![]() ![]() “Let Me” spins off a stretched-out sample from Ready for the World’s 1985 slow jam “Love You Down,” and updates the idea of the uxorious tribute with spinning drum fills and Usher taking pride in his mate’s ability to command equal pay (!). The album’s persistent darkness, in keeping with current radio trends, overtakes even uptempo tracks like the Pharrell-produced tease “FWM.” But Usher – like any soul star worth his collection of Al Green albums – also knows that low-lit rooms are where a lot of the best action happens. ![]() That adventurousness defines Hard II Love, which manages to stretch the boundaries of R&B while winding toward the brooding atmospherics that have enveloped much of pop over the past 12 months.Īccording to a Q&A Usher did before the album arrived on Tidal Monday night, Hard II Love is made for “men who don’t think love is cool to do.” It’s a dense, lengthy album with dense layers and unexpected twists, with lyrics that are so plainspoken that at times they seem tossed-off (surely someone on his team could have intervened before he rhymed “phone calls” with “phones off” on the whirling “Make U a Believer”). More recently, though, his output has been defined by a willingness to seek out musical inspiration from cutting-edge artists and more obscure sonic impulses: 2012’s critic-beloved “Climax” placed his falsetto against a skeletal drum machine 2014’s “Good Kisser” allowed him to get frisky over a barely there funk tableau. The R&B superstar has minted platinum by laying out his sins in the past – his 2004 album Confessions was one of the record business’s last releases to pass the 10-million-shifted mark. I’m man enough to admit it.” So begins Hard II Love, the eighth album by Usher.
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