Sunday, March 30, 2014

Mixerr Album Reviews #58

This is Michael Mixerr. Today I will do an album review on Torrey Carter - The Life I Live semi-official album.He was a knock-off of Ginuwine to most music fans. Let me put that way.

The first track starts about with Floss Ya Jewelz which all about bling-bling and keeping it clean. Take That is the club banger of the album! Take That was named in Vibe Magazine's Top 10 Club and Head Bangers & Summer Jams of 2000! It also has Missy Elliott's mad ad-lib's to add to it. Missy herself is on the chorus. The Latin guitar riff is heard throughout the whole song. It has a catchy beat. Shotgun is about cheating one ex-lovers and playing around as well as playing games with them. This one features the gospel artist Lil Mo (an ex-protege of Missy Elliot as well!). The Life I Live (The Life I Wanna Live) features Nokio of Dru Hill. This is the title track. It's about the good life. Cream (Ride or Die) features both Lil Mo and Nokio of Dru Hill. We Gon' Do is about sexual intercourse. It has a Latin Cantina guitar sound with samba beats. If It's Money That You Want is a slow jam about money and love. A ladies favorite! Now I Got a Girl is about having a girlfriend.

Same 'Ol features Missy Elliot. The track starts out with Missy Elliott arguing that Torrey Carter is in the studio recording music every damn night. He's not selling that many cuts and records. Missy tell him to look at this damn house, he hasn't took out the trash, hasn't paid the bills, and really he hasn't done anything. (He basically has do nothing.) Torrey comes home late at night and sleeps all day. Missy wonders what Torrey is going to do with himself. Torrey states that he's been working hard overtime. He's busting his ass making themselves dough. Torrey can't seem to get it right. He's about to give up. It Takes Two once again features Lil Mo. Insanity was a track I was not really feeling. The beats and synth horn were off key. That's one thing I did not like about this album. The other thing I didn't like was the track O.K. featuring Missy Elliott, Petey Pablo & Trick Daddy. Bounce and soul do not mix together.


The reason Torrey Carter did not get very much success was because he sounded as a carbon-copy of Ginuwine. The market was not looking for that at the time. Torrey had recorded his album and Right before his album was due for released he was dropped from Elektra and Goldmind Inc.! It was due to Atlantic Records revamping. He was the third male artist to sign to Missy Elliott's Goldmind Inc. in 1999 and 2000. He was basically went behind the scenes and went into production after that. The Life I Live album was released as a limited press. The kid had potential, but he sounded too much like Ginuwine.


If Same Ol' and If It's Money That You Want were promoted as singles and music videos were made with time and efforts into these songs the album would have sold better.Torrey should have tried  not to mold himself just to fit in with the other R&B/Soul male artists that were out there at the time.

Unfortunately for him, I rate this album, The Life I Live, 3/5***.

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