christina milian - l.o.v.e.

so the released version of this song (the uk album version, dunno about elsewhere) is good but a bit weird, for one thing it features beardo freak joe budden threatening to 'take you to the 80s' but then the beat comes in and it's not what i think of as 80s at all, in fact it's really subdued - doomy descending bassline and drums from "the show" all drugged up with echo (oh right they did use echo in the 80s 4real) for no apparent reason, as unnecessary as milian's bizarrely dull mtv looky-likey show. however! there's also this other version from early promos which has loads of things going good:

- twinkly-sweet melody from the world's greatest synth xylophone, a super tuneful palette cleanser like those notes at the beginning of the scoobay riddim which have the effect of focusing you on the drums refreshed and renewed

- four hard kicks plus horn stabs like wot happens at the start of "party up"

- milian hiccupily matching the xylophone for the chorus

- the kicks matching milian's sylables when she goes 'l-o-v-e forever' (and just for that one bit she uses the #1 classic dirty pop phone call filter, cool!)

- proper milian middle-eight type section with a harp no less!

- bonus-beats break right after the middle-eight (suggesting promo-version-specific not bothering to put a guest verse in, cool!)

check the too real to be released version for yourself.