On August 30 this year, R&B/soul singer-songwriter John Legend dropped his latest LP Love In The Future. The album is reportedly a collection of autobiographical love songs written in the wake of Legend’s recent marriage to Sports Illustrated model Chrissy Teigen. I think the “love” theme certainly comes out on this album. Perhaps a little too much… I’ve always had mixed feelings about Legend. I love certain collaborations (such as with Kanye West, Jay-Z, Malik Yusef, Alicia Keys) where his voice just seems to shine and hold its own place in the music, but when I listen to his solo records none of that uniqueness is present. Although produced by Yeezy himself, Love In The Future gives me the same feeling – even after several listenings I feel nothing, if not slightly sick of over-used conventional chord progressions. The songs on Love In The Future have too much of a pop rock sound and feel way too over-produced, which dampens the rawness and imperfection that I associate with good R&B and soul.
If I had to choose a standout track I’d pick ‘Who Do We Think We Are’ (ft Rick Ross). Rick Ross provides a little interest to an otherwise uninspiring repetitive soul hook and too much auto-tune with his verse (rife with social commentary about the idea of excess within the hip hop game). I feel like Kanye is relying on his old trick of sampling a bar or two of a classic soul track and expecting Legend’s voice to take the song somewhere, which definitely isn’t happening. With 16 tracks squashed into this hour-long album, I think Legend could have written four tracks and achieved the same effect on Love In The Future.
To sum up, I was not overly impressed with this album. Maybe Legend should leave the neo-soul thing to the masters and go live on an island with his bikini model wife.
Related articles
- Tenor Tunes // Album review – John Legend ‘Love in the Future’ (hausoftenor.com)
- John Legends Talk ‘Love In The Future’ & Lyrics In The Present (hot937.cbslocal.com)
- John Legend – Love In The Future: Exclusive album stream (theguardian.com)
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