Year of the Gentleman

If the mark of the skilful Lothario is the one who knows to always tell his lover what she wants to hear, surely Def Jam?s R&B sensation Ne-Yo--aka Los Angeles singer-songwriter Shaffer Chimere Smith--is one of the greatest of them all. On his third album, Year of the Gentleman, Chimere channels his hitmaking talents into a suite of R&B songs that are more respectful than rampant in their approach to the romancing. ?Single" is a song that reaches out to all the lonely girls,  Ne-Yo promising, ?I'll be your boyfriend til the song goes off," while the Stargate-produced ?Miss Independent," lit up by neon synthesizers, suggests Smith isn't too concerned with his own machismo to test out flipping the traditional gender roles, serenading a girl who's a player in her own right: ?Everything she got, you bet she bought it." The album is at its best with the central, two-song movement of ?Why Does She Stay" and ?Fade Into the Background"--the former finding Ne-Yo questioning his own neglectful nature over a backdrop of shimmering keys, the latter a sombre piece that finds our narrator accepting the news that his lover has found another with a rare, heart-rending magnanimity. --Louis Pattison