Her music stays in rotation. 1000/100 recommend 👌🏾

eric williams was shining on this one; pac had some of the best samples/instrumentals in the game. this still the best use for bobby caldwell's original

video is kinda somber to see now, pac had just passed so they had to animate him. i wish all of blackstreet had been on the record. eric's got that voice tho

With 30 years under his belt, over a 100 million records sold worldwide and a host of industry accolades, Usher is without a doubt one of the biggest acts in music history. When we discuss his greatness as it pertains to R&B, most conversations are centered around his run of albums from 1997's My Way (his breakout album), 2001's 8701 and caps off with 2004's gargantuan Confessions (the best-selling album by a Black artist this century). This imperial phase produced numerous hits, which became some of the most indelible classics in R&B of the last three decades and continues to inspire artists in the genre.

After Confessions, the general consensus is that Usher's material wasn't worth much because it took a dip in quality and as a result, his commercial fortunes waned. He took a four-year hiatus after 2004 (which felt like eternity in the 2000s) and men he inspired such as Justin Timberlake, Chris Brown and Ne-Yo, swooped into the lane he once occupied. We also have to talk about the shifting trends in the music industry affected a lot of R&B artists—himself included. Piracy was at an all-time high, which affected album sales, R&B was no long as popular on mainstream radio and digital consumption of the single was on the rise.

When you consider the fact that he was coming off such a huge blockbuster, his subsequent albums were always unfairly judged against his earlier work and dismissed because "they weren't Confessions". Having that kind of classic is both a blessing and a curse. However, I remember enjoying Here I Stand, Raymond v Raymond and Looking 4 Myself back then because I was on the younger spectrum of his fan base and thus, wasn't as beholden to his past work, even though I obviously recognized their importance in R&B history. As I have gotten older, I have gained even greater appreciation for these albums and the place they hold in his discography.

1. Here I Stand (2010)

This was Usher's "grown man" album after he got married to his first wife and became a first-time father (his own father died earlier that year). The hype for this one was so real because he had been away from music for four years and everyone wanted to hear what he had to sing about with his life changes. It was more mature in its presentation of relationship ups and downs with a sound was decidedly more "pop" and almost Adult Contemporary with its ballads. However, unlike Confessions where the tabloid nature of the material fueled sales, Here I Stand was marred by negative press generated from his relationship. His fans didn't take to this mellower version of Usher and were open about their disdain for his wife. I thought this was a fine, well-produced album, even though it didn't have the rawness and energy of some of some of his earlier work (Trading Places was STEAMY af, though). Also, from a vocal standpoint, he was PRISTINE on this album. I remember the New York Daily News describing his voice as "balletic" and I couldn't agree more. The album's title track might be the most underrated ballad of his career and should be entered into the R&B wedding song canon.

Top Picks: Trading Places, Love You Gently and Here I Stand.

2. Raymond v. Raymond (2010)

Two years after Here I Stand, Usher was a divorced father of two and a 32-year-old male pop star on the defense after his career was in limbo with the album's underperformance. He went back into the studio with some of his most trusted collaborators (Jam & Lewis, Jermaine Dupri) and introduced some new names into the mix (most notably, Rico Love). The result was a more cohesive set with tracks that seemed to oscillate between "player Usher" and "romantic or apologetic Usher". While that may have felt like sonic and lyric whiplash at the time, I can say that I finally "get" what he wasn't going for. It wasn't perfect (the reviews were very mixed), some of it sounds very of its time and its biggest single, OMG, remains the most polarizing hit of his career, but the album was definitely enjoyable and I still revisit it. RvR was somewhat of commercial comeback for Usher as he had so many singles from this album hit in different markets and he picked up multiple awards for it. He had something for Pop, R&B and Hip-Hop fans and it especially also took him to bigger heights internationally. This was when Usher sort of emerged as "the last man standing" from his generation of male R&B acts.

Top Picks: Mars vs. Venus, Pro Lover and Okay.

3. Looking 4 Myself (2012)

After finding renewed success with EDM in 2010 and 2011, Usher delved deeper into his experimentation with genre by expanding his range of collaborators for his next album. In fact, that wasn't the only thing he seemed to stretch on that album as his vocal range also sounded like it expanded. His falsetto really bloomed and he did even more acrobatic stuff with it compared his past work. 2012's aptly titled Looking 4 Myself displayed the singer seemingly in search of answers on songs that bounced around from sultry minimalist Electro-R&B (Lemme See) to bombastic Dance Pop (Euphoria) and Soul (Sins of My Father). After the so-so reviews of his past two albums, this became his most praised work by music critics since Confessions, mainly thanks to the crown jewel that was its lead single, Climax, which appeared on so many best songs lists in 2012. However, many of his core fans felt his experimentation had gone a tad too far, felt alienated and thus, L4M became his least successful album since his debut at that point. Usher's motto during this era of his career was "evolve or evaporate" and while, some of the album does sound a little craven in its quest for hitmaking (I'm looking at you, Scream), I DO think it has the strongest collection of songs of the three albums. L4M showed that Usher could be incredibly versatile and perhaps with tighter editing and a stronger promotional campaign, this could have been a modern classic from him.

Top Picks: What Happened To U, Sins of My Father and Lessons for the Lover

“Sometimes It’s Only Love” was the last single from the 1991 album “Power Of Love” by Luther Vandross. The song reached #9 on the R&B Charts in 1992.

Damn I wanna see her live one day!

I always wondered how that would go, if an r&b artist tried to release music in a "flood the streets" type of way. Y'all know how some rappers like Youngboy release a bunch of singles and like 2-3 projects a year, sometimes more. Have there ever been any r&b artists that dropped music in that way? How did it go for them?

Super underrated early 90s classic slow sexy jam.