Caviar
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Post by Caviar on Jun 10, 2016 15:16:23 GMT -5
"Crash" isn't a bad song it's a nice jam while riding in the car but hardly anything spectacular. As stated before his best song from this "project" remains "Good Kisser". Usher has set the bar so high for himself it's almost as if he has to bite another artist's style to remain relevant. He's capable of better then these filler songs he's released since.
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Linnethia Monique
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jun 10, 2016 15:53:55 GMT -5
"Crash" isn't a bad song it's a nice jam while riding in the car but hardly anything spectacular. As stated before his best song from this "project" remains " Good Kisser She Came to Give It To You". Usher has set the bar so high for himself it's almost as if he has to bite another artist's style to remain relevant. He's capable of better then these filler songs he's released since.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2016 16:58:04 GMT -5
Understated. And that equates to boring. Can he win? lol. I would call "Climax" understated. I'd also call it one of his best singles. I would call "Crash" boring.
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Linnethia Monique
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jun 10, 2016 19:13:20 GMT -5
After the excitement he brought me with "Climax" "Go Missing" "I Care For U" "Lookin 4 Myself" "Twisted" and the buttery R&B in "What Happened to You" all of his latest stuff with a few exceptions, and including all his new Urban singles, have all been meh or sonically mimicking what all the new breed is doing. All previous albums are still untouched when it comes to male R&B stars but this latest crop is a no in general. This man has a DIAMOND R&B album. Go against the grain and not with it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2016 19:21:22 GMT -5
Understated. And that equates to boring. Can he win? lol. I would call "Climax" understated. I'd also call it one of his best singles. I would call "Crash" boring. .... says the one who hearts michael. bolton. i kid. not really. ;)
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Linnethia Monique
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jun 10, 2016 19:32:00 GMT -5
I want this!
Now THIS is a track you shop to Pop
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2016 20:47:40 GMT -5
Ironically Crash struck me on first listen as being obviously written as if it was a more chill sequel to Climax. I can't help but wonder what the reaction would be if he had just done this one single for all formats, or at least if we'd heard Crash before No Limit. Nothing about Crash screams tween bait to me - if anything it feels more adult pop-leaning. It's a very mature song without feeling old and stuffy, IMO. But No Limit is definitely pandering. Poorly written/constructed pandering to an audience that is notorious for favoring streaming over purchasing, at that. That's the first song we heard, so a lot of us went into Crash already predisposed to having a negative opinion. I feel like Usher can't live up to the million different expectations people have of him. I think at some point along the way he showed weakness (or lack of confidence) in his output - and it's become easy to criticize and not give him a chance, perhaps. He's also had such a variety of styles throughout his career.. so his audience seems segmented and want different things from him. This combined with being less of a priority for his label... it's pretty rough! I agree, and I think it's only fair to recognize the extremely mixed signals that his audience gave him and RCA during and after the L4M era: - Climax was critically acclaimed and an urban #1 for 11 weeks, but flopped on CHR. Lemme See followed up as a well-received top 5 hit on urban. Both songs are uncertified. Climax finished on the year-end Hot 100 at #72; Lemme See did not make it. - Scream was only a minor hit on pop, receiving tepid reviews for being a run of the mill electropop song and squeaking into the top 10 for a couple of weeks before petering out of the Hot 100 and CHR entirely within 20 weeks. It is certified platinum (I believe it's sold at least 1.5 million, but I can not locate the source where I originally saw that) and finished on the year-end Hot 100 at #44. R&B fans blame L4M's weak sales on Scream/what they felt was a streak of pandering pop singles leading into that (OMG, More, DJ, Without You). But here's the rub: those pandering pop singles were all better sellers than every one of his urban singles (except for Numb, complete flop). So clearly he was doing something right - just for another audience. Now there's a counterargument to be made that if Usher would simply make a pure R&B album, his fans would reinvest in him. And I do get it, in theory. It's not about what he's doing right for anyone else; R&B fans just want Usher to stop making pop music, period. These r&b fans for the most part don't seem to like pop music, so it's a pretty simple concept to grasp. Make the music your audience wants to hear. But all any label wants is albums and songs that sell, and from a label perspective Usher's pop hits, even the mediocre ones are by far showing to be a better investment than his great R&B songs. On its face, this supposed core audience demand to just make r&b is ridiculous for the simple fact that you're asking a business to settle for less sales and less money for the sake of appeasing a niche. And that niche seems hellbent on selfishly dragging Usher's name through the mud until he's no good for anybody. It's kind of like me saying my family going to stop shopping at a certain retail store until they stop advertising to the people in the nearby town and then trashing them in every online review I can post. I think we can all recognize the absurdity in that - clearly my one family could not make up for the sales this store gets from an entire town - but it isn't so obvious with Usher because everyone seems convinced that the r&b fans are Usher's 'core' market. Now RCA is looking at the actual numbers and they're confused af. Usher himself is looking out at his diverse audience when he's on stage and he's confused af. He has probably never felt like he was pandering with his pop music - it would have been more jarring if Trey or Miguel had pulled that stunt, but Usher's career was built on his huge crossover success and his stage performances (I also suspect his ego wouldn't allow him to believe anything he does is less than great and classic Ursher). It made total sense that he'd dabble in dance pop while still making r&b music for his core fans. Then throw in the fact that RCA is a consistent mess when it comes to handling its urban division anyway, probably believes that L4M would have sold even less if it hadn't had a pop hit at all, and the worst part of all this - that we, the R&B audience, have kind of made up our minds that Usher has "lost his way," yet we keep handing him radio hits, so it's a negative feedback loop of the worst kind that has concluded with a self-fulfilling prophecy: No Limit, a song that panders so hard it might as well be sung by Desiigner. So no, it shouldn't be a surprise that Usher doesn't quite know what to do with himself right now. We got that dude all kinds of effed up. I'm just preemptively disappointed b/c while I genuinely enjoyed L4M I have a feeling the "pop" songs and a couple of requisite ballads on this new album are going to be the highlights. But Usher's albums have always been majority R&B (L4M included) and if No Limit is any indication of how the R&B is going to go this time around...so now I will also have to play the wait and see game. Sigh.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2016 0:02:35 GMT -5
ETA for some reason I'm just now seeing Linnethia Monique's nod to Mars v. Venus and the title track from L4M. Mars v. Venus is still my second most favorite Usher ballad (live version of Bedtime still numero uno) and I am STILL. MAD. that he didn't release L4M to pop! Can you imagine the totally different perception people would have had of the whole era if Climax and L4M had been the lead ins??? Ughhhh. It would have felt like the 'rev-pop' era he was going on about when he was working on it back in 2011. And if they were determined to go the EDM/club direction, don't even get me started on Euphoria. That album had too much fire for it to go down the way it did.
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Linnethia Monique
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jun 11, 2016 0:30:15 GMT -5
ETA for some reason I'm just now seeing Linnethia Monique's nod to Mars v. Venus and the title track from L4M. Mars v. Venus is still my second most favorite Usher ballad (live version of Bedtime still numero uno) and I am STILL. MAD. that he didn't release L4M to pop! Can you imagine the totally different perception people would have had of the whole era if Climax and L4M had been the lead ins??? Ughhhh. It would have felt like the 'rev-pop' era he was going on about when he was working on it back in 2011. And if they were determined to go the EDM/club direction, don't even get me started on Euphoria. That album had too much fire for it to go down the way it did. All of the yes available right now! L4M was so above it's time when you see how Empire of the Sun had a resurgence with Walking on a Dream over 7 years after it was initially released. Same for Euphoria and how big Swedish House Mafia was during the same time. Numb was too similar to Without You which was a huge hit with Usher and David Guetta. He was above the trends and not bleeding into them back then. He rehashed too many previous feats, which on the singles, was his downfall except for Climax and that track was given it's proper dues with all of its accolades. Dive was There Goes My Baby Part Deaux, Numb was Without You and Ludacris Rest of My Life Part Deaux. Everything else was so fresh. I need him and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to link back up and give us that good, timeless R&B music.
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Enigma.
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Post by Enigma. on Jun 11, 2016 5:19:16 GMT -5
Crash is so smooth and such a grower
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2016 7:04:23 GMT -5
I would call "Climax" understated. I'd also call it one of his best singles. I would call "Crash" boring. .... says the one who hearts michael. bolton. i kid. not really. ;) How dare you insult the king of pop. @mods please ban
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think pink.
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Post by think pink. on Jun 12, 2016 13:51:08 GMT -5
Signed with Scooter Braun.
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marcjm
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Post by marcjm on Jun 12, 2016 15:32:23 GMT -5
The song is not bad. It' does sound more like Usher fitting in rather than moving into his own lane; but really it's no different than Justin Timberlake's latest song. If Justin can get a #1 with his song, then Usher deserves a hit as well.
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#LisaRinna
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Post by #LisaRinna on Jun 13, 2016 8:51:44 GMT -5
So the album is really called Flawed?
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Linnethia Monique
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jun 13, 2016 10:02:57 GMT -5
The song is not bad. It' does sound more like Usher fitting in rather than moving into his own lane; but really it's no different than Justin Timberlake's latest song. If Justin can get a #1 with his song, then Usher deserves a hit as well. Timberlake or Bieber
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2016 15:36:15 GMT -5
Signed with Scooter Braun. I don't know why this is just now clicking with me but he's no longer managed by Grace? Should I utter a tentative thanks or wait and see how this works out for him?
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George
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Post by George on Jun 13, 2016 16:06:22 GMT -5
Signed with Scooter Braun. I don't know why this is just now clicking with me but he's no longer managed by Grace? Should I utter a tentative thanks or wait and see how this works out for him? I think it's better for him to keep his personal and professional relationships separate. I like "Crash" and I hope it does well for him. "No Limit" is OK, but I think the last album I liked of his was "Here I Stand."
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Zinc.
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Post by Zinc. on Jun 14, 2016 19:25:02 GMT -5
Set to perform at the BET Awards
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Glove Slap
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Post by Glove Slap on Jun 14, 2016 23:43:37 GMT -5
Hmm...I like Crash. It's on the more tamer side, but if the choice is between this and I Don't Mind, I'm going with this I guess. It's just not the type of song to re-kick a failed campaign. "Adult Pop" is a good term for it, and I think it's just clear that a lot of Usher's recent inspiration is coming from a more Pop side, and then merging it with his Urban roots. You can always tell he's an R&B singer at his core, but he just has an interest in pursuing other genres, and I think it's a real shame how recent years have found him in such a corner.
No Limit sounds like an Urban radio top 10, but it's just so non-distinctive. He can very well launch hits like it with ease, but the chances of hit translating to actual sales isn't that good, and it doesn't even feel like he's into it himself. I always feel like another Usher renaissance could be just around the corner with the right song and right campaign, but then...???
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2016 1:11:52 GMT -5
You can't compare Usher a legend to either Justin. I don't know why they always compared only on this site doe. Usher more comparable to the R Kellys and AL Greens than either of those two twinks. He inspired them and now yall wanna compare.
Excited for the new Era!
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Caviar
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Post by Caviar on Jun 15, 2016 11:24:59 GMT -5
Justin T. is more bear than twink though. :kii:
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Zinc.
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Post by Zinc. on Jun 17, 2016 10:03:12 GMT -5
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Linnethia Monique
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jun 17, 2016 16:54:22 GMT -5
Justin T. is more bear than twink though. :kii: LBR he's an otter now
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2016 22:53:15 GMT -5
I still want to ride Usher while bopping to U Make Me Wanna. TAKE IT BACK OLD SKOOL. THE SMOOTHNESS OF USHER DADDY AND THAT SONG WOULD BE EUPHORIC . Let's face it he hasn't had a no. 1 in a minute he might as well have the no. 1 pussy in Canada.
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popbox
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Post by popbox on Jun 17, 2016 23:16:53 GMT -5
Just wanna say what a gem of an album L4M is. It has easily become my favorite album of his by a long shot in the past few years and I can only hope I like this project half as much. Crash is definitely a solid start.
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Fancy
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Post by Fancy on Jun 17, 2016 23:18:53 GMT -5
still loving this & liked the video. wish we got some adlibs in the final chorus and a less sudden ending w the instrumental.
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think pink.
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Post by think pink. on Jun 19, 2016 22:57:41 GMT -5
You can't compare Usher a legend to either Justin. I don't know why they always compared only on this site doe. Usher more comparable to the R Kellys and AL Greens than either of those two twinks. He inspired them and now yall wanna compare. !!!!!
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Zinc.
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Post by Zinc. on Jun 22, 2016 13:45:46 GMT -5
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#LisaRinna
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Post by #LisaRinna on Jun 22, 2016 19:14:27 GMT -5
Usher, pls. If you don't announce that release date I will scream. What kinda mess is this?
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allow that
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Post by allow that on Jul 21, 2016 9:58:13 GMT -5
Signed with Scooter Braun. Is this true? Because...
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