Ne-Yo Premieres “Money Can’t Buy” Featuring Young Jeezy: Listen

Christina Lee | May 27, 2014 7:10 am

Ne-Yo has spent the past few years writing dutifully for divas like Celine Dion and Rihanna. Around this time last year, he was even speaking on behalf of Beyonce regarding her self-titled album. But he returns to the spotlight today (May 27) on his own, with a song recalling his earliest days as a prolific R&B singer.

“Money Can’t Buy” isn’t the Euro-flavored dance-pop that boosted Ne-Yo’s chart success and dominated R&B (along with singers like Jay Sean, Jason Derulo and Chris Brown) for about one year too long. Instead, the song — which features Young Jeezy — is the sort of sophisticated, feel-good midtempo R&B that Ne-Yo was boasting nearly a decade prior with his 2006 debut, In My Own Words.

This is all fine and good – after all, the Michael Jackson-Justin Timberlake collab “Love Never Felt So Good” is precisely that strain of R&B. (The song’s sentiments are sweet, too — it’s hard to deny that.) With earlier songs in mind, “Money Can’t Buy” has its moments — that melody in the bridge, a lyric here or there — but isn’t as memorable as a Ne-Yo song can be.

Judge for yourself by listening to “Money Can’t Buy” and weighing in within the comments below.

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