[Listen] Ciara Releases 2 'New' Songs “Special Edition” & “Oh Baby” (“Jackie” Leftovers?)
It may not be Christmas day yet but Ciara has already given us our presents. In the evening of November 23rd the R&B singer released through YouTube 2 never-before-heard songs titled “Special Edition” and “Oh Baby”. Where these songs come from is a mystery for they do not appear on the original version of her latest album “Jackie”. The idea of them coming from a future re-release of “Jackie” is totally out of picture since, if you remember, Ciara’s sixth studio album, which got released in May this year, flopped terribly on the charts. And it’s obvious Epic Records won’t be wanting to hurt their bottom line even more with a re-release. So my guess is that “Special Edition” and “Oh Baby” are rejects from “Jackie”. For another idea I totally discard is that Ciara recorded these songs only a few days ago. It would be just too much of an effort and foolish money spending for her to go back to the studio in this moment to record just 2 songs that would make no profit for her, for here they are released for free on YouTube. So yeah, these must be “Jackie” leftovers. But even though they are leftovers, “Special Edition” and “Oh Baby” are probably the best music I’ve heard from Ciara this year, and yeah, this means better than the majority of “Jackie”. Oh the irony.
REVIEW
“Special Edition”: It reminds me a lot to R. Kelly music circa 2003. To be more precise, “Special Edition” reminds me to “Ignition” a bit. This R. Kelly-influenced mid-tempo BOP hears CI-ARA singing about something she calls the “special edition”. I honestly don’t know exactly what she’s referring to. In any case, this is a track where Ciara is feeling blessed for this “special edition” to have arrived in her life. The song is very celebratory and feel-good.
“Oh Baby”: This is a song of more ‘current Ciara’ style and it’s a mid-tempo ballad where the R&B singer dedicates almost 4 minutes to praise her lover. In “Oh Baby”, Ciara sings about how this person is the love of her life, how she would do anything for him, how she would dedicate her whole life to make him happy, and etc, etc. Too much ‘praising’ in my humble opinion, but “Oh Baby” is nevertheless a nice track. From the extremely loving lyrics, I deduce Ciara recorded this when she was still going out with rapper Future.