Searching for what's right in front of your face/ Why do you make something so easy so complicated/
You hear her talkin' but don't hear what she said/ "It's the simple things in life we forget/ "Just copped your girl a brand new Rolex,īut you can never find the time to spend at home/
The first verse into the hook and then right into the 2nd verse is a seamless transition and paints the picture perfectly. This leads us into another smooth track in "Simple Things", where Usher talks to his fellow men, and tells them not to focus so much on providing the material for your woman, but just be there and take care of her with love and attention. The song can be slightly confusing at times because you'd almost believe Usher was speaking from the women's perspective in the beginning and then his own at the end, but regardless the song flows well, and the production is one of my favorites on the album. As the song continues, Usher makes it clear that it's his insecurities that have him so worried about the woman he's with and what she's doing, but later near the end, it seems as if Usher was the one fooling around and trying to blame on his girl out of his own guilty conscience. I'm your number one fan, give me your autograph,Īnd as your number one fan, I'll do all that I can,Īs we move on from "Superstar", we go right into the insecurity laden "Truth Hurts", which fits perfectly with the theme of the album, as Usher begins the song with a simple "I got reason to believe that you been fooling around", then following it up with the reasons for the suspicions. The hook is simple, but it inspires you to sing along: It's an interesting play on the concept of a groupie or biggest fan, but it works. The song itself is centered around Usher being like a groupie for the woman he loves. If not my absolute favorite, it's certainly top 3. The production, the hook, the layering of vocals, the way it was put together, everything about it was great, and it might be my favorite song on the entire album. When I first heard "Superstar", I had to run it back a few times. Regardless, once we hit the smooth interlude for "Superstar", we enter the apex of the album. From "Yeah" to "Throwback" to "Burn" to "Caught Up", while these are all good songs, they pale in comparison to the rest of the album. The singles were perfectly fit into the story of the album, but they still felt like filler. That's the strange part about this album. When we reach the interlude for "Superstar", it's almost as if we've gotten all the filler out of the way, because the album is simply flawless from here on. The lyrics here sound like 2004, or in reality, 1998, as Usher sings "my homies say, this girl is cramping my style", which makes the song sound a bit more dated than it was, but regardless, when these lyrics are delivered by Usher, you just sit back and sing along, no matter how silly it sounds. It's still catchy and enjoyable, but if I feel the need to skip a song or two on this album, this is likely one of them. While I consider this album a classic, I'll be the first to admit I have a few songs that just don't hit the mark for me, and while I like the production, "Caught Up" has a tendency to fall short when compared to some of the other songs. Usher would take the Crunk craze, mix it with his R&B sensibility, and blend the genres together with a standard and slightly generic yet catchy Lil Jon beat, a simple call and response style hook, and the magic just flowed together perfectly. This song is what I have always felt sold the album mostly, as it was such a massive hit and everywhere. The album itself starts off with a somber yet optimistic intro, as Usher welcomes us to this experience and leads us right into the first single, the Lil Jon produced and featured "Yeah!", which also continues the chemistry of Ludacris and Usher, as Luda drops a solid catchy verse on this song as well. On top of selling 10 million in the US, the album would sell almost 20 million copies worldwide, making it a landmark moment not only in Usher's career, but in music period. The album is one of the very few albums to be certified diamond in the 2000s, and remains the 2nd highest selling album of the entire decade. It would be the largest first week sales for a R&B artist and Usher would join a small club of artists who have sold 1 million copies in the first week.
From the moment this album released to massive first week sales of 1.096 million copies, Usher affirmed himself as a legend forever with this album. It is the single greatest R&B album of the 2000s and truthfully it might be in the running for the greatest R&B album ever, or at least in the top 10-15. We've done a couple of albums so far for our greatest R&B albums of the 2000s series, but there was absolutely no way possible that we could avoid this album.