Here I Stand : Usher : Review : Rolling Stone

There comes a time in every R&B singer's life when he stops catching panties and finds himself a wifey. Having married and fathered a son last year, Usher is back to velvety slow-jams, this time embracing domestic life's freaky side. On "Trading Places," which recalls Prince's "The Beautiful Ones," Usher role-plays June Cleaver to his lady's Ward, brewing her coffee and offering to be "on the bottom." And he spends two full songs begging for sex on the dance floor: The second, "Love in This Club Part II," bites its melody from the Stylistics' "You Are Everything" but packs the hilarity of an R. Kelly song, as Usher and Beyoncé argue the pros and cons of doing the deed. Judging by all the album's innuendo — "I'll bag you like some groceries," "I can't wait to deliver you like a FedEx box" — suburban chores even get him hot. But now that he's got the American Dream, he sounds like he's stopped trying. The original "Love in This Club," produced by Polow Da Don, sounds like it's built on stock samples from Apple's GarageBand software. And "Love You Gently" issues the least subtle come-on — "How 'bout some foreplay?" — before rushing into "Best Thing," where Usher and Jay-Z dream of populating the world with future players. That's the problem with babymaking ballads: Once they create actual babies, the romance is dead.