The-Dream Albums (2)
What The Critics Say
Between the December 2007 release of Love/Hate and March 2009 release of Love vs Money, the-Dream's dominance as a songwriter, producer, and solo artist had not faded. When the latter album was released, Mr. Nash's output was all over the radio, just as it was when the former came out. Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and Mariah Carey's "Touch My Body" had been to the top of the Hot 100 amidst a string of smaller successes that included Jamie Foxx's "Just Like Me," merely a Top Ten R&B hit, and Usher's "Trading Places," which was too thematically and structurally off-center to be massive. The number one R&B single at the time, Foxx's "Blame It," was neither written nor produced by Nash, but it quoted him. "Rockin' That Sh**," this album's lead single, had just become his fourth consecutive solo Top Ten R&B single, and a duet with Mariah Carey, "My Love," was well on its way to becoming number five. He was in his own orbit. Love vs Money, like Love/Hate, was made with producers Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Carlos "L.O.S. da Mystro" McKinney, and it continues Nash's never-ending song cycle about his life as a chest-puffing softy who will get "all up on you like a white tee on a thug" and "circle the stars and bring you one back." Sonically, there are only slight variations on what he and his collaborators had been serving up for over a couple years, with swishing and panning percussion accents, droning and buzzing synths, syrupy vocal interjections, and unexpected hook deployment from every angle. The song most directly connected to Love/Hate is "Sweat It Out," essentially a slow jam version of "Playin' in Her Hair," sung just as sweetly: "She just got her hair did but you know I can't stop this/I told you once we finish that I would get your shit fixed." The album is heavier on ballads and, with "Fancy" and "Right Side of My Brain," it stretches out, shifting from a melancholy six-minute beat tease (where an awed Dream loses all control to a mate with expensive taste) to an emotionally bruised stomp (a regretful kiss-off). Ultimately, Love vs Money is Love/Hate's equal, stuffed with hooks, ceaselessly absorptive productions, and clever and often funny wordplay -- "Now if they ask you can I sing like Usher, say no/But I can make you sing like Mariah, ooooooooh" being the most amusing of them all, though "I'm all up on you like a monster truck" runs a close second for switching up the R. Kelly woman-as-vehicle metaphor. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
When Terius "The-Dream" Nash released his first album, during the third-to-last week of 2007, the Top 30 of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart contained five songs he co-wrote, only one of which was credited to him as a performer. Four of these singles -- Mary J. Blige's "Just Fine," J. Holiday's "Suffocate" and "Bed," and his own "Shawty Is da Sh*!" -- were on their way to the Top Five. Six months earlier, another song involving his input, Rihanna's "Umbrella," hit number one on the Hot 100. For Love/Hate's duration, Nash sticks with close associates Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Carlos "L.O.S." McKinney. Not only does it lend the album a unified sound unlike most modern R&B albums, but it has the effect of a suite, with common elements shared between tracks; some of the transitions would make any album sequencing assistant deeply envious. When it comes to the songs he keeps to himself, the persona maintained is closer to the one within "Bed." He is a lecherous braggart, albeit one with a slightly chirpy voice who is ultimately a charmingly vulnerable romantic, which brilliantly offsets the chumpishness. Hubris peaks in "Falsetto," where Nash not only has the nerve to work up an impression of a conquest hitting the high notes, but makes it the hook of the song -- and yet, it comes off as the harmless kid brother of Ginuwine's "Pony." There's the gently booming sleazeball doo wop of "I Luv Your Girl," where he pulls another man's girl but cannot help himself, simultaneously brutish and lovestruck. Then, in "Playin' in Her Hair," he involuntarily drops the Lothario act entirely, reduced to awe: "It ain't about the Benz or the money/She's my bee, I'm her honey." From a purely sonic standpoint, it's all state-of-the art pop circa 2007-2008. The sound of the album is resolutely luminescent, its rubbery rhythms -- sometimes colored by those swishing, panning effects heard in "Bed" and its many imitators -- accompanied by layers of components that include twinkling keyboards, rippling synths, and baroque touches like synthetic strings and harpsichords. Love/Hate is, undoubtedly, a post-Timbaland/post-Neptunes pop album, but neither one of them has put together something as consistent or tautly constructed, simultaneously single-oriented and album-oriented, as this. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
