Ne-Yo's Solid Second Album: Almost Exactly The Same As Ne-Yo's Solid First Album
Written: May 05 '07
Product Rating:
Pros: Fantastic melodies and harmonies, well-chosen guest appearances.
Cons: Ne-Yo has a one-track lyrical mind, needs to mature artistically.
The Bottom Line: For an R&B singer to make two straight solid albums is a miracle nowadays, so Ne-Yo deserves props. However, I think he's capable of even better.
speeddemon531's Full Review: Because of You by Ne-Yo
Ne-Yo's successful 2006 debut, "In My Own Words", marked him as one of the hottest new R&B artists around. Ne-Yo took the singer/songwriter aesthetic as exemplified by John Legend, Musiq Soulchild and Robin Thicke and gave it a youthful makeover, putting him more in line with "entertainers" such as Usher, Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown. His pen skills were solid, and he could also bust a move and make the little girls scream. With the ability to straddle demographics, small wonder that "In My Own Words" sold a million and a half copies in the U.S.
"Because Of You" finds Ne-Yo attempting to avoid the sophomore slump, something that's probably much easier to do when you're not dependent on the hot songwriter or producer of the moment (or you *are* the hot songwriter or producer of the moment). The fact that Ne-Yo doesn't stray far from the template that made his first album a success turns out to be both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, it's nice to hear that Ne-Yo hasn't lost his gift for melody and that his voice is still supple and boyish in a way that STRONGLY recalls Michael Jackson circa 1980. On the other hand, "Because Of You" occasionally feels like a retread, or at the very least it sounds like Ne-Yo's playing it safe and not challenging himself very much.
Ne-Yo went largely in-house for the production of this album, and the two best tracks are the ones co-produced by Stargate, the Norwegian production team that helmed much of "In My Own Words". The album's title track could very easily have been one of the better songs for a late-Nineties boy band. It's got a percussive, propulsive sound that lends itself more to pop than R&B, and the bright vocal harmonies make it the perfect spring song. Meanwhile, the album's last track, the melancholy separation ballad "Go On Girl", has an acoustic-guitar laced vibe that posts it as a second cousin to Beyonce's "Irreplaceable"-a song which was co-written by Ne-Yo.
The rest of the album...well, I don't wanna say it's hit or miss. None of the songs on "Because Of You" are outright bad, but some of them just kind of float by without you noticing. "Can We Chill" is notable only because it's a direct Michael Jackson rip: right down to the breaths and gasps. If he'd only busted out a "hee hee!", Mike could have had a lawsuit. "Crazy" boasts one of the album's two guest appearances (a rap cameo by label head Jay-Z), and the song loses it's flavor almost as soon as Hov exits, stage left.
The album's other guest appearance comes on the old-school flavored ballad "Leaving Tonight", where Ne-Yo's foil is leather-lunged diva Jennifer Hudson. The Oscar winner sings rings around Ne-Yo, but the oil & water matchup works quite well. A mellow Smokey Robinson sample sets the mood for this drama-filled song about two lovers at a crossroads of sorts. Back on his own, both "Sex With My Ex" and "Angel" pile on the drum machines and strings with a very heavy Prince/Minneapolis flavor. Aping Prince has become almost as popular in recent years as aping MJ, and if you want an idea of what it would have sounded like had the two ever worked together, these songs are a good reference point.
Aside from the occasional boring track, this album's Achilles heel is the fact that Ne-Yo's lyrics are fairly one-dimensional. Just about every song on this album is about S-E-X, and that will get tiresome really quickly unless Ne-Yo broadens his scope a bit. For every song like the wickedly sly funk jam "Addicted" (where Ne-Yo refutes rumors that he is a sex addict, only to say that after a night with your girl, she just might turn out to be one), there are songs that indicate that Ne-Yo's lyrical well may be showing signs of running dry, like the tepid ballad "Say It".
"Because Of You" turns out to be solid, but unspectacular. Only on his second album, Ne-Yo is already starting to show a few signs of creative stagnation, and the fact that his influences are so transparent (from a vocal and melodic standpoint, this is damn near a Michael Jackson tribute album) are a little alarming. That said, the man does know his way around a hook, his songs (for the most part) are well-written and even somewhat witty (a rarity among contemporary R&B), and well...you could have worse influences, right? Chamone! Owwww!!!!
"In My Own Words" revealed a singer/songwriter who showed a lot of promise. "Because Of You" shows the same promise. Let's hope that on his next album, Ne-Yo acts on that promise and makes the truly great (as opposed to merely satisfying) album that I think he's capable of.
"Because Of You" by Ne-Yo
Released 2007 on Def Jam Records
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
Citing Prince, Marvin Gaye, The Rat Pack, and Stevie Wonder in his list of favorite entertainers, Ne-Yo s album invokes a nostalgic feeling, a renaiss...More at Buy.com
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