Person(a) series of social-based jRPG.
The album is rooted in spectacle. So many skits! So many songs are introduced with a full-ass skit telling you what's up, then the song. I've forgotten most of them... there's the husband fight... there's an ode to fuckboiis... there's lots of saying her name which I was admittedly pronouncing wrong beforehand... Skit->Song is like writing a pre-essay to your essays to prep teacher for what's about to unfold. I get the point, but this is excessive.
Spectacle (read: skits) starts right out of the gate, and then track 2, aptly named "Cause a Scene," is well, just that, and ends with some self-aggrandizing verse and a "Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight" set to club beats. At this point you have twelve tracks and some five skits left. Dear listener, Good night and good luck!
Of course, none of this is a surprise in context of Candiace. And now I'm going to make sweeping remarks based on the few background sentences JMK wrote and do absolutely no other research. I don't even understand what happens on the RHoX TV shows. They do séance?
I’m sure regular readers of the blog know JMK is an IJ superfan, and is re-reading it, with group, presently. So, it's top of mind for me. A core theme that runs through is the relationships parents have with their children and vice versa. Candiace was born only a few years before me, in rural America, to professional class parents. My own folks, bless them, had an assumed/unconscious belief that honing me into a sharp point to drive into "success," and cultivate money, power, respect, leadership, street knowledge and wisdom (404: PoYB post on Da Game Is to Be Sold</I>) for my larger life, would be the "best" thing for me. This would also be the best thing for them, satisfaction of their egos and shortcomings through the extension of genetic line. It requires replacing "love" as seen in the TV-Sitcom-FullHouse-FamilyMatters sense with "love" as a reward for success in various tasks. This is fine until the child hits some kind of ceiling and realizes "it's not happening," or, just as bad, "it's happening but doesn't feel any better," and then the very base of "love" itself starts to shift like quicksand. This is one of your classic quarter/mid-life crisis roots.
With Candiace, winner of Miss USA, Obama white house staffer, ultra popular TV show personality, I jump to conclusions thinking she may have had a similar level of early pressure, internally and/or externally placed, to rise above and punch above her humble upbringings. And frankly she did! She's way more "success"ful than me in every regard. But such heights naturally go hand-in-hand with heightened pressure; one can only imagine the texture of relations Candiace has with authority figures in her life. I could see wanting and needing to make some art and music to get it all out.
I'll contrast Candiace with another TV character, Cheyenne from the hit show REBA. For those who haven't seen it, early 20s Cheyenne decides midway through the series to switch her schooling from being a dentist to being a social worker. The surrounding figures in her life all react in various ways; shock and disappointment are certainly voiced. The titular matriarch, Reba, however, ultimately can relate to Cheyenne's journey, sympathize with her goals, and thinks that the "best" thing for Cheyenne is not pushing her into a good job with stable money and moderate prestige. It's to let Cheyenne follow her own life path, however that may go, so she can say in the future "who I am is who I wanna be." Cheyenne will likely never be famous as a social worker. Her husband might say she should instead try to get into Miss Texas pageant or something, but that's not what she wants to do, and Reba understands that too. So Goodnight and goodluck Cheyenne!
Would Candiace's parents have supported a 90-degree turn to social work versus medicine, politics, TV, etc.? I don’t fucking know. But my folks certainly wouldn't. There are flashes of grace and lucky breaks for everyone, but I really can't imagine anyone getting to these heights of fame and success without some kind of childhood anima pushing you forward.
2ish pukes out of 5
P.S. The Potomac River is a very nice body of water. In Harper's Ferry WV it intersects with the Shenandoah and makes an amazing vista. I am sure there are real housewives who live in WV, but it's different than the Northern Virginia sort.
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