Usher Raymond IV is having a second. Calling it a second wind doesn’t really feel fairly apt, for the reason that R&B icon’s sails have by no means really stilled. However contemporary off a twice-extended Las Vegas residency and on the cusp of a Tremendous Bowl halftime efficiency and world tour, Usher is again within the well-liked consciousness in a manner he hasn’t been in no less than a decade and a half.
The Atlanta crooner wouldn’t be one of many best-selling singers in historical past if he didn’t have the enterprise sense to match his golden pipes. Usher has appropriately determined to capitalize off his newfound cache with a contemporary album, his first solo launch in eight years and ninth solo album, COMING HOME.
From his new jack swing-heavy eponymous debut to his Zaytoven-produced trap-inspired album A, each Usher venture has included the pop music zeitgeist of the time, whether or not for higher (his career-defining crunk and Hip Hop-infused Confessions) or worse (his experimental EDM album Wanting 4 Myself). Every album has seen Usher bridge previous R&B and soul greats like Stevie Surprise and Michael Jackson to their descendants, whether or not or not it’s near-contemporaries like Chris Brown and Ne-Yo or newer acts like Fortunate Daye and GIVĒON.
COMING HOME is generally a departure from Usher’s chameleonic methods. The 45-year-old has so totally develop into the zeitgeist that he’s now free to zig and zag in any course he needs to; 30 years deep into his profession, Usher is liberated from post-Confessions expectations and the gravity of present traits. This helps clarify why the album is an at-times schizophrenic hodgepodge of sounds and kinds. There’s Usher in grown and horny mode (“I Am the Get together”), heartbroken (“Wreck”) and heartbreaker (“Chilly Blooded”) mode, and glacier-melting carnal mode (“Coming Dwelling”).
It wouldn’t be an Usher album with out him tapping up the celebs of the second, beginning with Burna Boy who seems on the tone-setting title observe that performs like a slice of heat Afrobeats. “Good Good,” a mature breakup anthem squarely in Usher’s consolation zone, options pure counterpart and present R&B torchbearer Summer season Walker and a compelled verse from 21 Savage. “A-City Lady” flips a well-recognized pattern (Billy Joel’s “Uptown Lady”) right into a finger-snapping banger and ode to Usher’s hometown. Fellow ATLien Latto performs the half completely from “20 flooring up on Peachtree.”
Usher’s acclaimed Vegas residency has been a steamy profession retrospective filled with intimate dancing and nightly reminders of his excessive placement on “Sexiest Man Alive” lists. COMING HOME‘s strongest part — from “On the Facet” to “Luckiest Man” – showcases his means to channel R&B’s previous into wholly and authentically Usher songs. Reuniting with Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox, the manufacturing and songwriting duo answerable for Usher’s largest hits, he cops to infidelity but once more on “On the Facet,” and slows issues down 8701-style on “I Am the Get together.”
“I Love U” is a slice of Prince-esque ’80s funk with one of many album’s finest vocal performances. Usher soars over the slinking beat like a near-perfect incarnation of the Purple One. “Please U” and “Luckiest Man” spherical out the mature lover stretch of COMING HOME. These tracks are stark contrasts to right now’s most well-liked model of poisonous R&B: earnest, happy-to-please sluggish jams that specify the closely female-skewed crowds which have packed the Park MGM in Vegas, clamoring for “Mr. Leisure.”
COMING HOME is just not a totally clean return to type. The anodyne paint by numbers membership tracks “Kissing Strangers” and “Carry on Dancin’” sign the album’s sagging center, which options unremarkable beats and uninspired lyrics. Hit-Boy and The-Dream someway provide a sleepy beat for “Bop,” which is actually not what its title goals for with clunky strains similar to: “Pals chimin’ in, bought you undecided/ Hit that defrost for the child, un-ice it.”
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The subsequent observe, “Stone Kold Freak,” oozes intercourse attraction however in the end limps by with a generic beat produced by Rico Love, Ghost Child and Keith Thomas. “Threat It All,” a superbly high quality piano ballad with H.E.R., ought to have stayed on The Shade Purple soundtrack, whereas “Margiela” sees Usher rap-singing over a meandering James Lackey & The-Dream instrumental. It’s astounding {that a} line like, “Over right here floatin’ like Aladdin/ She rubbin’ on me wishin’ for shit, she gotta have it” was ever pressed to wax.
COMING HOME is just not Confessions II, however it doesn’t must be to succeed. The time for a sequel to one of many best-selling R&B albums of the twenty first century has handed. Within the years since, Usher has launched hit-or-miss music, topped “better of” lists for his 1997-2004 output, and has been solidified as a pop and R&B icon. He may also add Tremendous Bowl halftime performer and Tiny Desk favourite to his trophy case.
On COMING HOME, Usher meets the second with out making an attempt to eclipse the previous, serving as a reminder that the King of R&B hasn’t gone wherever.
RELEASE DATE: February 9, 2024
RECORD LABEL: Mega/Gamma
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