
When personal issues bubble messily into a pop star's public life, it's not surprising that this drama can fuel their music in unexpected ways. In fact, this tension often results in fresh, boundary-pushing music that exposes an artist's talents in ways that might not have been made apparent otherwise. But after marriage heavily influenced Usher on his more serious-minded, adult album Here I Stand, (well, minus the juvenile Polow-produced "Love In This Club") the results were less than ideal. The album performed modestly well but failed to launch the string of hits that customarily follows an Usher album.
And so after divorcing his wife Tameka Foster, who was notoriously unpopular with his fans, Usher dipped his toe once again into personal waters with "Papers," checking to see if the soap opera that was his divorce could pay off musically. It didn't, and after that, he didn't look back. He began to churn out club-friendly hits that seemed to have little connection to his own life. "Lil' Freak," "OMG" and "Hey Daddy" were all pushed one after the other and each song hit on the same tone: Frisky bachelor, single and ready to mingle.
But puzzingly, in an interview with People magazine, Usher claims that Raymond v. Raymond is about him dealing with his divorce while his new EP Versus is about him venturing out into the dating pool. SOURCE: People.com
"My music is about where I am at the time," he says. "In Raymond vs. Raymond, I was going through a lot of things, and it came out in my music. My marriage fell apart and I was suddenly a single father. But now, with Versus, I'm singing about being a dating father."
Exactly which part of "Lil' Freak," a song that has Usher using Nicki Minaj as his Lassie in a bid to sniff out a bisexual third-party for his menage a trois, approaches anything resembling the topic of his broken marriage? What emotional issues of break-up and separation did that song touch on? And how is it any different from the similarly-themed "Hot Tottie," in which Usher croons, once again, about hot, steamy sex?
Usher is claiming that his music is still personal, but now, more than ever, his songs have veered to the impersonal. The tunes are largely faceless songs that, while catchy, rely on the production value (see Will.i.am) more than on Usher's personal musical thumbprint. The one exception is "There Goes My Baby," which feels warm, authentic and emotional in ways that the bulk of his new material doesn't. If there was shift between the two projects Usher recently released, he didn't make the distinction very clear.