With over 27 million albums sold, Usher is back with his 7th album Raymond v Raymond. Following the success of his platinum selling 2008 release Here I Stand, Raymond v Raymond takes you on a journey through the dichotomy of man....
After a stylistic detour with 2007’s DESTINATION MOON, on which Deborah Cox paid tribute to jazz and classic-pop vocal legend Dinah Washington, the Canadian chanteuse returns to her natural R&B milieu on THE PROMISE. Working with a selection of top-tier collaborators (John Legend, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis), Cox delivers a set of eminently smooth yet impassioned music which alternates between hip-hop-style jams (“Saying Goodbye”) and neo-soul fare (“You Know Where My Heart Is”). On “Did You Ever Love Me,” the singer reveals the benefits of briefly leaving one’s comfort zone, combining modern production with a vocal that recalls Washington’s best torch songs....
Omarion’s first two solo albums topped the R&B and Billboard 200 charts, so it is a little surprising that he took over three years to release his third. The singer wasn’t twiddling his thumbs, though. He recorded 2007’s Face Off with Bow Wow — promoted by a BET special titled The Road to Platinum, it went gold — and continued his side career in films and on television. After a brief association with Lil Wayne’s Young Money label, Omarion linked with EMI and established his StarWorld label for Ollusion, an album that thrives on sparse, tickling productions that are more about atmosphere than anything else. Clusters of synthetic handclaps, snares, and other slivers of percussion, along with impressionist-like use of keyboards and piano, are more prominent than busy and slick, heavily layered arrangements anchored by heavy kick drums and blasting bass. Almost all of these beats would be classified as snapping, slapping, or smacking before banging, flecked with details yet simultaneously somewhat half-assed-sounding. ...
Usher Raymond IV (born October 14, 1978 in Dallas, Texas), known simply as Usher, is a Grammy Award winning American R&B singer-songwriter, producer and actor. He rose to fame in the late 90s, releasing the multi-platinum albums My Way and 8701. His success continued with the release of his 2004 album, Confessions, which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, and earned Usher four American Music Awards and eight Grammy nominations. His latest album Here I Stand, released in May 2008, reached #1 on the Billboard 200 and has currently sold over 2 million copies worldwide....
Christina Aguilera seemed intent on constantly reinventing herself over the course of her first several albums, and it’s hard not to be impressed by her leaps from teen-pop sensation (1999 self-titled debut) to raunchy, sexually precocious R&B singer (2002’s STRIPPED) to blues and jazz-steeped diva on 2006’s BACK TO BASICS. With its smoky torch songs, occasional big-band arrangements, and allusions to seminal divas like Billie Holiday and Etta James, the ambitious double disc casts Aguilera in the soft, romantic light of vintage soul crooners....
This deluxe edition of WHAT’S GOING ON includes a 20-page booklet with
complete lyrics, never-before-published photos from personal family collections and an essay by David Ritz.
Recorded live at The Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. on May 1, 1972.
Originally released in 1971, WHAT’S GOING ON remains a landmark album, one that redefined music with powerful, anthemic songs that remain pertinent to this day. Before WHAT’S GOING ON, R&B albums were collections of singles, with secondary “filler” material rounding out the LPs. Marvin Gaye changed all this by releasin...
Conversation Peace is made up of love songs in the key of life and life songs in the key of love, just like all the other records Stevie Wonder has made for the past 20 years. What changes, as he gets older, is just how much love he’s willing to bring to a life that doesn’t seem to be getting any better. 1995 means drive-by shootings, gang wars and homelessness in the urban milieu that has always been Wonder’s lyrical home. But where he once got downright angry in “Big Brother,” or reporterly and objective in “Living For The City,” Wonder is now reaching out to his fellow man and spreading his love around. He gets murdered in both verses of the funky “My Love Is With You,” and responds with bouncy pop choruses, a message to “spread the love I’ve given,” and, only at the song’s tail end, a plea to “ban the hand gun.” This is the idea of love conquering all taken to an extreme....
Frank Sinatra
Michael Jackson
Koop
A Night at the Roxbury
Johnny Cash & June Carter
