CD Reviews

Nadia Oh

Hot Like Wow | Tiger Trax

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | April 29, 2008

3.5 Stars

In relative terms, no music is “good” or “bad” — it just needs to be heard in an appropriate setting. A cursory listen to the debut album by UK grime diva Nadia Oh might lead one to believe that the “appropriate setting” involves a stack of dollar bills and a pole — but if this is the kind of strip-club banger that will oust Alice Cooper’s “Poison” from the playlist, it really shows how tables have done turned. Hot like Wow has a singular obsession: Ms. Oh’s relentless desire to stalk and mentally undress the boy of her dreams. Aside from the occasional “You know I’m hot,” Nadia is not interested in telling us how her body’s too bootylicious for us. Instead, we get lines like “I bet you look better/With no clothes on” and “I know your name/And I got your number.” This is the male gaze subverted amid a subterfuge of crunk and sleaze, and it fits in with the recent UK trend of women taking the domineering role in courtship. The music combines Middle Eastern Eurovision scuzz with Justice-y distorto-beats, and Nadia’s delivery combines the smutty-yet-bored delivery of Samantha Fox with the up-for-anything naïveté of Stacey Q. It all comes together in what amounts to a naughts-y update of ’70s porn-to-disco one-hit wonder Andrea True Connection.

Related: Nadia Oh | Colours, The new Web geniuses, Hip-hop is dead, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Nadia Oh, Nadia Oh, Alice Cooper

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 02/19 ] 4-9 pm | Tom Tom Sunday: Celebrating the Big Beat of Tom Ardolino @ The Met

[ 02/19 ] Mary Poppins @ Providence Performing Arts Center

[ 02/19 ] "Nostalgia Machines" @ David Winton Bell Gallery

ARTICLES BY DANIEL BROCKMAN

IN FLAMES CRAFT AN EVOLVING BREED OF METAL | February 15, 2012
Face it: metal bands are just brands, and to the headbanging hordes, you are only as good as your last breakdown — unless you can concoct a memorable musical identity to stand above the competition.

[IN MEMORIAM] WHITNEY HOUSTON, 1963-2012 | February 13, 2012
Whitney Houston, who passed away this weekend of still-to-be-determined causes at the too-young age of 48, made an art out of depicting heroic triumph over adversity in her music

A PUNK PHENOMENON GROWS UP | February 08, 2012
It's time we faced it: the vanguards of rock have gotten really old.

THURSTON MOORE MOVES ON | January 25, 2012
When Thurston Moore takes the stage at Somerville Theatre on Tuesday, he will no doubt stroll through the wispy cloud-spires of last summer's Beck-produced solo effort, Demolished Thoughts (Matador).