Usher - Raymond v Raymond

Usher, everybody’s favorite R&B superstar circa 2004, is back with his sixth album, Raymond v Raymond. This seems like it should be a big deal: although his R. Kelly-for-kids-sans-statutory-rape act has lost a bit of its luster in the past five years, Usher still holds a fair amount of capital in the pop music realm. But at the same time, Usher also released an album in 2008 titled Here I Stand, and if you weren’t previously aware of it, you aren’t alone. An ode to married life via slow-burning ballads, Here I Stand was something of a foil to previous blockbuster Confessions and never gained the commercial success of its predecessor. 

Raymond v Raymond finds the pendulum swinging back toward Confessions, dropping mere months after his divorce from wife Tameka. In this context, the album title becomes difficult to parse—lead single “Papers” indicates it may be a reference to Usher’s (surname Raymond) divorce lawsuit. But the twin-mirror image cover art suggests a T.I. vs. T.I.P./I Am... Sasha Fierce-style dual personality concept. Like both of those albums, though, Raymond v Raymond fails to achieve the undeniable pop-music euphoria of its creator’s prior work.

The most obvious shortcoming is a glaring hole where the hook-heavy, club-ready singles—think “Love in This Club” off Here I Stand or “Yeah!” from Confessions—ought to be. Usher’s best approximations here sound either uninspired (“Lil Freak”), or forced [“Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home)”]. They’ll get some radio play, but Usher’s slow and steady decline from superstardom will only be exaggerated by trying to get by on brand name alone.

“OMG,” produced by will.i.am, is a relentlessly annoying exercise in call-and-response, in no way salvaged by Usher’s tired, Auto-tuned vocals. Only “Papers” stands out, successfully reproducing the personal anguish that pervaded Confessions without resorting to gimmickry or melodrama.

By and large, though, Raymond v Raymond is an album filled with tracks that fail to show authentic emotion. Maybe one go-round on the newly single playboy train was enough.