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Which may be better than the days when he had you questioning his basic mental fitness. These cut-rate production choices are, along with the limpness of some of his retro moves, the only ways that Kelly actually embarrasses himself on Write Me Back.
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Not even Kelly's singing can redeem this epically crappy-sounding tribute to dance crazes, "American Bandstand", and the end of every beach-party movie ever. "All Rounds on Me" is like a 1997 ringtone version of a Wilson Pickett obscurity with tinny synthetic horns clanging against surprisingly accurate guitar licks. The lowest-of-the-low is "Party Jumpin'", which comes directly after the somnambulant smoothness of "Green Light" like someone slapping you awake. Surprisingly, given his depth of knowledge and the more-or-less good taste displayed on Love Letter's old-school pastiches, the true low points on Write Me Back come when Kelly tries to recreate the 60s, again mostly because the results are so damned chintzy. Still, it'd be nice if the music had half as much force. The lyrics to "When a Man Lies" may be boilerplate- the wise old soulman castigating the faithless and two-faced- but wow, does he sell that chorus. When he wants to rock the people in the balcony, he's still got it. Kelly, released on February 18, 2003, by Jive Records.Recording sessions took place mainly at Rockland Studios and Chicago Recording Company in Chicago, Illinois, and the album was primarily written, arranged, and produced by R. It's one of those songs that needs just enough quiver behind the la-la-la's to induce shivers without breaking the low-key mood by oversinging. Chocolate Factory is the fifth solo album by American recording artist R. "Green Light" is the type of deep cut covered in Eric Harvey's recent history of quiet storm radio, and Kelly's vocal is as creamy as any of those classics. The fact that he almost succeeds gives you some indication, right at the album's start, that the pleasures of Write Me Back are based almost entirely around Kelly's pipes. By the end of the song, Kelly is willing himself back to the high "Soul Train" era, trying to turn its ersatz disco into the real deal. "Love Is" comes off like a handful of hacks in an off-strip Vegas bar, armed with a couple of Casios and a surprisingly good frontman, doing their best Barry White impression for a bunch of disinterested daytime drunks. (At least the crummy parts of Kelly's older albums had a misguided messianic ambition behind them.) The cheap faux-orchestrations are back, too, and they sound especially shabby backing the total conviction of Kelly's engaged vocal performances. Kelly seems to have breezed through the writing and recording process here, and there's a fine line between breezy and half-assed. Kelly was a good look, especially since enough of his irrepressible weirdness is always going to shine through and keep things from feeling too buttoned-up.īut the care, craft and subtlety of Love Letter is audible only in flashes on Write Me Back. A more restrained, classicist, and focused R. By that, I don't mean he should have returned to the maniacal story-songs he drove into the ground after "Trapped in the Closet", cranked up the sex metaphors to an even more deranged degree, or gone cherry-picking the hottest new sounds. But as a singer, songwriter and producer, he’s at the top of his game.The problem with Write Me Back is that it doesn't go far enough. Recording sessions took place mainly at Rockland Studios and Chicago Recording Company in Chicago, Illinois, and the album was primarily written, arranged, and produced by R. Factory‘s title track bounces on a hypnotic pulse and an instantly memorable hook, while “You Made Me Love You” borrows a guitar lick - and a deep Southern churchiness - from Al Green’s “Love and Happiness.” It remains to be seen if Kelly can regain his chart-busting status - or even salvage his career. Chocolate Factory is the fifth solo album by American recording artist R. The singer has backed off some of his porn-fantasy corniness and eased into a confident, soulful groove that runs consistently through the album and its equally appealing six-song bonus CD, Loveland.
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That’s too bad, because Chocolate Factory ranks among the best work of his career. Kelly’s problems start less than thirty seconds into Chocolate Factory, when he coos, “Anything you want/You just come to daddy.” From other R&B lovemen, that would be boilerplate pillow talk, but allegations of participating in child pornography against Kelly provide a distorting filter through which his music will be heard for years to come.