John Legend: Butterboy

Note: Blogspot took down this John Legend entry a few days ago. There was no discussion, no requests to remove offending content or to stream my mp3s instead of hosting them. They just sent me an email saying: "Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others." I went to look at my post and see about altering it, but it was just gone. Which bummed me out because I spent the time to write something very favorable about Legend's record, which was released yesterday, and host a few of the tracks I was talking about. Thankfully, my girlfriend still had the page up on her screen and was able to salvage my text. I am reposting it, with streams instead of downloads for the tracks. I am also changing my policy on this blog to stream-only for tracks that are currently being promoted. So, if it's in a year of its release, I won't make the download available, and hopefully if you like it you will go buy it. This is something I've been thinking about for a while, and now seems like a good reason to make the switch.


There's an over-smoothness to John Legend that has been broken through to produce his best music. This has also meant, for me at least, ignoring the schmaltz that has cluttered his past records to find the 2 or 3 vital tracks that have real soul and sandpaper (the Raphael Saadiq-produced "Let's Get Lifted Again" from Get Lifted is what I'm talking about).

Evolver seems to be more of a "producers" record, in the sense that it has more of a diversity of sound and collaboration than Legend's previous two albums. And there is an evolution of style, as well - less retro, more buzz and bump. As singles go, "Green Light," which was produced by Andre 3000, is perfection, completely charismatic and fresh. Other tracks featuring collaborations with Kanye, Brandy and Estelle are no slouches either, but I find myself drawn to the sharper corners like "Satisfaction" - a kind of soul-meets-scandinavian-electro that is half retro/half bubbly apocalypse - and "I Love, You Love," which is matches Legend's croon with stuttering kick drum samples, snaky electric guitars and atmospherics.

John Legend - "Green Light (Feat. Andre 3000)"


John Legend - "I Love, You Love"


John Legend - "Satisfaction"


John Legend - "Let's Get Lifted Again" [From Get Lifted]