''For All We Know'' is the debut studio album by British
electronic
Electronic may refer to:
*Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor
* ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal
*Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device
*Electronic co ...
singer-songwriter
Nao. It was released on 29 July 2016 by
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
and Little Tokyo Recordings. It has guest features by Abhi//Dijon and
A. K. Paul, and received critical acclaim upon release.
Recording and production
The concept for the album came about when Nao began to feature vocals with other artists, such as
Disclosure
Disclosure may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Disclosure'' (The Gathering album), 2012
*Disclosure (band), a UK-based garage/electronic duo
* ''Disclosure'' (novel), 1994 novel written by Michael Crichton
** ''Disclosure'' (1994 film), an American ...
and
Mura Masa
Alexander Crossan (born 5 April 1996), also known by the stage name Mura Masa, is a Guernsey-born electronic music producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Crossan is best known for his song " Lovesick", which reached number one on the ...
. After the collaboration that she did with Disclosure on their song "Superego", it inspired Nao to work further and deeper into that genre of music. She wanted to make an album which was to bring her to fame and, after the collaborations, wanted her fans to have something to look forward to.
The album title, ''For All We Know'' was named so after the
1934 jazz song of the same name, as a reference to the artist's background in the genre.
She also opened up about the album title in a
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
trilogy she created to tell her fans about the background of creating the album. She said, "So, for me, that kind of just sums up everything for me. It's just such a lovely message ''So love me, love me tonight/tomorrow was made for some/tomorrow may never come/for all we know''. I just thought that was so beautiful because it just says that tomorrow is not guaranteed so anything that we want to do, we have to make it happen today and I think that just kind of sums up this journey for me". In an interview with ''
Billboard'', Nao advanced that the album was "a definite nod" to
1990s music
Popular music in the 1990s saw the continuation of teen pop and dance-pop trends which had emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, hip hop grew and continued to be highly successful in the decade, with the continuation of the genre's ...
and an attempt at transposing it to actuality.
Part of the production from the album was worked on with British DJ and electronic and R&B musician
GRADES. Two of the other albums' producers such as Loxe and
Jungle
A jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent century.
Etymology
The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaá ...
added a funk touch. Nao's music and voice were compared to musicians
FKA twigs
Tahliah Debrett Barnett (born 17 January 1988), known professionally as FKA Twigs (stylized as FKA twigs), is an English singer, songwriter, and dancer. Born and raised in Cheltenham, she became a backup dancer for numerous famous musicians aft ...
and
Kelela
Kelela Mizanekristos ( am, á¨áá ááááááµáĥáµ; born June 3, 1983) is an American singer. She made her debut in the music industry with the release of her 2013 mixtape ''Cut 4 Me.'' In 2015, she released ''Hallucinogen'', an EP ...
.
Critical reception
Upon release, the album received critical acclaim.
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a
weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, ''For All We Know'' received an average score of 82 out of 100, based on 14 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
[
Writing for '' Exclaim!'', Michael J. Warren hailed the album as "a dynamic listen from start to finish".] It was also reported in a number of articles that the record and the style of music that was presented on the record could have been highly influenced on the early work of American musician Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. T ...
.
Accolades
Track listing
Notes
* signifies an additional producer
* signifies a remixer
Charts
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
2016 debut albums
Albums produced by Grades
Nao (singer) albums
RCA Records albums