Love Has the Greatest Vision of All Time

Back in March R. Kelly released unto the internets a teaser saying that more Trapped in the Closet were “coming soon.” The vagueness was compounded by the fact that the teaser featured no new footage or music (well twenty-three chapters later and the music technically has not changed, but the promo featured no new lyrics or hints as to what “The Package” is). We are closing in on five years since we have been graced with a new chapter but it looks like we will have to wait a couple more months because now that Kells has released a new album we will probably have wait until the end of the promotion cycle before bestowing new chapters of his hip-hopera. Le sigh.

Since it could shorten the promotion time, I probably should not review R. Kelly’s new album in hopes that we would then get new Trapped in the Closet sooner, the only problem is Write Me Back is good. Really good (but still not nearly as good as Trapped in the Closet). It is about as good as his last album which I called his best album since the nineties. That is probably cause his new album Write Me Back is thematically and sonically related to Love Letter to the point they even have similar names.

So what you get is another twelve songs (not to be confused with a twelve-play) of old school baby making music in the vein of Marvin Gaye and other Motown classics from the sixties and seventies like Love Is and Share My Love where Kells sings “let’s get together and populate” over a Barry White style disco beat (of course “let’s get together and populate” is such a great phrase I may replace “baby making music” with “populating music”). Really Write Me Back is much more danceable that the previous retro album like Party Jumpin’ that is reminiscent of a Junior Walker song and the Ray Charles like All Rounds on Me.

Robert also expands the retro palette on the new album. The best of it is represented in the most contemporary song on the album Believe in Me which manages to sound current and classic at the time bringing to mind the best Michael Jackson tracks from the nineties. So congratulation Kells on your second straight great album. Now how about turning the “Coming Soon” that you tagged in the Trapped in the Closet from back in March into a firm release date sometime before the world ends (or so the Mayans would have us believe).

Song to Download – Believe In Me

Write Me Back gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.