By Amy Linden

One doesn’t look to contemporary R&B for social relevance. Which is not to say or imply that the last decade or so has been a complete waste of time—but deep, it ain’t. Yes, 75% of all pop music is about getting some, but in 2010 there has got to be something to sing about other than freaky girls and being all up in the club (popping bub, natch). Or at least a less predictable way to sing about it.

Raymond V Raymond is Usher (Raymond)’s first album since the very public implosion of his short-lived marriage to his former stylist Tameka Foster, itself the inspiration for 2008’s Here I Stand. Meant to display Usher’s newly minted role as husband and father, the CD tanked. That album was all the more disappointing when stacked up against the multi platinum delight Confessions (2004), which struck a perfect balance between bangers (“Yeah!”) and steamy-but-subdued singles (“Burn”).

This time around Usher has something to prove but unfortunately he often makes the wrong point—over and over and over. It’s all in there: the detailed laundry list of exactly what Usher is gonna do to you, baby. The clubs. The ménage a trois. The freaks with big ol’ butts… can we move on to the next one, please? Even if he can’t dance as well as Usher, Trey Songz has the naughty hot love man thing on lock right now. Yes, Mr. Raymond appears to be feeling the heat. He doesn’t have to just come back, he has to beat back and that’s a whole new situation the former teen sensation.

All that pressure may explain the production choice. Usher roped in such big guns as Sean Garrett, Polow Da Don, Rico Love, and will.i.am, but the CD feels aimless. And considering the thematic content, oddly distant.

When Usher does find his footing, he does so quite admirably. The sweetly smooth “There Goes My Baby” celebrates being with a girl you love as opposed to one you just do. Usher sounds relaxed, even happy, unlike the unnecessarily Auto-Tuned “Little Freak” (nuff said) featuring Nikki Minaji or “Mars Vs Venus.” Like the metallic “Monstar” (both produced by Jam and Lewis), “Mars Vs Venus” goes all futuristic on you with a grab-bag of space-the-final-frontier metaphors—“this is the big bang,” something about colliding planets, and sex described as “pitch black between the sheets”—that are eye-rolling.

As the title might suggest, the album’s emotional centerpiece is “Papers,” which allows Usher to step away from the club and do some soul searching. Or should that be venting? Whatever you call it, what he comes up with isn’t pretty. “Papers”—as in the documents that finalize a divorce—goes for the jugular, with Usher painting himself as the victim of a manipulating woman who turned him into some monster and tried to sever ties between mother and son, an obvious reference to the highly publicized turf war between Usher’s mother/manager, whom he fired around the time he was marrying his then wife.

Melodramatic? Sure. But maybe it takes something so painful to convince Usher to tear up the playabook and just be. It’s not Marvin’s classic divorce album Here My Dear, but at least Usher’s trying to push himself.

R&B moves at warp speed. Longevity is a precious commodity and it speaks volumes to Usher’s considerable talent that Raymond V Raymond was so highly anticipated that it debuted at #1. He is that good. But rather than being grown and sexy, more than not Raymond V Raymond comes off sexy and groan.

Alicia Keys . Jennifer Hudson . Mary J. Blige . Oprah Winfrey . R&B Soul Summary