Let's Anticipate Usher's "Looking 4 Myself"

http://www.xlurbanmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/usher-looking-for-myself-400x300.jpg

"Twisted," "Climax," and "I Care For U" are career highs.

seems kind of odd to use the "let's anticipate" format for an album that is leaked and days from release

thought the same thing. here's hoping "less anticipate" doesn't become as standard here as for ile movie threads.

alf did you not see us already discussing this in some depth on the r&b thread or did you just want the first word for yourself

ha i was wondering whether i hallucinated that discussion because it isn't here!

i actually really like the two dancetrash bookends, "scream" and "numb" can do one though, and enuff of the cloudsynths on "what happened to u". i think i basically like every other song though.

i find it rather amusing that the neptunes are now used for retro-sounding period pieces like "twisted".

"i care for u" tries very hard to impress, and i guess i am impressed but i'm waiting for it to settle into actual affection.

"sins of my father" and "ifu" are my favs atm (apart from "climax"). title track sounds like it could be a sleeper fave. fuck it i really love "euphoria" actually. "hot thing" is awesome. still think it's sequenced horribly and in such a way that it's hard to get a handle on any of the songs - "climax" is really illustrative of this, it sounds SO out of place between "scream" and "i care for u". and why are "sins of the father" and "euphoria" next to each other???

i feel like these artists are FORCING me to use the itunes playlist function way more than i want to. like ok i'll take "euphoria" out of here and put it next to "pound the alarm" and the new bieb ok ok ok

guys, I thought the discussion deserved its own thread; it's not a big deal. I didn't it buried as part of a large thread like most Erykah Badu discussion is.

*I didn't want it

"2nd round" is immaculate. love that beat so much

ugh I hope "Euphoria" doesn't become a single.

this will doubtless mean bugger all to anyone interested in this thread but track 1 "featuring will i am & keith harris" never fails to amuse

http://images.teamtalk.com/08/07/800x600/Keith-Harris-Orville_1073901.jpg

i realised after saying my piece on the r&b thread yday that i'd kinda made the elementary error of not properly mentally demarcating where the album stopped and where the bonus tracks began; the album is actually far better balanced than i gave it credit for (regardless of how much i like those bonuses)

also thanks to sarge i have now SEEN THE LIGHT re 'show me', it
really is exceedingly dope

The only bonus track I'd have loved in the original sequence is "I.F.U.," preferably instead of "Sins of My Fathers."

I would love the title track if not for the echo on his vocal.

btw just read ur graun review lex; i don't really agree with it (not that i can blame you on a tight turnaround) but what i really want to ask is how can you persist for writing for such scumbags in the comment boxes for so long? i genuinely doubt any publication has a more despicable readership, even the daily mail would have more to offer no joke

sorry to briefly derail but had to be said

GeorgeWashingtonDuke
8 June 2012 4:30PM
Response to deku13, 8 June 2012 4:13PM
Considering you don't know what RnB is how do you know its garbage. Can't help and think you just don't like black culture.

deku13
8 June 2012 5:11PM
Response to GeorgeWashingtonDuke, 8 June 2012 4:30PM
What so now I'm a xenophobe or something?

haha i forgot it was coming out y'day! i haven't read the comments. they can't be worse than the ones for my cher lloyd/pitbull interviews.

i definitely did not have enough time with the album, which is almost as much because of how long and bloated it is as label fuckery, i don't think it's easy to pin down in a capsule review though.

not to give too much credence to ursh's "revolutionary pop" flannel but i dunno if i can think of a better blended major modern pop album these last few years - like i doubt it'll be part of any new vanguard or anything but this definitely feels like it's finally turned the frankenstein corner into mutual co-existence, not massively but enough for a hopeful glimpse

xp yeah it's far from the first time i've thought that re the graun

re the will.i.am track: "Let me be your body soap"?

i feel like these artists are FORCING me to use the itunes playlist function way more than i want to. like ok i'll take "euphoria" out of here and put it next to "pound the alarm" and the new bieb ok ok ok

― kanye kardashian (lex pretend), Saturday, June 9, 2012 6:38 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hip hop and contemporary R&B albums have been way too long since the mid-1990s at least, when folks seemed to discover (thanks to public enemy maybe?) that you can and might as well use up the full capacity of a CD.

i wonder whether the rise of digital downloading has only encouraged this trend, insofar as there's probably less expectation that folks will listen to albums as albums, in full and in sequence, and they can instead just pick and choose from the 13, 15, 17, etc. tracks.

i admit i long for the days when you could stick 7 or 8 longish R&B jams together and call it an album.

yeah.

at the same time, i'm kind of waiting for someone to take advantage of the mp3 album format. the chromatics album is 90 minutes, and i dig that, and terre thaemlitz has his 32 or whatever hour album coming up, which... i doubt i'll dig so much, but it seems like something that's been somewhat untapped.

i should have said early 1990s. weren't those de la soul CDs like 70+ minutes?

(admittedly those were good.)

i like 'say the words'

need 'show me' to be at least 3 times as long

just pressed play on this and instantly lolled at "Uptown Girl (Rave Remix)"

oh god i feel bad that i never noticed that until now :o

is it just me or is usher in permanent oversinging mode these days? kind of like he started trying to match the relentless fake euphoria of poptrance beats a few years ago and can't come back down

Keepers:

Climax
Looking 4 Myself
Show Me
I Care For U
Sins of My Father
I.F.U. (bonus)

Okay:

Dive
Lessons for the Lover
What Happened To You
Lemme See (dislike Usher's hook)
Twisted
Numb

Crap:

Scream
Can't Stop Won't Stop
Euphoria

is it just me or is usher in permanent oversinging mode these days? kind of like he started trying to match the relentless fake euphoria of poptrance beats a few years ago and can't come back down

― kanye kardashian (lex pretend), Wednesday, June 13, 2012 9:42 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, otm. it's like he's trying to keep up with trey songz or something.

I don't quite agree except for the ridiculous, terrible acting in the "Climax" video.

LOVE

climax
lemme see
sins of my father
euphoria
ifu
say the words
2nd round
hot thing

LIKE, POSSIBLY TO BE UPGRADED

i care for u
show me
dive
looking 4 myself

LIKE, PROBABLY WON'T BE UPGRADED

twisted
lessons for the lover

WHATEVIA

what happened to u
numb

FUCK OFF

can't stop won't stop
scream

this album should be called 'looking 4 the right edgy tattoo/haircut/producer to make my old ass seem relevant'

jesus christ "Can't Stop Won't Stop" is the worst fucking thing, holy shit

who in their right mind puts this on the album, let alone makes it the lead track

this album is pretty good, but it's getting overrated real fucking quickly right now

Looking 4 The Kind Of Critical Attention Beyonce Got With 4

altho tbf i'm not sure i could even name the last halfway decent pop album off the top of my head

4?

lol

the bieber album is gonna kick this one's ass, we'll see what the reaction is tho

this album is pretty good, but it's getting overrated real fucking quickly right now

OTM. And the "he put out a dance-leaning pop album that isn't terrible" narrative is really sad. That's the standard now?

okay yeah "Climax" is great

I think I would have hated "Scream" had I not heard "Can't Stop Won't Stop" right before it

the gulf between Usher's vocal talent and Bieber's is so wide that i'm not sure if the latter's best could top the former's worst (which this is not)

And the "he put out a dance-leaning pop album that isn't terrible" narrative is really sad.

this is the narrative, really? half the album isn't dance-pop though.

i haven't listened to the whole bieber album yet but from the bits i've dipped into it seems much on a par with this.

is it just me or is usher in permanent oversinging mode these days?

what is meant by "oversinging" here, because Usher is an artist who spends so much time in his falsetto that it's impossible for him to be a 100% all the time shoutmonster

"I Care For U" is astonishingly good, like I'm kind of taken aback by how much I like it

i really like his use of falsetto here - when he's not in it he seems to strain really hard for the same kind of forced euphoria that's the default on the big dance-pop monster numbers - "say the words" really shows this up, cuz he suddenly goes completely restrained on it

this album is pretty good, but it's getting overrated real fucking quickly right now

Felt exactly that way about Bieber's "Boyfriend."

I don't get the complaint he's oversinging and if so only in bits ("What Happened to You"). If anything he's subtler now that he's not relying on club bangers.

o_O wtf is happening, it's 2012 and I'm really enjoying an Usher album

about halfway through "Show Me" and he hasn't started shouting yet (I expect him to by the end); this whole performance is an excellent example of how you can use mannered to convey emotion

i really like his use of falsetto here - when he's not in it he seems to strain really hard for the same kind of forced euphoria that's the default on the big dance-pop monster numbers - "say the words" really shows this up, cuz he suddenly goes completely restrained on it

I don't really hear any more abuse of that in what he's doing now and what he's done in the past; have you listened to "Caught Up" or "Yeah" recently?

who's overrating this btw? has it been called a masterpiece in some quarters?

oh I really thought I was going to like "Lemme See" but that pre-chorus is fucking stupid

god I hate "Yeah," mostly for how he forces him to harmonize with that awful synth squawk.

what is Rick Ross's appeal btw

he's big meech

the "lemme SEE lemme SEE" bit is so irritating

I'm so annoyed by his dumb-ass Drake impersonation in the pre-chorus that the chorus comes across as a relief

okay "Twisted" is fucking great, wau

i like "lemme see" but rick ross's trayvon martin reference nearly wrecks it in a single line

what is Rick Ross's appeal btw

as far as i can tell it's because he's popular and ergo important

idg what this backlash is all about, the "he put out a dance-leaning pop album that isn't terrible" narrative is p fun and worthwhile compared to "washed up r&b classicist puts out a by-the-numbers brick for the moms" ad nauseum

"Dive" is also fantastic

it's nice after years of enduring "Let's Make Love In This Club"-style bullshit to be reminded that Usher is actually capable of singing a song

o_O "What Happened To U"!

If you'd told me several years ago that in 2012 I would be totally loving new Usher ballads, I would have hurt myself laughing at you

I don't know why the Drake imitation on the pre-chorus of this song doesn't irritate me, although I'm guessing it's because it's undercut by the falsetto riffing floating over it

http://soundcloud.com/matchstick-1/usher-scream-exemen-remix

good little wookie mix of 'scream' for filing under more rehabilitative ukg magic btw

... why does "Looking 4 Myself" sound like a discarded Pink song

i was wavering on "looking 4 myself" until i saw someone compare it to phoenix, at which point i was just like "yes, i'll take it!"

i like "lemme see" but rick ross's trayvon martin reference nearly wrecks it in a single line

― kanye kardashian (lex pretend), Wednesday, June 13, 2012 3:39 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's obviously a weird fit, but hey, he threatens to kill george zimmerman, so i'm okay with it

kind of got distracted but the back half of the album was pleasant, not overly arresting

I am still kind of shocked that I just enjoyed a post-2004 Usher album

btw "lemme see" is one of the best usher singles in a long while

did you listen to the version w/the bonus tracks dan?

"Lemme See" is terrible, much prefer the other new Ross/Usher single

who's overrating this btw? has it been called a masterpiece in some quarters?

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 13, 2012 3:34 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

masterpiece, but generally very positive reviews in the voice, SPIN, gawker etc

idk, i guess i understand why people feel good about it, just seems like they hype accelerated very quickly for an album that is very imperfect

that said, rtc's rebuttal has plenty of merit

btw "lemme see" is one of the best usher singles in a long while

that doesn't automatically carry it into the realm of "good song", Usher has been releasing tons and tons of bullshit for almost 8 years

did you listen to the version w/the bonus tracks dan?

Yeah, it seems like Spotify only has the deluxe version

i can't even picture any scenario in which there aren't at least three Raymond Vs. Raymond era singles that aren't better than "Lemme See"

the one thing that's really sticking w/ me here is usher's arbitrary substitution of numbers for letters and letters for words

the album is called 'looking 4 myself', but we also get an "i care for u" and a "what happened to u" and "i.f.u."

i like to think that he didn't go with "i care 4 u" out of respect for aaliyah but i can't figure out his reasoning at all

the one thing that's really sticking w/ me here is usher's arbitrary substitution of numbers for letters and letters for words

See, that's the brilliance of the album. It only seems arbitrary, but it's very deliberate, because this is a record about trying on new hats, searching for the one that fits best. Usher sweats the details.

http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/usher.jpghttp://adobemaster.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/usher-kufi-hat.jpghttp://blog.amalgamationmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/usher_hat.jpg

but Prince and Sinead already own those hats.

xp

might be time to take my meds again but cant help but feel like 'lemme see' owes a debt to loggins 'danger zone' somewhere imo

I suppose it's churlish to complain when this is a grown man who released a song called "OMG."

right on cue i just read this vg article about this multiple-personality bloated pop album trend - crystallises my thoughts well

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/06/whats-behind-pops-multiplepersonalityalbum-epidemic/258466/

not having read that yet, I feel like pop albums have been like this since the turn of the century

i need to go ahead and give this album a listen when i'm not in a foul mood because i think my mindstate the time i listened to it tainted my perception

this album's small (and yes, imperfect) gestures towards outwitting that article's dull-minded and predictable conclusion is exactly what i like about it

multi-producer albums have been standard for a long time but albums with different sections aimed at completely different radio formats are a somewhat new development.

The comments in lex's review are awesome

Modern day RnB is a breeding ground for talentless individuals who can't do anything creative. Nicky Minaj, Lil'wayne, Drake, Rihanna, David Guetta...the list is endless.

No, making every song about being in a club and finding that girl and falling in love with her is not creative, it's been done to absolute death in the last decade (probably further back).

Just because you and every other idiot likes to fist pump to a song on a Saturday night, and grind girls to it because god forbid you'd have to talk to one, doesn't make it good. And the fact that this music only gets popular from places where people are pissed out of their faces says everything.

While this sort of scattershot album-making is unusual for established acts like Minaj or Usher

what?

But lots of albums in the last twenty years (Tina Turner's Private Dancer being ground zero and Shania's Up the apotheosis) have scored hits helmed by producers aiming at specific formats. The Turner album scored an album rock radio hit that didn't chart anywhere else, for example.

closer to thirty

It's not clear they need to, though. Many of 2011's most acclaimed and, in some cases, best-selling pop albums were those with deliberate, cohesive aesthetics: Beyoncé's mature and trend-dodging R&B of 4, Adele's retromaniac 21, Drake's moodily produced Take Care, or Lady Gaga's dance/rock/metal fusion on Born This Way

is this writer intentionally attempting to undermine every point she is trying to make or is she deaf

haha Beyonce's album being held up as so much more cohesive than these others is insane

Beyonce's anti-trend-dodging album with its "Pon De Floor"-based lead single

er trend-chasing, I'm tired and hungry

'run the world' was a misstep and is irrelevant to the fact that 4 is a cohesive album despite the genre shifts on the face of it

the nature and future of what can constitute cohesion is precisely the issue at hand

hahaha wait, are you seriously trying to play the "I'm going to pretend the song I dislike doesn't exist so that my argument makes sense" card?

can we return to discussing how good "What Happened to U" is

no all i'm saying is that distortively painting an album out by its one wild abberation is a very different thing to the other big grab-bag albums being discussed

djp waving his dull little blade in the middle of the gunfight as usual

So yes, you are playing that card.

tha fuck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUQoo-F5OLA

haha whut

dude plays bass and this is how he chooses to show us?

ya rly

http://www.thefader.com/2012/06/12/usher-high-note/

I fucking hate that we didn’t have a camera rolling when we created it, because it was so cool how it happened. Redd Stylez [another “Climax” co-writer], myself and Ariel, we just kept talking about it and I kept throwing the melodies. And then we started jotting the lyrics. Second verse I didn’t even give anybody no time to say anything. I said, I got it, I got it. Instantly. It was a little bit of Coldplay that I pulled from.

How do you translate Coldplay into “Climax?” I never would have heard that. I told you, you never know when it’s gonna be useful. That’s naturally where I went. I don’t know how it worked, but in my vast library of stored musical references, I kind of flipped through and found that one like, Yeah, this would be perfect there.

"vast library of stored musical references" is pretty funny. Album is pretty great

everyone in the R&B and hip-hop world owns Coldplay records

he doesn't even have to own them man

I apologise to all the indie fans of Foster the People that enjoy skinny chinos and drinking cider in the park with your t-shirts displaying a whitty remark but this is good. 1. He is playing bass, in the interview after this he spoke of learning to play the bass at about 13 and how it influenced a lot of his music. 2, it is a cover, so he can do what he wants with the song. The heavy guitar rifts work so well with the gospel type keyboards and 3, Usher is some top bloke. xox

chormeholmes 6 hours ago

heavy guitar rifts work so well with the gospel type keyboards

I'd never thought of it, but yeah, those elements are always an a+ dope combination.

This is far from embarrassing. Depends on what place "Pumped Up Kicks" has in your heart.

Hi. Finally registered:

- Re: Born This Way — I am on record as liking the album more than most people (check my ballot), but for chrissakes, the last thing you can argue about it is not having a coherent aesthetic. (If your point is that the sales figure was inflated, it wasstill unquestionably one of the largest albums of the year.)

- Re: 4 — If this had come out in 2012 you’d have a case for “Run the World” being trend-jacking, but it was released right on the cusp of Diplo becoming the go-to producer for everybody. Plus, as was said, it’s one track (the last track) and thoroughly unrepresentative.

- Re: Up! — Even if this weren’t such a bizarre special case (two “separate albums” in three “separate styles,” though in practice they aren’t all that different), it’s not really what I’m talking about. The red disc and green disc (and blue disc) were all coherent enough in their own ways. To be comparable, Twain would have to have released one album with a couple red and green and blue tracks coexisting unhappily, with yellow and orange and, I dunno, ultraviolet ones elsewhere. Same goes for Private Dancer — charting on different formats is an effect, not a cause. I mean, “Rolling in the Deep” charted everyfuckingwhere, but that doesn’t mean 21 isn’t a coherent album.

- Re: my being dull-minded and predictable and deaf: Sorry.

Wow, this title track is really Empire of the Sun-ish. I would not have recognized this as Usher. Don't think it suits him really...

ha welcome to ilx, katherine! i liked the piece, sorry you had to come and post just because you were getting beat up over it.

Wow, this title track is really Empire of the Sun-ish

THAT'S who I was trying to think of!

Yeah, I liked Katherine's piece as well. I think the point she's getting at with cultivating multiple audiences simultaneously through different production and music styles makes sense if you've been following these dynamics closely over the past couple years in pop, r'n'b and hip-hop as a fan. The argument might be a tricky to grasp otherwise since, as she points out, eclectic genre-jumping within major releases is certainly nothing new. But somehow with this development, each song stands so independent of an overarching album that the entire thing seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts.

In any case, one of the strengths of the article is that this isn't just reduced to the MP3/Spotify-era of listening (although that's a part of it, certainly). Maybe it's just that all these changes with consuming music have set off a deeper set of dynamics now. I have to say that Usher getting inspiration from Coachella to make a record this way strikes me as weird.

i dunno i can totally picture Usher going to some big rock festivals and raves and being like "what? there are people in the western world who care about music besides Usher's music? something must be done!"

lol

Wow, this title track is really Empire of the Sun-ish.

Luke Steele is his partner on the track, so that makes more sense than you realize.

i would have absolutely no idea of Empire of the Sun's existence if that dude didn't work on a huge US pop album every year or so

i'm confused as to why he does so in the first place

really liking this album. climax is still my favorite thing on it but i'm actually pretty pleased with most of it. the only song that really kinda disgusted me was "can't stop won't stop" (which had me scared for the rest of the album since it was the first track). really liking the danja and jim jonsin tracks in particular.

also prob an unpopular opinion but i don't mind "scream" at all, usher singing max martin isn't great but it doesn't get on my nerves either.

what i'm saying (xpost)

I'd love Usher singing a decent Max Martin song.

Where does that main synth theme come from in "Can't Stop Won't Stop"? It's from another song or film score or something I've heard before.

Oh wait...

It's like some doo wop song...

Oh, I'm fully aware of why Looking 4 Myself sounds the way it does. I guess I was expecting it to be not so explicitly that sound. But it seems like they asked him to specifically reproduce it for Usher. I'm guessing the lyrics are written by Luke Steele, as well. Phrases like "way better" strike me as really Aussie.

Shit. Is it Uptown Girl? xp

I'm gonna throw down the gauntlet and say that Here I Stand might've actually been better than this album.

Phrases like "way better" strike me as really Aussie.

"Way better" is something I hear all the time in the US.

I knew I picked up on that. Probably just me projecting then :)

It's "Uptown Girl," yeah.

i was glad i didn't read maura's article before listening to the album so i could experience the smh surprise in real time

anybody get a Raphael Saadiq vibe from "Twisted"?

no, it just sounds like the same flimsy lounge-funk that pharrell has been doing for half a decade now

Saadiq at his least interesting records flimsy lounge funk

oh, well then yes!

I'm gonna throw down the gauntlet and say that Here I Stand might've actually been better than this album.

I haven't heard this yet and therefore cannot throw any gauntlets but I'm glad to see someone else stand up for Here I Stand if that's what you're doing

here i stand up for Here I Stand

my favorite Here I Stand-era joint wasn't even on the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgZlZC-Q3A

still havent listened to this because in my limited free time i just keep putting "IFU" on repeat. thanks a lot, rtc

yeah great song, rtc. didn't even realize you were working with usher.

k3vin's signed up to mix the next one

lol

rtc first big-upped the song here iircn which is what i was referring to

am i the only one who really loves "lesson for the lover"? it's got that slow, dirty, propulsive thrust i love about terry's best ballads

Love "Show Me" so much, it joins select Dawn Richard in suggesting R&B can and may sometimes choose actually to do fun and interesting things with the house template. Every little component dovetails so perfectly.

Also fuck yeah "Euphoria" in fact.

I basically like-to-love everything except the first two songs.

"show me" is great... i love how the vocals kinda float on top of the percussion

danja's two productions on the album are brilliant, it's great to hear him but it makes me wish he was doing more work

xp eh idk, as an album opener intro (and nothing else, i must stress) 'cant stop' is so toweringly, dizzyingly silly in every way it's hard to resent really

i mean you can't even accuse it of sell-out functionalism, like the big stupid drop it demands is conspicuously absent!! all uptown build and then apologetically halting circular excuse for a chorus

nah it's pretty easy to resist -- my method is to just start the album with "climax"

"can't stop" is a mess but my i dislike "scream" more because the "oh oh"-ing in the chorus is so non-functional, it seems so obvious that instead of deciding to write words for the chorus they were just like "well, if we do a bunch of random oh-oh-ing halfway thru no one will be able to tell the difference"

nah it's pretty easy to resist -- my method is to just start the album with "climax"

― J0rdan S., Monday, June 18, 2012 10:31 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i don't do this kind of thing because if an album has huge flaws i need to keep confronting so as not to forget they exist -- i would've fucked up and thought Lloyd made the best album of last year if i'd just started it at track 3 everytime

tho if you measure "scream" against "omg" & "dj got us fallin in love" it's kind of a dud, so maybe we all weren't as hook/line/sinker as they thought we'd be

At a pool party yesterday we heard "Scream" and the Guetta collab back to back. I was like, drown me now please.

first time i heard "can't stop" i thought pretty much the same as rtc re: silliness but that was only due to novelty, it's sounded gross every time since

i think i way prefer the bonus tracks to the album proper, it seems to finally relax at that point - they don't seem to have a taste-chess agenda in the same way

still think this album is less than the sum of its parts, if anyone could expand on HOW they think any of this mess is coherent or tied together do feel free to say

One can still love a mess.

yeah track skipping is just not cricket, we've been over this a million times tho

It's got four songs I never want to hear again but I've got enough affection for the rest that I don't think, say, a B+ is overrating it.

danja's two productions on the album are brilliant, it's great to hear him but it makes me wish he was doing more work

― lamborghini persie (J0rdan S.), Monday, 18 June 2012 15:18 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

danja is not quite yet at the darkchild chronic stage of genius extraordinaire/lazy fucker syndrome but he's certainly the nearest latterday parallel i think

ok maybe lazy fucker is harsh but unrealised potential dominion at least

still think this album is less than the sum of its parts

i agree w/ this. most of the non-dance shit is great individually (well, except "twisted") but yeah idk it's not a great album, for whatever that's worth

i think maybe timbo taught danja how to price himself out of the game

i think i way prefer the bonus tracks to the album proper, it seems to finally relax at that point - they don't seem to have a taste-chess agenda in the same way

― star-spangled david banner (lex pretend), Monday, June 18, 2012 10:38 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

what was the last pop album that wouldn't be greatly improved if you switched out the x number of worse tracks for the bonus tracks? i was thinking '21' & 'born this way' but those also don't even have bonus tracks.

first time i heard "can't stop" i thought pretty much the same as rtc re: silliness but that was only due to novelty, it's sounded gross every time since

― star-spangled david banner (lex pretend), Monday, 18 June 2012 15:38 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

exact opposite for me, my cold heart melts a little each time quite frankly

i suppose i am a noted aficionado and apologist of will i am trolling by this point though

born this way had bonus tracks but in a surprise twist they actually were completely inessential

will.i.am's keenness to position himself as a member of the royal family has paid off in that i actually despise him as much as them now

the whole "fergie" thing just still confuses him

haha @ u both

i suppose i am a noted aficionado and apologist of will i am trolling by this point though

will you are

not v recent but the bonus tracks on christina aguilera's last album were almost without exception much better than what was actually on the album (which was truly awful in parts)

"monday morning" by xtina was properly amazing

still think this album is less than the sum of its parts

i agree w/ this. most of the non-dance shit is great individually (well, except "twisted") but yeah idk it's not a great album, for whatever that's worth

I hear a ton of good on this album, but not a lot of great. With the obv exception of "Climax," (and maybe lesser exceptions of "I Care For U" and "What Happened To U,") almost every track makes me wish it were better in some way. As a flawed album, it's pretty lovable, but it leaves this frustrating sense that it came this close to being a classic.

oh idk it's pretty far from a classic imo -- "good pop album in the skrillex era" is about as far as i'm willing to go

I guess it just has the spirit and feel of what I'd want a classic, late-period Usher album to sound like. Usher seems game, but the songs just don't rise to the occasion

I hear a ton of good on this album, but not a lot of great.

Yup.

that little prince flourish in the second verse of "say the words" !

am i the only person who considers "Dive" a major standout?

i think so

I hear a ton of good on this album, but not a lot of great. With the obv exception of "Climax," (and maybe lesser exceptions of "I Care For U" and "What Happened To U,") almost every track makes me wish it were better in some way.

you wanted a whole squinting through smoke album?

how about just an album without goofy garbage like "Twisted" and "Looking 4 Myself" and "Can't Stop Won't Stop" on it

I meant that choosing just those three tracks as exceptions to general disappointment seemed to allow for a very narrow aesthetic/emotional range.

I agree your hypothetical version would be much better sd.

I don't think I actively dislike any song on here, maybe "Euphoria" I dunno, but I just don't find it all that compelling.

i don't think i can actually make a track listing that "fixes" this album for me in the way could with nicki (which doesn't actually feel AT ALL disappointing or unsatisfying despite its own mess), a lot of the songs themselves are impressive but not quite compelling me to listen and listen on loop. i think usher's massive serious-artiste face all over the album is kind of off-putting, he tries to invest a lot of these songs with a profundity they don't have ("i care for u" and "looking 4 myself" are particular offenders here even though they're both ok songs). even "show me" slides off the brain a bit.

basically i enjoy usher's idea of disposable (the bonus tracks) way more than his idea of artistry

"what happened to u" is so boring, just go away squinting through weeknd smoke, really, fuck the fuck off now

that's a great song! i don't see what it has to do w/ the weeknd at all, aside from that it was produced by 40. but if you think the weeknd sounds like that, you should go back and listen to the weeknd again.

his singing on "what happened to u" is maybe the closest this album gets to 'confessions,' it's great. tagging it as a weeknd song is really not seeing the forest for the threes imo.

but if you think the weeknd sounds like that, you should go back and listen to the weeknd again.

no thanks

yeah sarge otm, even coming from the little prince of inane false binary hype that is just paranoid schizo nonsense

the one thing that really irritates me about that tune - and i know this is probably too inside baseball to qualify as any less rabid - is that first five seconds of the 'one more chance' remix sample just cos it reminds me of 40 saying in his fader interview about how his work is inspired by dj clark kent and 90s r&b/rap collabos which is hands down one of the most offensively deluded statements i have ever read

the sample reveal is itself unnecessary anyway of course, it's just such a smug little gesture

i love "dive"

i think that's where the album 'starts' for me instead of "Climax," up to fucking track 8 i'm pretty listless, practically covering my eyes in horror by the time Pharrell shows up, and then the clouds finally part and it's relatively smooth sailing from then on.

The "groove" on the title track is strong enough for me to ignore that it's underwritten (e.g. the "introspection" isn't well parsed on a song with already four writers).

the title track just makes me think of that goofy-ass video of him covering "Pumped Up Kicks"

Usher's music has never contained any "introspection" that didn't belong in scare quotes, for better or worse he's a showbiz kid

they don't give a fuck about anyone else

can we return to discussing how good "What Happened to U" is

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 13, 2012 5:25 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

"Numb" is apparently the latest single, thus effectively guaranteeing that "Show Me" prob won't become one. Kind of a shame.

i dunno usher albums have a fuckload of singles

the little prince of inane false binary hype

daaaamn missed this

"show me" is one of my favs but it never really struck me as a potential single

most underrated on this album = "2nd round"

that bed of cut-up vocals is so feathery and then the way it explodes into the chorus

Yeah love "2nd Round". This album is great, fuck the haters.

haha i've actually forgotten what half the songs sound like, the try-hard all-over-the-place stuff killed it as a body of work for me

the bonus trax are the best non-climaxes by some distance

I listened to Confessions way more in 2012 than Looking 4 Myself ¯\(°_o)/¯

Tim was right to mention "Show Me" in his year-end list.

Though it's not really representative, I feel like more than any track "Show Me" is a bellwether for the rest of the album. You're either charmed by it or embarrassed for it

I think Lex is otm about the bonus tracks, too. They were assured in a way most of the album didn't seem to be

"show me" was what made me go back to the album because it was in tim's list and i literally could not remember it. it's an odd one to single out but it's ok enough, i'm neither charmed nor embarrassed. i'm probably not going to listen to it again.

"show me" had long been the best track. i'd apply evan's theory to the horrible pharrell sock-hop joint.

I still stan for this, although, yeah, he's made two better albums. "Show Me," "2nd Round," the title track, and "What Happened to U" my faves.

i'd apply evan's theory to the horrible pharrell sock-hop joint.

I just assumed that even fans who rode hard for this album thought this track was trash

ppl these days seem to refuse to believe that pharrell is still kinda trash

tbf his Kendrick Lamar collab gave him a new lease.

that's the worst beat on the album

the beat on the kendrick album is like pharrell copying tyler the creator copying pharrell

otm. pharrell grandfathering his way into a run of appearances on significant albums this year was a total fluke.

think "Real" is the least interesting beat but you know

otm. pharrell grandfathering his way into a run of appearances on significant albums this year was a total fluke.

― some dude, Wednesday, January 2, 2013 8:19 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

when you consider his placements on albums by frank ocean & kendrick lamar that are mostly pretty tightly run ships, it leads me to believe that pharrell is getting placements from these dudes off of neptunes nostalgia. they're both right around that age where they would've been pretty formative. but it's not like those productions are clear standouts.

Weird year for Pharrell. He hit some of the highest highs of his late career with those Ocean and Lamar albums, but a lot of his other shit was even worse than usual this year. That Curren$y song, yikes

i was definitely too rough on the Usher album back when it dropped and it seemed like him getting any critical attention at all for an album was just belated and ill-placed. but now that he's been basically ignored in most of the big 'year in R&B' pieces aside from "Climax" in favor of some (mostly) better albums i'm like oh wait this was an alright record, probably could've fit it into my albums list.

I spent a lot of time with Confessions and Here I Stand this break, next to which L4M sounds particularly fraught if not schizophrenic; but it still placed in my top twenty. If any interested writer still needs a year-end idea for What's Happening in R&B, then L4M is a good example of a fiscal cliff-esque compromise between the crassest of commercial aspirations and an instinct, however muddled, to look beyond the usual influences.

and lol "Twisted" is NOT a career highlight. Sorry, thread.

yeah L4M is definitely more 'the whole year of the genre in a nutshell' than any other record, for better and for worse

it's all about 8701 imo

i was surprised there weren't more records that did the whole bloated every-trend-in-one-album thing that nicki and usher did this year, it looked like it was going to be a thing there for a minute

pharrell made one of the best beats on kendrick's album and one of the worst on usher's

THIS ALBUM IS SO GOOD WHY AM I JUST REALISING THIS

it actually is a really good album. for me there are about 2 or 3 tracks i would rather do without but the rest are quite strong.

otm. I returned to it a couple weeks ago a bit nervous but still stand by my original assessment.