Album Review: Libra Scale by Ne-Yo

This is ostensibly a concept album about a garbageman who develops superpowers right before falling in love (no joke), which explains the slow jam about telekinetic sex. For the most part, it?s easiest to enjoy Ne-Yo?s fourth set of well-built love songs on their own merits. On Libra Scale, he remains a charming falsetto vocalist with strong echoes of Michael Jackson, and his knack for romantic lyrics and sweet melodies is more than enough to entertain without a far-fetched story arc.

Full Review >>

In Ne-Yo’s latest video for “One in a Million”, the singer begs and pleads with a woman who is made out to be his object of affection by singing sultry words (“You’re so one in a million / You are / Baby you’re the best I ever had” is a chorus that would make any female skip a breath) and by displaying dance moves smoother than a Caramello candy bar; and performing out of this world tricks (at one point, he somehow floats a rose through the air, landing it in front of her face). It’s cute, really. And even though she ultimately runs to a cab after she watches him dance with another woman, you can’t help but root for the R&B crooner, even if he is stepping out on this proposed fed-up female.

Full Review >>

I apologize, Ne-Yo, for making light of your chivalry last time around. Year of the Gentlemen remains a pretty uneven listen once it gets past the hits “Closer” and “Miss Independent,” and deference as a default emotion still only stretches so far before the listener is likely to snap. But in retrospect, I didn’t give you or your collaborators enough credit for crafting both smooth, listenable pop hooks and, as I said in 2008, “vocal harmonies I expect Ne-Yo to recycle when he begins his collaborations with Michael Jackson.” Well, never has the time been better for the heir apparent to Jackson’s throne to step up his game.

Full Review >>

Initially starting out as a budding songwriter for A-list artists, Ne-Yo is now the toast of the scene with chart-topping singles and albums to boot. The pinnacle may have been his 2008 effort Year Of Gentleman, where chivalry prospered throughout the disc. Two years later, Ne-Yo has yet another concept that comes in the form of Libra Scale. Accompanied by a handful of long-form music videos that bring Ne-Yo’s vision to life, the album tells the story of Jerome, a garbage man that gains fame and power but loses love in return.

Full Review >>

It seems that R&B superstar Ne-Yo is feeling a bit jealous of all the attention Lady Gaga and Kanye West's high-concept pop projects have been getting, so he's come up with his own so-crazy-it-just-might-work concept. Drawing on his affection for comic books, he's imagined a bizarre narrative involving garbage men with superpowers that's supposed to serve as a metaphorical meditation on fame, money and love. Yeah, we're not sold on it either.

Full Review >>

If you didn't know this was a concept album involving a trio of superhero dustmen and a femme fatale called Pretti Sinclair – you really couldn't make it up – you might well think it was just another collection of smooth R&B from this agreeable singer. Despite Ne-Yo being absolutely serious about this – apparently, he spent three months alone developing the backstory – it doesn't feel markedly different from his first three albums. His strength remains his fluid melody-writing, which saves many an otherwise mundane track here: Makin' a Movie, for example, may be overproduced, but its flow is hugely catchy; Champagne Life (in which the dustmen receive their super-powers, though lines like "Welcome to the champagne life, where trouble is a bubble in the champagne glass" give the impression of a plain old escapist party tune) is a sleek ride across a lush landscape of strings and a backing choir.

Full Review >>

The gentleman turns heartbreaker on his fourth album. Melissa Bradshaw 2010 Ne-Yo’s new album complicates the persona established on his last full length. With 2008’s Year of the Gentleman the singer/producer turned his talent for a saccharine, infectious soul ballad (see So Sick from his 2006 debut album) into making himself the most desirable man in the world.

Full Review >>

NE-YO “Libra Scale” (Def Jam). If albums had a thread count, the one on Ne-Yo’s “Libra Scale” would be more than 1,000. Plush is the watchword for this album, the fourth by Shaffer Chimere Smith, a k a Ne-Yo..

Full Review >>