Review: John Legend, Evolver

Watching the Braves game, a late West Coast game against the Giants in San Francisco in case I get bored, I’m about to review another disappointing album by an artist that I like, hoping that my opinion will change. The victim this time around is Evolver by John Legend, silky-smooth R&B singer who branched out from doing background vocals on Kanye songs to becoming a star in his own right. The only problem is that the selling out is overshadowing whatever integrity he has gained from his first two albums, and I’m giving another listen to his third effort to make my final decision. Is JL an artist in his own right, balancing mass appeal with his artistic roots like Alicia Keys, or is he just a pliant tool of people with real talent, like Kanye West and (gulp) Will.i.am. Let’s trouver!

1. “Good Morning (Intro)”

And we’re off! Birds are chirping and John Legend is waking up a lady with his sweet sounds.

2. “Green Light” feat. Andre 3000

Trite lyrics and beat. Hasn’t JL done this song 70 times already? … Andre 3000 (!) doing part two of the chorus… I think what I don’t like about this is that JL’s found a formula and is treading water with his parts on this song… Andre 3000! Rapping! “What kind of girl do you think I are/The kind you meet in a bar?” Saves the song. Maybe this beat was more appropriate for a rap than an R&B song…. Not a good sign when a guest upstages you on the first song of your album.

3. “It’s Over” feat. Kanye West

Chorus is catchy. JL’s hooks are their best when they sound like Stevie Wonder with an 808 machine (I’m pretending I know what an 808 machine is)… These first two tracks feature less piano and more funk and synthesizers… I think Andre did some of the background vocals… Kanye with the Auto-Tune, so his verse is more sing-songy. Very good as usual, but he doesn’t upstage JL like 3000 on “Green Light”… Wikipedia says Pharrell wrote this song with Kanye, so that explains the beat: mechanical, funky, above average.

4. “Everybody Knows”

A single… Acoustic guitar with some light electric… Mellower song than the first two… The bridge got really sugary… In the chorus, I really like how he delivers the “nobody has it easy” line, makes it hit home more… I’d say this is tied with #3 as my favorite so far.

5. “Quickly” feat. Brandy

More synths… Lyrics are about the world falling apart, so we should get together, for, you know… Brandy! Another Kanye connection with this appearance; she was featured on a song on Late Registration out of nowhere… Song continues with the “end of the world” theme to expound on the need to drop the pretense and jump in the sack… The first verse is good because it vaguely mentions some current events to set the theme, but then it gets boring pretty fast.

6. “Cross The Line”

Will.i.am produced this, so I’m prepared for a giant bag of shit or simply a Ziploc full of it… JL is trying to get out of the “Friend Zone” with some chick… Lyrics are weak, but the chorus is catchy… I think this album’s strategy is to base everything around the hooks and to fill in the blanks later, which is making all of these songs sound pretty generic without much heart.

7. “No Other Love” feat. Estelle

Reggae… Can Estelle bring this song up to an “American Boy” level? … Basic love song, including the cliché-braggart line about having bagged a lot of chicks before, but you’re the one for me… Okay, Estelle’s turn… Affecting a Jamaican accent, kind of like Mariah Carey did in a song with Damian Marley, but without the humor… I do like Estelle, but this song is boring. Is this album just background music? Is John Legend’s career just background music?

8. “This Time”

Here’s hoping this song can liven things up a bit… Uh-oh, piano ballad… JL runs into an ex-girlfriend and trying to get her back. “This time” it’ll be different… Picking up girls in the bar aren’t cutting it anymore, Sally, I want you “this time”… I’m mature now, I won’t hold myself back like last time… Who wants to bet the next song is about cheating on someone? … There are strings in this one… Braves got some runs, down 3-6 bottom of the 7th. McCann is really the heart of the team now since Chipper can’t play five games in a row… The orchestration sounds like a Disney ballad, not a good sign.

9. “Satisfaction”

Good beat… She’s pulling away from him this time… Why you doin’ this baby? Why you so cold? I just want to be loved… Will.i.am on this one again… Here’s the problem: he’s a little too smothering, or maybe she’s just tired of this. Overall, my man JL doesn’t understand… Brian McCann Bat Day on June 7, by the way… Synthesizers on this track, as well. This must be the trend that Will.i.am is piggybacking this time. I can’t stand Will.i.am, but he can make a catchy tune, and this is pretty good. The lyrics, comme d’habitude, sont the problem, but I do like this one more than the last one.

10. “Take Me Away”

Some island drums on this one. JL, you’re really annoying me. Did you set out to make sure all your songs are played in dentists’ offices? … Fucking bullpen… I think this song is about a vacation romance, or at least the breezy sound makes me imagine that. So, the song is at least setting a mood… What happened to the JL of his first album, with interesting stories and characters that were different shades of grey?

11. “Good Morning”

Motherfucking bullpen. 6-3 San Francisco with only one out… I’m glad I left the Braves game on listening to this shit… What happened to the JL of his second album, with someone that still sounded inspired? There have been warning signs leading up to this album, of course. With his voice and temperament, the syrupy ballads were always present, but they were at least juxtaposed with some excellent pop gloss (“Heaven”). Even the slower songs (“Save Room” and “Ordinary People”) came straight from the heart, not from Will.i.am’s bag-o’-sell-out.

12. “I Love You, You Love”

Co-written by the guy from Dire Straits… I should be done ranting, but I guess I have to reassess JL’s other albums. I do remember thinking that I only liked a handful of tracks on each, so I shouldn’t be so surprised by this effort, but I’m just disappointed. I think this stems from my belief that JL has the charisma, voice, and the Kanye West universe to really be something of consequence, and this whole album has been underwhelming… This is a slower song, like most of the album

13. “If You’re Out There”

This is from an NBA charity commercial… JL’s saving the cheesiest song for last… I can really see him just doing movie soundtracks. That’s what this sounds like… We can all join together in love. Gag me… We need to look in ourselves first. Fork to the eyeball… This song is crescendoing in tandem with the San Francisco bullpen putting the hammer down on the Braves in the 8th… This song is over. Yes!

Conclusions

Wow, I just shat on John Legend for 50.7 minutes, but it had to be done. At best, these songs are nowhere close to his first two albums. It seems that he’s been pushed into becoming more sanitized and mainstream, even more than he was before, by the record company, and he’s more than willing to do it. There’s just no personality on this album, except for the two rappers with very strong personas who put their stamp on everything they do. I won’t necessarily skip most of these songs if they come up randomly on iTunes, only if I’m busy and not really paying attention to the music. Tracks #2, 9, 12, and 13 will be Nexted; I won’t delete “Green Light” because of Andre 3000.

John Legend, I won’t be buying your next album.

Review: U2, No Line On The Horizon

Lacking anything better to do, and to support my claim that U2 is still my favorite band, I decided to do a track-by-track review their new album No Line On The Horizon. I’ve listened to this album a few times, read a few of the so-so reviews (or a complete trashing by Pitchfork, but they’re hipster a-holes to begin with, so they wouldn’t like U2) through before doing this review, and I wanted to see if my own first visceral reaction of “Bleh” is my actual feeling of the album. Maybe it’s a grower, maybe it’s just something they had to churn out for the record company.

So, without further ado, here’s my track-by-track review as I’m listening to the album for the fifth or sixth time:

1. “No Line on the Horizon”

Cool opening… Bono’s voice is pretty raw… The verses and the bridge are a lot better than the chorus of just repeating “No line on the horizon” a couple times… An awesome chorus could of really put this song over the top.

2. “Magnificent”

Bass drum and whrrring guitar intro with some electronic notes… Guitar and drums come in like “Where The Streets Have No Name”, but then Bono starts singing… This is the second case of the major weakness of this album: Bono’s lyrics. I just can’t connect to the lyrics at all, although I do like the chorus and the band sounds really good. If it’s not one thing than it’s the other… Boring guitar solo. The Edge can do better than that.

3. “Moment of Surrender”

The intro to this “slow jam” sounds like something from Achtung Baby/the mid-90s… Strong vocal like the opening track… The chorus is a little too adult contemporary for my tastes, but then I have to remind myself that this is U2… The best of the first three songs, to be sure... Cringe-worthiness: “To the rhythm of my soul/To the rhythm of my unconsciousness/To the rhythm that yearns/To be released from control”… Another weak sauce boring guitar solo. Why is it there?... Boring ending.

4. “Unknown Caller”

The album’s dragging a bit already, and there’s only been 16 minutes of it… The Edge doing his Edge/Gibb brothers voice for an annoying intro that sounds exactly like the last three… The lyrical theme of all the songs so far seems to be of someone lost in the world that’s trying to find himself, or someone that’s gone off track… A lot of first-person verses… Cringe-worthy: “Reboot yourself”… Is this song about how computers are taking over the world? And how does music run through a computer by Brian Eno help solve that problem?... I like the guitar solo this time, but this is the worst song so far. Don’t you stick the shitty tracks near the end, or is this a portent of what’s to come?

5. “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”

Another long-titled song… The guitar sounds like something leftover from Atomic Bomb and the chorus from All That You Can’t Leave Behind… The high note is not necessary and almost distracts the nice verse… Despite the awful title, it’s up there with “Moment of Surrender” as the best song so far… To tally: two pretty good songs, one bad, and two coulda-been-betters

6. “Get On Your Boots”

Oh boy, oh boy. When I first heard this, I thought, “What the fuck is this?” U2 just seems to be trying to hard with this one… The guitar hook is catchy, but sounds too computerized to really get into it… The lyrics are weird, kind of I Am The Walrus-like in their randomness at points, but mostly because what the fuck is the point? You’re not stoned on LSD, Larry Mullen… To not shit on this song completely, it’s catchy and I like the “I don’t want to talk about/Wars between nations/Not right now” part, but then the bridge/breakdown comes and just blows it all to pieces. This seems like a vain attempt of “Elevation” or “Vertigo”… Any song that makes less sense than “Vertigo” is not a good sign… I wish they could hit “reboot” on this one, it could have been so much better. (I nominate “It could have been so much better” as a future title of a U2 track.)

7. “Stand Up Comedy”

A groove like the Chili Peppers… An intense verse and pre-chorus is dampened by the chorus… This is song is being sung to “the people” out there, and the cringe-worthiness is pretty much all the words… Again, there are good things and bad things about this song, a reoccurring theme.

8. “Fez-Being Born”

A mellower song that slows things down a bit, so you can reflect on what exactly it is you’re listening to. U2 seems to not be able to connect all the dots with this album. Can they redeem themselves?… The nice instrumental beginning of the song (“Fez”?) has been rudely interrupted by “Being Born”… Cringe-worthy: “African sun at last”… Can we get another way to describe how Africa is a “real” place compared to the West?... This song seems to be a lyrical sketch of their time spent in Morocco more than a concrete idea that is worthy of a five minute song.

9. “White As Snow”

Another slow jam… Actual personal lyrics from Bono about his brother instead of the usual triteness that’s been present throughout the album… I like this one, the lyrics are better than “Moment of Surrender” and “Fez/Being Born”

10. “Breathe”

My favorite song on the album, and easily the best. On their week on Letterman, this song stood out as the most listenable of all the crap on this release… The lyrics have a sense of humor and they’re in the same vein as “White As Snow”… Catchy chorus with relatable words. What a concept!... This should have been their first single… This also benefits from the narrator getting some sort of redemption, that there is the some hope. Usually, U2 songs have an optimistic undertone to them despite what’s going around the characters in the songs… I’m actually nodding my head along to it. Now do this 10 more times, and you have Achtung Baby or The Joshua Tree.

11. “Cedars of Lebanon”

Just by the title, this is obviously going for a “Yahweh”-like ending with overt religious symbolism to end the album, to send us out on a soul-cleaning note… I think the character is a journalist during the Lebanon-Israel war, beaten down by what’s going on around him. Will he be redeemed?... Cringe-worthy: “Return the call to home”, kind of like during the title track, repeating “no line on the horizon” kills the momentum… Some random samples of Bono voice sparsely placed throughout the song: is DJ Premier doing the beat or something… Very low-key and somber, not too bad, but just kind of ends without a proper ending. Wow, is this some sort of symbolic gesture on U2’s opinion of the mindless violence in the Middle East? I’m just not sure…

Conclusions

Inconsistency and Uninspiring is what I hear. The lyrics are the weakest point of the album, and nearly every track seems to be a mish-mash of different ideas that never gel, epitomized by “Get On Your Boots”. The only song that really comes together is “Breathe”, while “I'll Go Crazy…” and “White As Snow” tie for second as the best on the album. Overall, I give this album a C, and if you’re not a huge U2 fan, don’t bother or just buy “Breathe” on iTunes.