A FREE Usher album review (?!)

By: G Vazquez

Usher – Coming Home
Mega/Gamma Records

Earlier this year, THC ‘Zine received a somewhat FREE digital album by none other than international R&B superstar Usher. This is his 9th album, and the latest solo album after 8 years since his last solo output (“Hard II Love”).

The digital album came from an online store named SKIMS, which is a shapewear and clothing brand based in the USA co-owned and co-founded by Kim Kardashian (!). For some reason, someone ordered it but used the owner of this zine’s personal email to send the digital download.

At first, it seems like quite a weird coincidence or error. But even after months, no one contacted this zine’s owner’s email about any mistake or wrong sending.

Getting a free album from Kim Kardashian’s lingerie company could be one of the strangest things and/or coolest things to happen, but here we are. If it’s meant as a creative way for someone like THC ‘Zine to take notice and review it, then Usher and Kim K’s publicity team succeeded.

For some strange reason, we felt we must review this new outing by Usher and get to the bottom of this. It’s destiny that we have this album, so we will give it a fair shake for what it is.

Usher: Still Good

If this is a comeback album of sorts, then the modern “King of R&B” provides us a decent, rather enjoyable one. At a whopping 22 (!) tracks if you got it from Kim K’s online store SKIMS, and the original retail version of 20, it’s quite a whole lot of Usher. But for longtime fans, this is a good deal. It’s one of his best albums, and it provides smooth chill and R&B sexiness, track after track.

Usher’s smooth vocals are better than ever, but he’s not the only one who shines on this album. His power collabs with a stellar lineup that includes Burna Boy, Summer Walker, 21 Savage, Latto, The-Dream, H.E.R., Pheelz, and Jungkook gives listeners a diverse palette of pop, electro jams, ballads, and R&B goods, all cool ear candy and smooth banging grooves and all.

At nearly 70 minutes, it might seem like pop overkill for an album almost 8 years in the making, but Usher gives us more and in decent to good quality. You can play and russian-roulette or shuffle these tracks and you’re still bound to bounce on some cool tracks.

The producers differ on each track too. But they don’t sound too disjointed or drastically different. It may sometimes lack cohesion, though. While there are some tried and tested bag of tricks from Usher and his top collaborators, they still sound fresh and varied enough to warrant a top grade from most critics and tried and tested true fans who’ve been waiting for this fresh new drop.

[G Vazquez]