Brian McKnight: Superhero : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

A guy doesn't have to be a studly sweetheart to kick off an album murmuring, "Some fellas only think of themselves," but it doesn't hurt this fragile-voiced balladeer. Brian McKnight's standard bedtime songs ("What's It Gonna Be," "Whatever You Want") are fairly generic neosoul, but his breathy upper range brings a vulnerability to his polished melismas, and he has the humor to reference Frankie Goes to Hollywood on the satin-sheeted "When You Wanna Come." The best cuts are middle-of-the-road love songs gussied up with McKnight's clean guitar playing - "My Kind of Girl" (featuring a pallid but capable Justin Timberlake) and the pillowy "Still." The title track rocks, big-Eighties style, down to its miniature guitar solo, but McKnight clearly enjoys his forays into funky hip-hop lite on the tense party anthem "Don't Know Where to Start" and the bonus track, "Groovin' Tonight." A decade into his career, the singer's priorities - 1) Tonight's the night, and 2) We'll take it nice and slow - remain inarguable.

ARION BERGER
(RS 879 - October 11, 2001)