’93-’13: Ignition (Remix), R. Kelly
A series highlighting great (but critically-ignored) songs from the past twenty years.
R. Kelly is many different things: a purveyor of throw-back soul; a craftsman of soppy ballads for Michael Jackson; a man whose sexual proclivity leapfrogs decency to land somewhere dangerously close to criminal; an easy target for comedy routines by Dave Chappelle and Aziz Ansari. But never before or since has he captured lighting in a bottle like on Ignition (Remix), which bounces and buzzes with a effortless decadence that made chart success as much a fait accompli as the show/after party/hotel lobby/hotel room itinerary that Kelly lays out in the song. In both instances it seems like Kelly has yawned his way through this a thousand times before.
Unlike other club anthems from early 2003, Ignition (Remix) doesn’t attempt to assault with over-anxious audio, calculated drops or forward propulsion, instead sitting on the same lazy beat during the entire song, which feels – much like the evening ahead of Kelly – like it could roll on forever. Kelly’s voice is stunning as usual, but at no point does he push it outside his comfort zone; vocal restraint from Kelly is a rare treat, and makes sense in this context. It’s the freakin’ weekend after all.
Even the way the song was presented to radio suggests a tossed-off quality: the original version of Ignition was sent to urban stations in the first week of January, where it was duly ignored (“Girl, please, let me stick my key in your ignition” is the actual lyric from the original). The tag affixed to the end grabbed attention, however, with Kelly drawling the now squeal-inducing trigger: “Now, um, usually I don’t do this but uh…. go head’ on and break ‘em off with a lil’ preview of the remix….” before kicking into the first verse, which is faded out. A few weeks later Kelly dropped the full remix, which promptly became his biggest hit in America since his ’97 space jam I Believe I Can Fly.
Aside from sharing stabbing wah-guitars and percussive elements, the track owed little to the original and even the label didn’t buy into the ‘remix’ rubbish for long, soon dropping all mention of it from the single artwork and promotional material. Regardless of which order they were conceptualised, this is the original – and as a paean to the promise of the evening ahead, it’s yet to be topped.