#hard ii love

[tha-wrecka-stow]

Usher Discography

[anotherhumansthings]

Facts.

[geekpopnews]

Review | Usher retorna mais incrível do que nunca em "Coming Home"

Ele está de volta: às vésperas de sua apresentação no intervalo do Super Bowl, Usher lançou o álbum “Coming Home” com feats de peso e hits memoráveis. Confira a review completa do nono disco de estúdio do rapper! #Usher #ComingHome #SuperBowl

Prestes a quebrar tudo com seus maiores hits no Super Bowl, Usher lançou o aguardado álbum “Coming Home” nesta sexta-feira (9). O novo projeto de estúdio do artista é uma grande celebração do R&B de mais alto nível e traz feats de peso em letras essencialmente românticas, que reafirmam a grandiosidade e versatilidade do cantor em suas três décadas de carreira. Com músicas ao lado de Burna Boy,…

[musictyme]

Usher- Let Me

[thisaintascenereviews]

Usher - Coming Home

Ursher’s back, baby. Right before his Super Bowl halftime show this past Sunday, which was absolutely great, he dropped his newest album, entitled Coming Home, and it seems like he’s been having a good weekend. This is his first album in eight years, not counting the collaborative album he released with Zaytoven in 2018, and it seems like Usher is having a career resurgence. That’s great, because it seems like that he’s finally getting the recognition he’s always deserved. He’s gotten some of it, but during the 2010s, and with how R&B has moved on from guys like Usher, it makes sense why his star power has slightly faded, at least in the mainstream. He’s still popular, especially for his past hits, but he’s become more of a legacy artist. Coming Home seems to aim to change that, and showcase Usher in the spotlight again, and the title has a few different meanings, whether it means that Usher is literally coming home after touring for so long, or coming home musically to his native Atlanta and utilizing more influences from where he grew up, reconnecting with a lot of songwriters, producers, and people that he made a lot of his big hits with (including LA Reid and Jermaine Dupri, among other people), or both. This album has more meanings than it seems to showcase, but the question is whether or not the album has been worth the wait. It’s been eight years since Hard II Love, and I just reviewed that album recently, ultimately spending some time with it before Coming Home came out, and I really enjoyed that album all these years later, despite having a lot of the same problems that most Usher albums have had for years. I was worried that Coming Home would have the same problems, or just not be as good, but I was absolutely surprised and kind of blown away with this album.

Yeah, Coming Home is great, and it’s the best Usher album we’ve gotten in years, but that comes down to a couple of things, mainly Usher himself. Usher sounds amazing on here, and it’s weird, because he sounds even better than he did on Hard II Love and he sounded great there. Usher has one of the best voices in R&B, if not all time, and he sounds effortless here. It could be that he’s given material that suits him better, and that complements his voice better, or that this record isn’t as reliant as trying to appeal to the new generation of artists. This album reunites him with a lot of his frequent collaborators that penned, or helped to pen, his best songs, and biggest singles, so a lot of this album has his classic sound on it, but this album does unfortunately have a lot of the same issues his other albums do, although part of it has become his brand. The main issue this album has is its inconsistency, because this album wants to be a lot of things at once, such as a 00s R&B record, a modern trap-influenced R&B album, or a pop album, and the thing is, Usher can pull it all off. He’s that good of a singer, and nowhere on this album does he sound out of place, or like he’s putting in any effort at all. He sounds fantastic, but that’s not the only thing I like about this album. The production and songwriting is solid throughout, too, whether it’s the classic R&B of songs like “I Am The Party,” “Kissing Strangers,” “I Love U,” or “Please U,” more modern-influenced cuts like “Stone Kold Freak,” “A-Town Girl” (which also samples and interpolates Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl”), or “Good Good,” or more straightforward pop cuts, such as “Big,” or “Keep On Dancin’.” A lot of the hooks and overall sounds are pretty good here, if not utterly impeccable, but that is partially due to Usher himself killing it,

Really, this album comes down to three things that I would consider to be issues, if not mild issues. Those three things would be its inconsistency with its sound, as I talked about earlier, its lyrics, and its length. I don’t particularly have enough of an issue with any of these things to say it ruins the album, but these are things that are apparent on every Usher album. The lyrics, for starters, aren’t anything to write home about, but they’re better here than they were on Hard II Love, at least to a small degree. There are songs with solid lyrics, especially for Usher’s brand of grown R&B, but it’s nothing you haven’t heard before, or that will blow your mind. The album is also a bit too long, clocking in at 68 minutes, but I don’t find the album too exhausting or too long. I’m surprised when the closing track plays, but this album could have afforded to cut a few songs, such as “Risk It All” that features H.E.R (and is from The Color Purple remake), or the remix of “Standing Next To You” with BTS’s Jungkook, although the remix is honestly better. It could have trimmed a few songs from it, but the album isn’t long winded or boring. Usher remains engaged and energetic throughout this whole thing, and it keeps my attention throughout its runtime. This is one of my favorite albums of the year so far, and it’s nothing short of a triumphant return for Usher. I really hope this album does well for him, and he gets maybe some Grammy noms next year, but this is a great album, warts and all.

[mbohjeezart]

Hermit a Day May: Day 9, Skizzleman, God of Laughter and Spirit of Childhood.

Here's his full portrait :D

[ivynightshade]

fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s ‘i mother it, the absence of her ii. i was hard to bear from the very start.’

[text id: my sadness is a fire that i built to keep my hands warm on lonely nights. // art by sivan roshianu // i keep my misery bared between my teeth. i refuse to let her leave. / i am nothing without this obsession of mine.]

[godofstory]

look who's finally here🙄

[90sgreggaraki]

x

[freenos]

She should be out there fighting >:(

[temeyes]

when will my big skull man come back from the war,,,,,,,,,,

[theghooligan]

aemond: my uncle is a challenge i welcome, if he dares face me—

daemon:

[the-daily-dreamer]

Great episode for my fellow Alicent enjoyers.

Apologizing to Aegon and holding him. Cupping Aemond’s cheek even through all the strife they’ve had recently. Protecting Helaena and running to save her. Conversing with Gwayne about Daeron and showing her vulnerability. Showing that she feels like a failure as a mother. Gwayne being the only person to tell her ‘I see you. You did what you could. You did your best’.

They’re showing all the love my girl has. She’s filled with it. But where can it go? Her love is broken. It’s sharp and cuts like glass, but it’s there and she tried.

[thisaintascenereviews]

Usher - Hard II Love / “A”

It’s been 27 years since Usher released his debut album, 1997’s My Way, when he was just 16-years-old, but his career has had its ups and downs since then. Like a lot of artists, Usher has reinvented his career a few times over, including now. He’s making his comeback this year, whether it’s releasing a new album in a few days, or performing at the Super Bowl this weekend. Like with Justin Timberlake, and Man Of The Woods, I wanted to take a look back at Usher’s last record, 2016’s Hard II Love. I also wanted to include the 2018 collaborative album, “A,” with producer Zaytoven, because that’s technically his last album, although it’s not even a half hour, so I don’t know whether to count it, but we’ll get to that later. I really wanted to talk about Hard II Love, and this album’s place in his discography. At this point, Usher was an elder statesman, having already been around for almost 20 years, but his sound has changed with the times. His music from the early 00s, such as 2004’s Confessions, really helped to influence the R&B at the time, but his albums from the late 2000s and early 2012s moved into pop and electronic sounds. I personally don’t care for that, and most of those albums, while fine, they don’t fit Usher’s voice or sound. He’s got a classic R&B crooner voice, and he works well with that type of sound, not club ready pop music.

Hard II Love was delayed for a couple of years before its release, but this album is interesting, because it comes four years later off his last album, and it also marks a shift in his sound back to the classic R&B that he’s known for. It also has him moving into hip-hop a bit, as a lot of R&B began to have a symbiotic relationship with hip-hop more so. It always has, but by this point, the lines were really blurred. Usher also helped to bolster both his own image and the image of some newer artists for the time that appear on the album, including Future and Young Thug. Both of those artists are big names today, and by this point in their careers, they’re some of the old guard now. It was cool for Usher for showcase them on this album, and this album was very much a return to his Atlanta roots. Both Future and Young Thug are from Atlanta as well, so he wanted to put some local talent on the map, but this record really does blur the line between hip-hop and R&B. It features a good mix of his classic balladry, as well as some R&B tracks, and hip-hop adjacent songs.

I was pretty mixed on this album when it came out, but I also wasn’t familiar that much with Usher and his legacy / influence on R&B, and I think context matters sometimes when it comes to these established acts. Songs like “No Limit,” which features Young Thug, “Rivals,” which features Future, or “Make U A Believer” are more on the hip-hop side, whereas songs like “Missin’ U,” “Stronger,” or “Downtime” are some solid R&B cuts that show off Usher’s voice quite well. Before I go any further, I probably should talk about how I feel about this record, along with “A,” and despite being mixed on the album when it originally came out, I actually quite enjoy this album now. I wouldn’t say Hard II Love is a masterpiece, but it’s not true of its namesake. This album is quite easy to love, really, but it is a bit too long. It clocks in at around an hour, but this album didn’t need to be that long. I do enjoy a lot of the songs here, as they move between R&B, hip-hop, and even a bit of alternative R&B that started popping up at the time. It’s just that the album repeats itself a lot, despite not being bad, so the album almost runs out of steam at the 3/4 mark, but it’s still enjoyable.

As for “A,” the album he put out with Zaytoven, I like this record, too, but this one doubles down on the hip-hop sound and Usher sounds like the newcomers, versus one of the veterans. He does have his moments with songs that sound like stuff you’d hear in his repertoire, but he employs more of a braggadocios sound, as well as his lyricism. It sort of works, but it’s weird to hear him with lyrics that are more aggressive, versus of the more romantic variety. I will say, however, that he does sound great, both on this and Hard II Love. He is the best part of his music, which is how it should be, but whenever you listen to an Usher song or album, the best part of it is usually his voice. Hard II Love, in particular, is a great return to form for his voice. This is the best he had sounded in a long time, especially moving back to instrumentation that fits his voice. He’s one of the best R&B singers, both of today’s current crop, and of all time. Even when his material isn’t as good, or when Hard II Love or “A” specifically aren’t anything special, you can always count on Usher to sound great. He surely sounds amazing on his new material, so if there’s one thing I want people to take away from this review, it’s that I’m excited for his new album and these albums are pretty good.

[vulcanette]

ii playing chokehold; remo percussion