Once Again
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It takes guts, if not outright egomania, to abandon your given surname and adopt a loaded one like Legend, but the former John Stephens must have sensed that loftiness would one day be his calling card: Once Again, the follow-up to the Grammy-gobbling, platinum pile-on that was Get Lifted, surpasses expectations. Not that it bears much relation to its predecessor. Again again trots out a stable of talented, modern-minded producers--Raphael Saadiq, Legend comrade Kanye West, and the unsinkable will.i.am--but it's nowhere near as self-conscious about embracing the old-school as the knowing, R&B edge-skimming Lifted. Don't expect a derivative mash of smudgy, nostalgia-filching sounds, though, because despite its retro leanings, what's in store somehow crackles with currency. Call it neo-retro if you must, but never call it unimaginative: first single "Save Room" coasts, drifts, and floats along a ponderous path spiked by a cool keyboard-y crescendo; second single "Heaven" busts out a big, busy beat over a slow seduction; and a couple of selections--"Each Day Gets Better" and "PDA"--are so bright and twirly they seem custom-made for dizzy love scenes or jaunty, sunny-day skips through the park. Maybe the most unusual track is "Show Me," a rock song that pilfers elements of Hendrix and finds Legend climbing a few octaves to sound, weirdly, like Jeff Buckley, but it works: so slippery is its beat and so affecting are its hope-laced lyrics that, oddness aside, it's among the disc's best. Sandwiched as it is among 14 songs that all sound like future classics, that's saying something. --Tammy La Gorce More Legendary Music
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Tracks
| 1 | Save Room |
| 2 | Heaven |
| 3 | Stereo |
| 4 | Show Me |
| 5 | Each Day Gets Better |
| 6 | P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care) |
| 7 | Slow Dance |
| 8 | Again |
| 9 | Maxine |
| 10 | Where Did My Baby Go |
| 11 | Maxine's Interlude |
| 12 | Another Again |
| 13 | Coming Home |
