Essential RnB:
The Very Best of R&B – Summer 2006

Release Date:

Reviewed By: Melisa Tang

CD1

1) Rihanna - SOS

2) Ne-Yo - So Sick

3) Black Eyed Peas - Pump It

4) The Pussycat Dolls - BEEP

5) Nelly - Grillz

6) T-Pain - I’m Sprung

7) 2Pac & Elton – Ghetto Gospel

8) John Legend - Use To Love U

9) Ashanti - Only You

10) Ja Rule - Always On Time

11) Keyshia Cole - I Should Have Cheated

12) Ray J - One Wish

13) Dem Franchize Boyz – I Think They Like Me

14) Bobby Valentino – Slow Down

15) A Tribe Called Quest - Can I Kick It?

16) Killa Kela - Secrets (Wiley Mix)

17) Ying Yang Twins ft. Pitbull - Shake

18) Christina Milian ft. Young Jeezy – Dip It Low

19) Amerie - 1 Thing

20) Akon - Lonely

CD2

1) Beyoncé - Check On It

2) Mariah Carey – It’s Like That

3) Chris Brown - Yo (Excuse Me Miss)

4) Soundbwoy Ent. - Never Wanna say

5) Ciara ft. Missy Elliot - 1,2, Step

6) Craig David – Unbelievable

7) Ginuwine - I’m In Love

8) Jay-Z - Hard Knock Life

9) DMX – Slippin’

10) David Banner - Play

11) Mya - My Love Is Like

12) LL Cool J - Mama Said Knock You Out

13) Anthony Hamilton - Where Did It Go Wrong?

14) Babu Bash – Suga Suga

15) MOP - Ante Up

16) Redman - Let’s Get Dirty

17) Lady Sovereign - Blah Blah

18) Friday Hill - One More Night

19) Juelz Santana - There It Goes (The Whistle Song)

20) Bow Wow ft. Ciara - Like You

Ne-Yo - In My Own Words
Read Review

Come summertime each year, the music industry is flooded with CD compilations claiming to contain the ‘best’ summer songs of the year. Occasionally this is true, but more often than not, summer compilations are a mixtape of the good, the bad, and the sometimes downright ugly tracks of previous months.

The latest summer compilation to hit shelves is ‘Essential R&B: The Very Best of R&B – Summer 2006’. At first glance, the double disc album looks like it could actually be quite good, with Rihanna, Ne-Yo and the Black Eyed Peas getting CD1 off to a good start. The first disc also contains hot tracks by the likes of Dem Franchize Boyz (‘Oh I Think Dey Like Me’), the Ying Yang Twins (‘Shake’ ft. Pitbull) and Amerie (‘1 Thing’).

However, whilst the CD claims to be the ‘Best of Summer 2006’, only about half the tracks on CD1 are actually from the last six months or so. The others range from summer 2005, (like Bobby Valentino’s ‘Slow Down’), all the way back to A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Can I Kick It?’ Admittedly, this Quest track is a classic, but when the compilation calls itself the ‘Best of 2006’, you don’t really expect to find a song over a decade old on it!

The same can be said for CD2, which has Jay-Z’s ‘Hard Knock Life’, DMX’s ‘Slippin’, and LL Cool J’s ‘Mama Said Knock You Out’ – hardly recent tracks, and since when was ‘Slippin’ considered a summer banger?!

Like CD1, only half of CD2’s tracks can be classed as summer hits of 2006, although even the inclusion of cuts like Craig David’s ‘Unbelievable’ are questionable, considering the slow temp of the track – not really the type of track you’d wanna be seen blasting out your car stereo, is it?!

Nevertheless, CD2 picks up brownie points for including Beyoncé’s ‘Check On It’ and Christina Milian’s ‘Say I’.

Whilst the latest CD in this ‘Essential’ series attempts to compile a variety of summery sounds from this and past years, it fails to make much of an impact to be called the ‘Best of Summer 2006’, and misses off true summer songs like Busta Rhymes’ ‘Touch It’ for example, one of the hottest tracks to drop this year. Maybe it was just a little too early to release a summer compilation for 2006, and perhaps if this release had been postponed till mid-June, they would have been able to include newer tracks by artists like Ne-Yo and the Pussycat Dolls to really capture the sound of this summer.

A handful of hot summer tracks on each disc here, but one CD of carefully chosen songs would have sufficed!

Rating: 3 out of 5

Top 3 tracks:
2.2) Christina Milian ft. Young Jeezy – Say I
1.1) Rihanna – S.O.S.
1.17) Ying Yang Twins ft. Pitbull – Shake

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