Usher - Classic or Dud?

haha xpost

I just remember Dan saying Justin essentially stole everything from Usher, or tried to. What this means in the larger scheme of like/dislike I don't recall.

Nothing else of his has really caught my ear.

do not fuck over tlc women.

The Shins joke was alright. Don't worry the rock rap issue will never die. I am surprised that everyone is so bored with the issue that no one has gotten all lathered about that "Guns of Brixton" sample song.

"U Got It Bad" was pretty middling until it got that odd 2-step-rip-off rejig.

Ginuwine is the guy I've always unilaterally despised.

MILLION-SELLING 'CONFESSIONS'!

R&B star USHER has sold over a million copies of his new album in the US in just one week.

The singer tops the charts with 'Confessions', ending Norah Jones' 'Feels Like Home''s seven-week reign at the top.

'Confessions'' 1.1 million sales mean it has now surpassed 'Feels Like Home' as the year's fastest-selling album.

Usher and Jones, whose album sold 1.02 million in its first week, now stand as the only two artists to debut in seven-figure territory since *N Sync's 'Celebrity' sold nearly 1.9 million copies its first week in July 2001.

Usher's label, Arista Records, have revealed 'Confessions' is its biggest release in the label's 30-year history, beating the 689,000 first-week sales posted by Notorious BIG's posthumous 1997 album 'Life After Death'.

Usher has sold nearly ten million albums in the United States to date, according to SoundScan.

----

Didnt Justin peak out at #2 with justified?

This is true. Everyone in the music industry lives in a great big house. MTV will be filming soon for a reality series. You will be chosen as the special guest star if you post on the Kanye West thread.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/news/urbannews/040304_usher.shtml

Usher called Justin a "follower" on Radio 1 last month, and challenged him to a dance-off in some other interview.

Which means, of course, that they'll be releasing a massively-hyped duet in the next eight months.

Ah, I'm glad that someone finally agrees with me!

That he isn't getting as much attention as Justin Timberlake did for Justified (which sold a LOT less) is really starting to piss me off.

Usher seems to take himself waaay too seriously. I mean, even in the "Yeah" video, he flashes a lot of somber facial expressions, like he Really Means It, and the rest of the album is all ballads. I mean, he's a good singer and dancer at all, but the way he puffs himself up as an Artist, you'd think he was a writer/producer on the level of R. Kelly or even Prince.

Around the time he arrived was the period of time r&b music really started going south. It was already headed there but the arrival of him and similar artists brought forth the downfall. Nowadays most of it on the airwaves is unlistenable.

It's as uneven as the last one, whose good to excellent songs prompted me to grade it on a curve.

It's about two sensational highlights short of the last one, but I can forgive that. He's mellowed out and he's not reaching as hard as he did on the last few. This feels like his first album as a former Really Big Star, as opposed to an artist still trying to be a Really Big Star

this album is way better than Looking 4 Myself imo

as i've receded away from music criticism i think i've found that i have less use for an album like this -- which is a good album qua album w/ relatively few standouts -- than something like looking 4 myself, where half was pure trash but the 3 or 4 best songs were real standouts

It really depends on the situation. If I'm cooking dinner or something I'll reach for this, but if I'm in car and can easily skip tracks I'll go for Looking 4 Myself

L4M keepers:

Climax
title track
I Care For U
Dive
Numb
2nd Round

H2L keepers:

Bump
Let Me
Crash
FYM
Hard II Love

I agree with Evan: nothing on H2L will embarrass Usher's family like the last album's "Can't Stop Won't Stop" or "Scream."

L4M also had very good bonus tracks ("Say The Words" especially) that made its grab-bag feel a little more forgivable. It tempered the ratio of hits to misses and made the whole thing feel more generous

in "No Limit," does Usher sing:

Look my cat OD'd
No limit

time out--the best song on L4M is clearly "show me"

anyway, hard II love is technically a better album, which i guess matter when you have to assign ratings to such things. but functionally i'm not sure it has more utility to my life than the grab bag.

also "lemme see" is an underrated single, it's in one of those nguzunguzu mixes and sounds great

show me def the standout for me outside the obv climax

idk they're both grab bags to me; Usher's singing and writing and choosing songs like a former megastar instead of thinking he's still a megastar kept him from including another "Can't Stop...," although we can argue about Young Thug's appearance, I guess.

"Show Me" is good; forgot it.

also "what happened to u" was pretty tight and would fit on the new record... this album is better than i remembered

IFU beat is A+

"IFU" was the best song on that record imo

well, u know i what i think.

as i've receded away from music criticism i think i've found that i have less use for an album like this -- which is a good album qua album w/ relat
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 20 September 2016 22:14 Bookmark

It really depends on the situation. If I'm cooking dinner or something I'll reach for this, but if I'm in car and can easily skip tracks I'll go for Looking 4 Myself

― Evan R, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 22:21 Bookmark

lol i love this exchange. j0rd's provocatively salty framing checkmated by evan schooling on what true non-crit nothingness really be

xp rico love produced that, did you hear his album from last year?

putting that noble idea of album as microwave muzak aside for a sec and considering the holistic artistic statement then i still think that, at the time, l4m said something interesting for itself as a grab-bag. there were plenty of other grab-bags then, disjointed and nakedly cynical - imo l4m managed to carry a rare thread of touristic enthusiasm thru its peaks & valleys of tasteful & trash

that rico love lp was a such a uniquely weird faceless ventriloquist sesh.... rico act more like. serial rnb hit songwriter as cusack in being john malkovich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pClmzDdqkMQ

this one's like a seance. who am i speaking to i sense a great sadness

llol, yeeeeeeah thats one of like three trx i didnt like on there

man that vid is embarrassing

I've pissed off Morbs and xyzz in film threads for admitting that I've watched Hou films while mopping.

lol i love this exchange. j0rd's provocatively salty framing checkmated by evan schooling on what true non-crit nothingness really be

― r|t|c, Tuesday, September 20, 2016 5:07 PM (two hours ago)

Man you really have it out for me lately, huh? Did I somehow offend you or something? You jump down my throat every time I post

Rico Love album rules, even the fake N.E.R.D. song lol

Yeah, the Rico Love album was depressed loss-of-meaning r&b in the best sense. I can see why it did not sell though.

Man you really have it out for me lately, huh? Did I somehow offend you or something? You jump down my throat every time I post

― Evan R, Wednesday, 21 September 2016 02:12 Bookmark

man get a life. there is a discussion, you choose to contribute a point of view, i object to its flaccid suburban mediocrity, i pay you the courtesy of responding. that's how it works

is there an inviting, easygoing recent album you could maybe put on to unwind?

what is "the best sense" of er, "depressed loss-of-meaning r&b"? i mean i got a lil nostalgic kick out of the n.e.r.d zombie too for a sec but to go so far as to say it rules just seems like being pugnacious about closing your playbook sometime around 2006

some of the album is nicely produced, some taxidermy is nicely enbalmed

It's utterly disillusioned in a way that most quasi-nihilistic hedonist r&b doesn't even try to be. Hence more interesting.

It's not the young & trendy numbness of abel & co, but a beaten down, at-the-end-of-the-rope-so-I-might-as-well-laugh disenchantment. It felt refreshing to me, at least. I haven't listened to it in a while though.

http://i.imgur.com/NRb4TVn.jpg

i don't really recall discerning a strong consistent persona like that at all thru the karaoke smoke but maybe i'll listen again sometime

wait why did this "girls just wanna have fun" song not end up on the album

new album out at midnight, produced entirely by zaytoven

Usher's dropping a new album at midnight, produced entirely by Zaytoven. pic.twitter.com/OrsAV8h6ec

— Meelz 💪🏾 (@MeelzTV) October 11, 2018

sounds like he's trying to be future :-/

This is going to be bad I’m sure

Zaytoven is a hilarious name

pretty forgettable on my initial couple listens

His new single with Ella Mai is fantastic

https://youtu.be/MMitI4VbSuo

actually pretty hyped that he's doing the Super Bowl halftime next year

I wondered why people I knew suddenly wanted to discuss how awesome they found Confessions in 2004.

i can never not hear it luda style as ursher and well reality is confounding in a lot of ways. like why the fuck is urshur at the big game TM?

*i think i said this before better scan*

And now I'll always have a little voice say "Ursher" in my head. That Yeah song. Urg.
― Hunter (Hunter), Sunday, February 22, 2004 8:58 PM (nineteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

omg i am dying right now second time today it is sad rip me

listening to his peak era albums in advance of this weekend. my way is very refreshing as a cd-era r&b album that comes in at a cool 9 songs, 36 minutes. all the songs are pretty good, too.

new album is okay. still excited for his performance

Confessions is that uncommon thing: the biggest album is the best album. I dig My Way too.

yes confessions is great, pretty much all the way through.

"Kissing Strangers" off the new album is him at his midtempo best

The back half of new album >>> front half

Rollerskating while singing live on that stage was crazy ballsy.

supposedly something he's been doing at his vegas residency, so at least he's had practice