Ne-Yo's latest is a concept album about crime-fighting "R&B superheroes," complete with a femme fatale and a thing called the Libra Scale — a device that measures the weights of money, power, fame and love. If you find that hard to follow, no matter: Just listen to the music. Ne-Yo has crafted an epic full of party songs, beatific ballads and throbbing spy-movie club music. It's lavish disco; the songs are cinematic in scope but have the unshakable hooks of great pop. If that formula sounds like a certain recently deceased R&B superhero — well, that's no coincidence. The real "concept" here is: Michael Jackson tribute album. And a damn good one.

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“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.