Usher Falls Victim To The RedOne Menace
Usher’s “cutting you loose via legal document” comeback single “Papers” was pretty awesome, an incendiary throw-down that was right back in Confessions mode. Unfortunately, for the follow-up single, he’s enlisted the knob-twiddler RedOne, who is fresh off assisting in the ruination of the Sugababes—and, well, the results are predictably ugh-worthy. “Rock Band,” which unfortunately does use the ever-stale “rock” as a verb describing his bedroom technique (over and over and over again) feels like a step back to the worst parts of his previous album, the sorta-floppy Here I Stand, with its inert production and cliched lyrics that compare his prowess to the stylings of Jimmy Page (“on the guitar”) and Mick Jagger (“on the mic”). Not to mention—if you’re going to talk about your oral technique in big-name musician terms, shouldn’t you be comparing yourself to Gene Simmons? [RedOne]
