The-Dream: "Lovehate"

[Live Your Life]

This was The-Dream's debut album, released in 2007. All songs were written and produced with either Tricky Stewart and/or L.O.S. da Maestro. This is such a fun and innovative album. It's definitely one of my favorites of the 00s. I don't see him ever topping it.

AllMusic gave the album 5/5 stars:

When Terius "The-Dream" Nash released his first album, during the third-to-last week of 2007, the Top 30 of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart contained five songs he co-wrote, only one of which was credited to him as a performer. Four of these singles -- Mary J. Blige's "Just Fine," J. Holiday's "Suffocate" and "Bed," and his own "Shawty Is da Sh*!" -- were on their way to the Top Five. Six months earlier, another song involving his input, Rihanna's "Umbrella," hit number one on the Hot 100. For Love/Hate's duration, Nash sticks with close associates Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Carlos "L.O.S." McKinney. Not only does it lend the album a unified sound unlike most modern R&B albums, but it has the effect of a suite, with common elements shared between tracks; some of the transitions would make any album sequencing assistant deeply envious. When it comes to the songs he keeps to himself, the persona maintained is closer to the one within "Bed." He is a lecherous braggart, albeit one with a slightly chirpy voice who is ultimately a charmingly vulnerable romantic, which brilliantly offsets the chumpishness. Hubris peaks in "Falsetto," where Nash not only has the nerve to work up an impression of a conquest hitting the high notes, but makes it the hook of the song -- and yet, it comes off as the harmless kid brother of Ginuwine's "Pony." There's the gently booming sleazeball doo wop of "I Luv Your Girl," where he pulls another man's girl but cannot help himself, simultaneously brutish and lovestruck. Then, in "Playin' in Her Hair," he involuntarily drops the Lothario act entirely, reduced to awe: "It ain't about the Benz or the money/She's my bee, I'm her honey." From a purely sonic standpoint, it's all state-of-the art pop circa 2007-2008. The sound of the album is resolutely luminescent, its rubbery rhythms -- sometimes colored by those swishing, panning effects heard in "Bed" and its many imitators -- accompanied by layers of components that include twinkling keyboards, rippling synths, and baroque touches like synthetic strings and harpsichords. Love/Hate is, undoubtedly, a post-Timbaland/post-Neptunes pop album, but neither one of them has put together something as consistent or tautly constructed, simultaneously single-oriented and album-oriented, as this.

[B-Boy]

This album is flawless from beginning to end. It's truly his best work. My top favorite tracks are "She Needs My Love" and "Livin A Lie" with Rihanna.

[Linnethia Monique]

I remember specifically refusing to listen to this album when it was first announced because I didn't feel Terius was an album artist. I wanted to hear his work through others and to not be seen. That all changed as soon as I heard Fast Car for the first time. It was if him alongside Los Da Mystro had broken into Paisley Park and stolen the stems from various versions of Little Red Corvette that Prince had passed on. Brilliant tribute! Then I Love Your Girl was released and it plagued the clubs I frequented while in college and I was hooked from there.

[SHOOTER]

Easily his masterpiece.

[Agent Yoncé]

Very solid album. He hasn't made anything worth listening from start to finish since.

[Fat Ass Kelly Price]

I was so surprised by the quality of this album when it was first release. When I tell you I played it out, motherfuckers I PLAYED IT OUT! Still holds up. It's a rabbit hole going to play one song, because it's so easy to listen to the entire album.

[back2blk]

FALSETTO! That is all. That was my jam.