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R. Kelly - “Pregnant” (featuring Tyrese, Robin Thicke, and The-Dream)

Speaking of hypercamp!  (Which I pretty much just stole from Matthew’s Lady GaGa post anyway.)  I’m not going to spoil the first line of this song for you, just encourage you to listen to it.  I may have to sue Kells for productivity loss if I don’t get these papers graded tonight.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: I’m not going to pretend to have listened to more than two full R. Kelly album in my life (to my shame, but there seemed to be more than enough to dig into just with the singles), so I can’t make any valid comparisons here really, but: this is a very good album.  It starts weird, with a song that is mostly rapping for the first two-thirds, and then a kinda weak one named “Exit,” but then it’s the yodeling song and a song called “Bangin’ the Headboard,” and Kells is pretty much in his zone from then on except for maybe the next-to-last song, a token straight ballad called “Elsewhere.”  The use of echo’ed Autotune is definitely jarring for a bit, given how expressive Kells’ raw voice is, but it lightens up as the album proceeds and you start to see his musical reasons for using it, especially with the backup vocals.  The production is either outstanding, especially a filter-disco song actually called “Be My #2,” or stays out of the way so Kells can do his thing.  If there’s a progression, it’s from relatively straightforward to completely bananas, with the aforementioned (and only implicitly ridiculous) “Bangin’” leading into “Go Low,” a lengthy metaphor comparing oral sex with professional sports, and thence to “Whole Lotta Kisses,” which ends with Kells yelling “Open up your legs, girl, I wanna kiss you in your private spot!”  It just ramps up from there, and by the end of the album he’s verbally approximating the sound of texting for an entire track (“Text Me”), telling a woman that “there’s something church about you” (“Religious”), and then…well, the above track ends the album, which should tell you all you need to know once you’ve heard it.

A good R. Kelly song is always appreciated, but in terms of R&B, it’s a little out-of-place now.  His wild inventiveness was just what we needed a few years ago, but there’s such a plethora now of albums that are entertaining and witty but also personal and moving that his ridiculousness might seem a little hollow, though no less enjoyable.  The-Dream’s verse here is a good example: Kells’ verses will make you bust out laughing multiple times, but Dream’s is much more evocative.  Of course, he still has something to prove, whereas Kells doesn’t have to do anything other than be Kells.  And that’s what he does on Untitled.  Put it on at your Thanksgiving dinner and see what happens!