I just heard Rihanna’s “Pon de Replay” for the first time, and I really like it, but I don’t care as much for her other music. Can anyone recommend dance tunes and artists with a similar sound/beat to “Pon de Replay”?
More broadly, I’d love recommendations for a good “if you like X, you’ll like Y…” site for music. I tried Pandora briefly, but it seems set up in a radio format where you have to listen through songs completely to keep getting more suggestions. I’d prefer to just get a list of possibilities that I can look up on iTunes or Amazon MP3.
Try the soundtracks to Step Up 1 and Step Up 2. Has a nice mix of Sean Paul, Missy Elliot, and some other upbeat dance jams, and if you find an artist you like on the album you can follow up with their individual works.
I’m not big into that style of music, but if you liked Pon de Replay, you might want to try and catch Disturbia, also by her. That is, if you haven’t heard it eight hundred thousand times already. It is damn catchy.
I believe the style of music you are looking for is “dancehall”. It’s kind of a reggae influenced style of dance music. Sean Paul and Shabba Ranks would probably the most well known.
Shabba may be a bit much for anyone that thinks Rihanna is hot. He’s got a couple radio joints, I know, but overall, I think dancehall in general may be a touch much.
I think she wants a reggae flavor, but not actual chanting or patois language.
Something like Sean Kingston (You’re Just Too Beautiful, Girl) or Nina Sky (Your Body Girl).
Dancehall can have very radio friendly stuff, (like all the folks that suggested Sean Paul), but Rihanna is less dance hall and more reggae-tinged R&B, in my opinion.
Thank you all so much! I just listened to most of the suggestions. It was really interesting to see which aspects of that one song you each branched out on!
I definitely like (some of) Sean Paul and Kat de Luna’s “Whine Up”. Not so much the slower, more R&B or more rap-like stuff (which I guess is why I don’t really like any of Rihanna’s other stuff).
Last.fm looks like a great site for exploring more similarities.
After listening to all of that and exploring a bit more, I think what I am going for is:
driving beat (a la DDR)
interesting accent
perhaps some reggae flair (though maybe it’s just the accent that I dig?)
It’s weird… for some reason I don’t enjoy most rap / hip-hop music, even though I’d probably like it more if the singer had some sort of exotic accent. I think I just want to feel like I’m at some wild party in Colombia or another “otherly” place. I also really love a lot of African music, so I should check out that angle too.
Anyway, I have a lot of jumping off points now, so thanks again!
Meara, I hate to do this, but I really must insist you try the suggestions I gave. I am one hundred percent confident that you will agree that my picsk are the best. You see, this has turned into somewhat a competition for me, and I must better the other posters in pinpointing the exact sound you are going for. If you try my links and find them not better than all the other suggestions combined, I shall agree not to give my suggestions in Cafe Society for a full 6 months. Deal?
Not really the same thing, but if you want driving beats and cool accents (well, in French) with a tropical flair you might have fun with some of the better Coupe Decale songs out of Cote D’Ivoire.
Try some Magic System, Espoir 2000, Seka Seka and Teeyah.