Ginuwine
A Man's Thoughts
Release Date: Jun 23, 2009
Genre(s): R&B, Soul
Record label: 13Star
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Album Review: A Man's Thoughts by Ginuwine
Satisfactory, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 6/10
Ginuwine's first album in three and a half years (the 2007 release I Apologize was unauthorized), A Man's Thoughts is his first release away from the Epic family, and it's pretty much business as usual. It's a decent set of modern R&B, dominated by seductive slow jams, that stimulates a little more often than it fades into the background. It does take a serious tone on a handful of songs dealing in a wider range of relationship issues than lust, heartache, and devotion; "Show Me the Way," with an anthem-like chorus, is a guard-dropped plea for direction, while on "Last Chance," the singer has never sounded more desperate as he attempts to rescue a relationship.
Based on rating 3/5
On A Man's Thoughts, Ginuwine updates his style ever so carefully. Avoiding the markers of modern R&B - flash-in-the-pan producers, arbitrary cameos or Auto-Tune (okay, one hook) - he's just a man with total control over his voice and an instrumental backdrop that never smothers it. [rssbreak] Lyrically speaking, Ginuwine is on point and grown-up as ever.
Based on rating C
The smooth-?voiced singer Ginuwine recorded several of the most innovative radio singles of the 1990s in collaboration with the producer Timbaland, so the fact that he’s working with his old pal once again is reason enough to take notice of A Man’s Thoughts (his sixth album). Sadly, their long-overdue reunion resulted in only one track here, and an ultimately forgettable one at that. A handful of ?uptempo highlights aside, the rest of the disc turns out to be an ?unduly generous helping of syrupy bedroom pleas that’ll have you wishing Ginuwine had decided to keep some of those Thoughts to himself.
Based on rating 5/10
Popular music moves so fast that it can be easy to forget the impact that artists make on the industry, or the genre in which they work. I say that because I’m going to say that Ginuwine’s debut album, Ginuwine…The Bachelor, helped to revolutionize black popular music when it was released in 1996. And it’s going to sound like hyperbole, because, in pop music terms, 13 years is a long time, and music critics haven’t done an adequate job of situating Ginuwine in his rightful place within black music history.
Opinion: Fairly Good
THE MARS VOLTA“Octahedron”(Warner Brothers) A few disarming moments on “Octahedron” unfold slowly, with pockets of space and calm. Don’t be lured into trusting them. This album, the fifth studio release by the Mars Volta, employs stillness as a setup for all manner of disruption: sharply ….