In recent years, the Chicago-based R&B singer R. Kelly has alternated between elaborate ballads and and the more erotic collection of songs and videos for his series Trapped In The Closet. His new album, Write Me Back, may be relatively chaste in its sentiments, but it’s by no means without passion.
In “Green Light,” Kelly importunes a woman he loves who’s with another man. “He’s not right for you” is Kelly’s basic message. “You need me to make you happy,” he sings. In a broader sense, Kelly might be talking to his audience. As many of his fans have either moved on or included the music of younger singers like Usher and Chris Brown in their musical lives, Kelly has receded into the background. This album, Write Me Back, is Kelly’s attempt to make his case once again to win back fans and gain some new ones.
Anyone familiar with R&B from the ’80s and ’90s can hear in a song like “Lady Sunday” that Kelly believes a contemporary audience can and will appreciate his stylistic callbacks to an earlier, in some ways more innocent, era. There are a lot of lushly orchestrated ballads on Write Me Back reminiscent of the music of Barry White, Isaac Hayes and the Philly soul sound of acts like Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.
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