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Priceless
Priceless is a pretty ambitious name for a CD, but Frankie J's second English-language disc does play like something that ought to be brought to shoppers' attention by way of a loudspeaker and a gleaming blue strobe light. As of opening track "That Girl," the man who launched a thousand comparisons to Usher comes out swinging and bobbing to a Chamillionaire- and Mannie Fresh-enhanced beat: "shake-it-shake-it-shake-it-shake-it-shake-it," Chamillionaire commands when he's not fueling Frankie's obsession for a girl with a "face like a supermodel/body built just like a Coke bottle." Forty-five minutes of pure R&B flow, some of it laid atop a hopped-up dance vibe, follow: "Never Let You Down," featuring Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, could be part of a producer's PowerPoint presentation on the expert scuffing of a pretty ballad; "If He Can't Be" conjures the spiky-haired spirit of Billy Idol (or at least his inescapable hit "Eyes Without a Face") for a sneaky seduction; "Hurry Up" hustles out of the speakers with thump-hearted urgency; and the midtempo "I Ain't Trippin'" coasts on glass-clear vocals--"Even though you've got a man, even though I've got a girl/I like the way it's going down," sings Sir J in a Timberlake-reminiscent falsetto. Latin, R&B, dance, and hip-hop fans will like what's going down here, too--if Priceless proves anything, it's that Frankie's bent on freeing himself not only from comparisons with other sexy crooners but from genre conventions as well. The former Kumbia King has entered an exploratory phase, and it's serving him well--if he keeps it up, don't count on seeing his discs in the sale rack anytime soon. --Tammy La Gorce
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Tracks| 1 | That Girl Fresh | | 2 | Priceless | | 3 | Never Let You Down | | 4 | Daddy's Little Girl | | 5 | If He Can't Be | | 6 | Say Something | | 7 | Hurry Up | | 8 | Is This What You Call Love? | | 9 | Top Of The Line | | 10 | Dance | | 11 | Still | | 12 | I Ain't Trippin' |
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