R. Kelly's second consecutive throwback soul LP moves forward in time from the raw mid-Sixties-style belting of 2010's Love Letter. Write Me Back is suave, string-swathed Seventies revivalism, with tips of the hat to Barry White, Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye. It's virtuoso pastiche – but Kelly's Seventies are freakier than your dad's. The distant lover in "One Step Closer" gets play-by-play of R.'s commute home, which culminates in oral sex: "I'm going down/And I'm not coming back up!" And on "Beautiful in This Mirror," Kelly exults in the voyeuristic pleasure of reflecting glass: "Your love, so 3D/It's like I'm in the front row."

Listen to 'Write Me Back':

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“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.