TWO DECADES AFTER HIS CHART TOPPING, AWARD-RAINING CONFESSIONS ERA, USHER IS HAVING A BANNER YEAR, DROPPING A NEW ALBUM DAYS BEFORE TEARING UP THE SUPER BOWL HALFTIME STAGE. NOW, HE’S GEARING UP TO DANCE AROUND THE CONTINENT WITH HIS USHER: PAST PRESENT FUTURE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR, KICKING OFF THIS SUMMER AND HEADING TO THE BARCLAYS CENTER IN SEPTEMBER

BY DAN SALAMONE

Here’s the setup: you’re an internationally beloved popstar who has sold 65 million albums worldwide (at last count) over the course of an iconic career that stretches back nearly three decades. You’ve appeared, either as the primary voice or as a featured guest star, on a staggering 81 different charted singles. Every single LP you’ve released has gone at least gold (meaning 500,000 sold), and a record you released in 2004 has, to date, sold 14 million copies (that would be Confessions, which spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and included hits “Yeah!,” “Burn,” and “Confessions Part II”). You just performed live in front of 134 million people during this year’s Super Bowl, the largest audience for a televised program in U.S. history.

So how can you possibly top that? Well, if you’re Usher (the only person to achieve everything described above), you put all your love, talent, and energy into a brand-new record. T hat record is Coming Home, the first solo album of Usher originals since 2016’s Hard II Love. Released on February 9 of this year, Coming Home arrives after the longest break of the superstar’s career, and is the first original record to be released independently (via Mega Records).

While Usher’s illustrious career stretches back to 1994, the guest list for his new record features several fantastic artists who weren’t even born when the Dallas, Texas, native debuted his freshman self-titled album, including BTS’ Jungkook, Summer Walker, Latto, H.E.R., and Pheelz. Two other featured artists, Burna Boy and 21 Savage, had not yet reached kindergarten when Usher began selling out main stages. Only The-Dream (featured on the new track “Cold Blooded”) was old enough to have significant memories of Usher’s rise to fame, and even he was still in high school back then.

We don’t mention all this to unkindly highlight the fact that Usher is now 45 years old. (The adverse effects of age seemed to have, magically yet unfairly, skipped over the rakish performer, who still moves through his trademark “Usher Slide” with the swagger and ease of an early twenty something; proof: see the Super Bowl halftime show.) We mention the youth of his collaborators to point out how timeless Usher’s work continues to be. Yes, his highest charting single came out in 2004 (“Yeah!”), but he’s had a steady stream of hit singles throughout the two decades hence. His 2020 collaboration with Summer Walker and 21 Savage, “Good Good,” hit the top 30 on the billboard pop chart and was an omnipresent smash on R&B/Hip-Hop radio.

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Coming Home is a record that reflects exactly why Usher has been a star for so long. Sonic diversity with diamond-bright studio polish has always been the order of the day in Usher’s discography, and his latest record is no different. Usher’s music has always existed in a playground of pop, R&B, hip-hop, soul, funk, and jazz. The songs aren’t just about love affairs new or lost; they’re about the artist’s own love affair with all those disparate genres over the years. He melds the familiar with the brand-new impeccably, and Coming Home is equally comfortable as the sound of today as it would’ve been blasting out of car stereos in 1995.

The lead single, “Home Again,” is the tone setter, with its soaring chorus and earworm hook, but the new record is a mélange of different vibes, with heartfelt ballads and brilliant grooves equally represented. In short, it’s another classic Usher record, one that will be strongly felt by the fans who bought his debut LP in 1994, and the kids who will be newly introduced to him via the young collaborators featured within.

 

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