It's a little too easy to arrive at the conclusion that John Legend is, true to stagename, the golden-haloed savior of contemporary R&B. But then, these days, the bar's set so low that anything that starts out with the assumption of the listener's intelligence might seem like the work of some mysterious supernatural power. This, of course, unfairly colors our perception of John Legend. To endow the artist with the powers of a musical superhero not only raises our expectations of him beyond healthy levels, but also detracts from the very real, very human accomplishments inherent in both his brilliant live show and his first studio album (2004's Get Lifted). That a song as spare, honest, and unflashily delivered as that record's "Ordinary People" can become a major pop hit in our oppressively blingy times might renew our faith in a higher power - but I'd prefer to see it as a triumph of the beating-heart expression of an imperfect human being the song really is.
Then again, if our expectations of John Legend are unrealistically high, he certainly isn't helping the situation when he releases an album like Once Again - an impossibly sexy, supremely confident, and seriously accomplished collection of songs which verily defies any mortal attempt at praise. Get Lifted was an excellent record, but when you hear its follow-up, you start to realize just how effortful and hungry it was. Once Again strips away most of the artificial additives (err- "selling points") of the first album - the Snoop and Kanye guest spots, the uplifting family singalong song, and those ever-loving tuba hooks - offering up Legend's songs (which alternately promise romantic fidelity and celebrate the guilty pleasures of its opposite, all on a wink and a winning smile) more directly and simply. The album's most incongruous moment is Kanye's signature old-school soul sample on the song "Heaven" - and it feels immediately and conspicuously unnecessary.
The album's lead single "Save Room" is indicative of the new, more basic approach. Legend keeps his vocal at a steamy simmer, the melody stroking over the same collection of notes - then a subtle crescendo of rock guitars adds a moment of tension and suspense, before Legend teasingly relaxes into his pleading chorus. The song feels almost elementary in its simplicity, and it drives me wild in totally indecent ways with the way it repeatedly works itself up but never really climaxes. Later on, of course, the man sings with ecstatic abandon about making out on fire escapes in "P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care)". And in the spare, wrenching "Again", he broods and writhes against an exquisitely painful on-again-off-again affair.
He maintains an unflappable (and timeless) sense of style throughout - "Where Did My Baby Go?", even in its present arrangement, sounds like something Tony Bennett could have sung just as easily this year as 40 years ago - but he brings a convincing sense of both joy and agony and an intuitive understanding of how the two intertwine into everything he sings, wrapping his raspy vibrato around every sweet syllable, rolling each word around in his mouth, as if every one were a rich, expensive chocolate, and taking time to discover just what flavor the creamy center might be. In the gorgeous, spectral "Show Me", Legend practically channels the ghost of Jeff Buckley with a woozy, light-headed falsetto vocal over the elegiac blues guitar riffs (which themselves conjure images of Hendrix) of producer Raphael Saadiq. And in the album closing "Coming Home", he sings a prayer of atonement over an understated orchestration of winds and strings.
Coming in at just under an hour, Once Again might have benefitted from a more critical edit; but then, what am I saying? There's nothing here I wouldn't want to hear again, and again. Oh, yes, and again. And there is something heroic about an artist who can not only hold our attention for this long, with this much subtlety, musicianship, and obvious respect for his audience; who can "bring the sexy" without bringing the vulgar and the crude along for the ride. I might be gushing a little too much to say that Once Again is one of those albums that changes our expectations of what music can and/or should do for us - one big, seductive attitude adjustment. Maybe I've gone too far ... I just don't care, I just don't care, I just don't care.
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Once Again" by John Legend
G.O.O.D. / Sony Urban Records
Released 10/24/06
Producers: John Legend, Kanye West, will.i.am, Craig Street, Raphael Saadiq, Devo Springsteen, Dave Tozer
56 min.
SONGS: Save Room - Heaven - Stereo - Show Me - Each Day Gets Better - P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care) - Slow Dance - Again - Maxine - Where Did My Baby Go - Maxine's Interlude - Another Again - Coming Home
Once Again, John Legend s new album, is many things, chief among them, it s a pop/soul album fueled by intelligence, intuition, sensuality, spirit and...More at Buy.com
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