Ne-Yo - Year Of The Gentleman Review

It's shaping up to be quite an autumn for American feminism. First, we have Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, about whom you might have read something in the last few weeks. Now the Pussycat Dolls, a burlesque troupe turned top-40 act, have made a collection of electro-pop songs that are the opposite of sex: belligerent come-ons and odes to singledom stripped of pleasure, adventure or anything resembling fun.
Both instances capture a particular moment in the woman-as-cultural-cipher debate, but at least Palin's nouveaux-"Fargo" accent doesn't come with a leather corset....full text Feeling unfulfilled by Usher's musical offer — via summer smash ''Love in This Club'' — to have sex in the nightlife venue of your choosing? Turned off by Chris Brown's slick come-ons? Then girl, Ne-Yo wants to be your Gentleman. On his third disc in as many years, the 28-year-old Southerner with the Michael Jackson falsetto not only wears his heart on his sleeve, he lets it bleed down his (no doubt high-thread-count) cuff. From the let's-hear-it-for-the-girl paean ''Miss Independent'' to Year of the Gentleman's self-deprecating ''Why Does She Stay,'' he clearly worships at the Church of the Lady Superior. But by the time he hits his stirring finale, ''Stop This World,'' you'll be ready to take him home to Mama....full text Earlier this year, Ne-Yo told Billboard he was bored by the R&B sound of his previous albums and wanted to take a different direction on "Year of the Gentleman." However, it seems he still has a heavy—yet welcome—case of the (rhythm and) blues on the finished product. He masochistically instructs a partner to fib about her cheating ways on "Lie to Me," while dismissing another love interest on the guitar-heavy "Back to What You Know." The production is less dawdling elsewhere, as on "So You Can Cry," where he offers aid to a heartbroken friend, and the pulsating, Polow Da Don-produced "Single," where he suggests he become a fellow female club-goer's temporary boyfriend....full text