while i went out tonight to go get something to eat, i put this cd on for the first time in a long time and this album only gets better with time. i hadn't listened to it in years but this album is a classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i91NBc-jhjw

love that album. haven't listened to it in mad long though.

each and every song on it is a classic

didn't see no loot in him and the whole budget went to Usher and to me when Laface had Jones, then Puffy and Bad boy went and got carl thomas, however aside from a few hits folks weren't staying with those cats
and also the industry was done with them as well

i remember he had that 1 song "i'll go" on the "love and basketball" soundtrack which i loved but i never did check out any of his other albums after "where i wanna be"

in that the MJ/Stevie thing was present and like alot of those cats it works for a little while until somebody else comes along and does it and so on, however it never lasts and this cat was a decent 2nd/high 3rd tier talent during his era, however he was never gonna see the top tier.

and once Usher blew up well LA reid and crew took the loot from his projects and he faded into a R&B Shaq roast act.

all that loot was put into usher and after the build up of "8701" and then the breakout of "confessions" usher never really followed "confessions" with another great album

now usher definitely had more "star" power than donell jones but i'm just saying, usher never really kept up with the hype he got with "confessions" after "confessions". i mean, usher had the world in the palm of his hands in 2004.

>all that loot was put into usher and after the build up of
>"8701" and then the breakout of "confessions" usher never
>really followed "confessions" with another great album
>
>now usher definitely had more "star" power than donell jones
>but i'm just saying, usher never really kept up with the hype
>he got with "confessions" after "confessions". i mean, usher
>had the world in the palm of his hands in 2004.

Real talk y'all. But Confessions was so crazy, he dropped it like 3 times right when folks were still claiming that nobody would buy something once..he came with a deluxe edition and a DVD combo with even more songs. Confessions part 1 with Stevie on harmonica! Seduction! It is what it is. You're doing the most...shiiiid. Dude was jammin. I'ma type it again. Seduction! Video link...to hell with it!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtzf9_usher-seduction_music

Yeah...and a chunk of it stands up.

Confessions was friggin huge. It was basically 2000s Thriller. He tapped into context with the 'this is how me and Chili didn't make it' storyline, rolled with Dupree's sound for the hits while slinging around some legit 'grope somebody to this' R&B on the album cuts, and finally stumbled into something close enough to the masterpiece folks wanted from him when he was a 'prodigy' as a kid.

But he snuck up on folks. After that, folks expected hugeness. And he didn't have another one in him. That's fine because how many R&B dudes would give up a limb to have a Confessions? I'm talking about the album, the success, the tours, the attention, the platform to start a vanity label with a gang of rope, etcetera. And Usher..as good as he can be when he's good, has never had a great 'grip' on what folks want from him. He never had the hood's trust or the outrageous range of Robert, so there was that too. And since he got super confused as he was starting to age, he took the parachute to EDM and now he makes 'real R&B' as a side project just to show that he's capable still. It was either that or be over with and he didn't want that, so he stepped all up into Ne-Yo Give Me Everything Tonight money.

Jimaveli

That marriage was a blow to his career.

and he hasn't come even close to where he was and the problem is he never has gotten that next level stuff. he stayed in that cool lane
and being a good song and dance man is what he settled for

had his don't be cruel and Bobby run
and also jumped on other folks tracks
and was media friendly and a Mini Me MJ puppet and folks accepted than
however they never bought him as the 2nd coming
and he never seemed to long for that kind of respect either.

i like Jones, however he was caught in a tevin campbell, Jesse Powell,Mario,Keith washington, trap of being cool and happening, however industry didn't see that long loot
and kept it moving.

Usher didn't have to hit no more because the cat had 3 straight monster run

my way, 8701 and confessions plus a gangload of hits.

he was able to make that one decade to the next and get bigger.

LA Reid made sure he was handled the right way.

3/4ths of the album is great, and the rest is highly listenable. I was on it when it first came out, and I've revisited the album frequently over the decades since. Definitely has aged well.

He felt like one of those artists that put his everything into that first album and didn't save anything for later. Never was much interested in anything that came after.

But he HAS release pretty good music afterward.
Just that when you don't have that machine behind you..fair weather listeners move on to the next sparkly thing

That song and You Know That I Love You both were my jams.