After checking my inbox to make sure I hadn't received an advance copy of the album and overlooked it, I decided to head over to his Myspace page to check out some of the tracks.
The first track "In Your shoes" wasn't bad, but it sounded like something John would do, both in lyrics and singing style. In fact it turns out that John co-wrote the song. I moved on to the next song hoping for something more original, something that would separate him from his brother, and lo and behold that is exactly what I got...
"The Future" came on and I was confused, firstly the lyrics were ummm.....not what I expected. Something about popping tags, tapping that ass and tricking. Secondly the entire track was done with the use of the dreaded autotune. Unsure if I was on the right myspace page I looked around to confirm that this was really John Legend's brother and that he was signed to the same label as UK singer Estelle. I discovered that this was indeed the case and went on to the next track assuming that this was a one off. Next up was "BagDatShawty" and as the title suggests it was equally bad lyrically, but more telling was the fact that it was also done with autotune. Next track "Alone", more of the same. "So Fine" ditto. In fact the only track without autotune was "In Your Shoes", which just happens to the be the lead single.
Now as a disclaminer I haven't heard the album in it's entirety, but I've heard 5 tracks... and 4 of them are autotuned out. Autotune? Seriously?? I thought we were past this. Besides, I swore I heard John raving about Vaughn Anthony's voice. Not sure how we're supposed to be able to verify this, since it looks like we won't be able to hear much of it.
