As the R&B game continues to change to more of a hip hop/pop type of sound, there aren't many singers left that brings the kind of R&B The-Dream brings. Not only is he a talented artist but I believe he's an even more talented producer and song writer. He's written and produced numerous hits for many big name singers. Also since 2007, he's had his own share of big hits. We all can remember him bursting on the scene with the hit "Shawty Is A Ten" like it was yesterday. Well here he is with his fifth album IV Play (sounds very similar to a certain classic 90's R&B album doesn't it?). Prior to this I've honestly only heard two other albums from The-Dream. His 2007 debut Love/Hate and 2009's Love vs. Money. I never got to hear his previous two albums prior to this one so most of my references for this review will be from the albums I heard. This album to me was pretty good. Not great but enjoyable to say the least. I mentioned how R&B's sound is changing going the hip hop/pop route and The-Dream has dabbled in that before and he does it a lot on this album. There's a mixture of hip hop tracks, uptempo pop soundings tracks and of course your soft slow jams. All mostly talking about sex, sex and more sex. With a album title like IV Play, you just know he was gonna take it to the next level with the subject. The overall production was just okay to me. Again there was a mixture of R&B/hip hop/pop sounds and this was mostly due to production. I didn't have a song that I liked the most or more than others but just ones that I enjoyed and here's a few. The beginning of this album, like the first five songs at least, all had hip hop sounds and it started with the intro song "High Art". I did enjoy it after a few listens. The hook is very catchy and the beat is pretty good. Jay-Z has a guest that was well...let's just say he's had better feature verses than this. The following track was the title track "IV Play" is a good track too. It definitely has this old school 90's R&B feel to it. I could see this being a favorite for couples looking to make a few babies. The next two songs is where the sexually explicit content gets heavy. "Equestrian" is another slow jam where he talks about how he loves seeing her "ride it" along with other things. Again, another baby maker. The next track "Pussy" should pretty much speak for itself. The hook went like "got my left hand on the booty/got my right hand on that pussy". I'm sure some will get enjoyment out of that. The album goes back to a hip hop sound here with guest verses from Big Sean and Pusha T. Pusha T's verse seemed very brief and phoned-in and Big Sean verse was filled with corny lines like "that pussy is a work of art painted by Michael Angelo" and "I wake up the pussy and cantaloupe it". That aside the song is decent. "Turnt" definitely sounds single worthy as it features the very interesting guest feature combo of Beyonce' and 2 Chainz. I'm really not a big fan of the term "turnt" or "turnt up" but the song ain't bad. Beyonce' dropped some pretty good vocals (almost to the point where she made it seem like it was her song). Meanwhile 2 Chainz verse sounded very lazy and un-energetic. Like he just rolled out of bed and walk into the recording booth. "Where Have You Been" is a nice duet with him and Kelly Rowland that also has a potential to be a single. It's more softer than the other songs with features and was the only song that talk about other relationship related things besides sex. The whole breaking up and missing you thing. Cool song. "Slow It Down" sounds like the next big twerk song but for the slow twerkers. Though Fabolous delivers a very poor guest verse I don't think it was that bad to where it ruined the song. Decent song overall. Now here's what I didn't like. He has a song called "Michael" and once I saw that I thought of one thing...Michael Jackson. Sure enough, he tries to mimic MJ's voice and does it so poorly that this was damn near hard to listen too. I understand it's a way to salute him or whatever but this wasn't the way to do it. "Loving You/Crazy" has this uptempo pop sounds that really doesn't do much for me. I want to say it might grow on me but I highly doubt it will. Plus this song was unnecessarily long which made it worst. The song "New Orleans" really had me confused. On the hook he says "I think she put that New Orleans on me". I don't even want to believe he means what I think he means by saying that. Nonetheless that hook isn't good to me at all. Overall, I thought this album was good not great. I give it a final grade of a B-. I could see a lot of people, especially the couples, liking majority of this project. I still believe The-Dream is a much more talented songwriter and producer than he is a singer. But one thing I can say is that though he mixes hip hop with it at times, he still sticks to the roots of old school R&B crooning. Hopefully everyone else can get back to doing that. Let's hope. End.
Final Grade: B-
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