{"id":42004,"date":"2010-06-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/raymond-v-raymond\/"},"modified":"2010-06-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-23T00:00:00","slug":"raymond-v-raymond","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/raymond-v-raymond\/","title":{"rendered":"Raymond v. Raymond"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was always aware of Usher over the years, and every now and then, I\u2019d hear his stuff on the radio and usually, I liked what I heard. Then, in 2004, he released the sublime Confessions<\/i> album, and the dude won me over big time. I still play that disc frequently and I never get tired of hearing it. It\u2019s the sound of a talented young man putting together a piece of work that finally fulfilled his potential and revealed some of himself in the process, too.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

2008\u2019s Here I Stand <\/i>came along and just confirmed my adoration of this guy, because although it didn\u2019t sell as well and got some negative reviews, I fell in love with it and still think it\u2019s a brilliant album today. Based on all of this, you can imagine I was waiting for the new release to see where Usher was heading next. We read about his divorce, and the fact that he was writing about it would only add another element to his work that we fans hadn\u2019t heard before.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

So when it finally arrived in March of this year, I snapped it up, took it home, and played it repeatedly for three days straight. I repeated this process the following week because not only was I not all that impressed with what I was hearing, I was slightly confused as to the \u201cconcept\u201d of the album being clearly decipherable. Now I know that one of the staples of today\u2019s R&B artists is to collaborate with a cavalcade of writers and albums usually run to 15-20 tracks.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of work to do, especially if the goal is to make a consistently good album that harbors some sort of a narrative as well. Writers on Raymond v. Raymond <\/i>(release number six for Usher) include trusted co-writers James Harris III and Terry Lewis, Jermaine Dupri, and Jermaine Jackson. All add some cool enough tracks to the album, but \u201ccool enough\u201d isn\u2019t really great, is it? <\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the main problem I have with this disc; it\u2019s expertly produced and the slow love songs sound beautiful (\u201cMars Vs. Venus\u201d is very Prince-like circa 1986), but the dance numbers never really lift off. Lyrically, tracks jump from the breakup (\u201cThere Goes My Baby\u201d and \u201cPapers\u201d) to some serious shenanigans on \u201cPro Lover,\u201d on which Usher declares \u201cI\u2019m tryin\u2019 to add your name to my Hall Of Fame \/ Not just a player, I\u2019m a pro.\u201d I love the song, but it sends some mixed messages, as his PR department really pushed this thing as a divorce album, which in hindsight was probably a mistake.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

More gems like \u201cPapers\u201d and \u201cHey Daddy (Daddy\u2019s Home)\u201d help to keep things in the black for the most part, but like I said, there are some flat tracks that spoil any chance on this album being anything but okay. \u201cOMG\u201d is currently #1 on the Australian singles chart, but it has got to be one of the worst songs this guy has ever recorded. Generic beats, plastic arrangement, and the abuse of the dreaded Auto-Tune all make for a flat, uninspired song that is too clean and polished to live up to its dancefloor\/bedroom potential.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Opener \u201cMonstar\u201d suffers the same fate and fails to inject some much-needed funk into the proceedings. \u201cSo Many Girls\u201d fares better, but the momentum is killed off by the cheesy pop of \u201cGuilty.\u201d The album\u2019s closer is a pretty cool take on \u201cInto The Night\u201d by Benny Mardones as again Usher puts on his romantic hat for the love-in that is \u201cMake Love (Into The Night).\u201d <\/o:p><\/p>\n

So, really, maybe I was expecting too much but apart from a handful of cool, stripped-down and sexy tracks, there\u2019s not much going on here that I haven\u2019t heard before. Too often, the casual arrangements are too casual that they come off as dull, and Usher\u2019s singing at times has him sounding bored by his own songs. All in all, I\u2019m still a big fan and I still think Usher is one of the very best R&B artists out there today, but Raymond v. Raymond <\/i>is far from his best work and I\u2019m sensing a rather hasty follow-up is due. My advice? Have some time with it this time. <\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8583],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-42004","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-usher","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42004"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42004"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}