Richard X Feat. Kelis

The collaboration appeared in 2003 and reached number eight in Britain. Richard X’s own production archive places it in August of that year, immediately before the album Presents His X-Factor, Volume One. The period followed his highly visible work on the Sugababes’ Freak Like Me and the Liberty X collaboration Being Nobody.

Finest Dreams combines the melodic world of the S.O.S. Band’s The Finest with the electronic framework of the Human League’s The Things That Dreams Are Made Of. Kelis gives the material a new vocal performance, so the result is not simply two old recordings played across one another. Her phrasing helps the parts behave like one deliberately written encounter.

The electronic rhythm can sound firm and cool, while the vocal brings a more flexible emotional motion. That difference gives the record its character. Kelis does not smooth every edge of the production; her tone makes the meeting between soul phrasing and synth-pop architecture more audible.

The album gathered several other guests, but Finest Dreams is especially concise about the project’s appeal. A producer’s knowledge of earlier pop can create the framework, yet the new performance still has to give the listener a reason to stay. Kelis supplies that reason through the detail of the singing, making the inherited melody feel present rather than displayed as an object from the past.