Weeks: 12
This song's overall sound is great. While the synthesizer was horribly abused in the 70s and 80s, somewhere in the 90s someone figured out how to properly use it as part of the musical palette. And this song shows how the synthesizer can be used to wonderful effect. The synthesizer sting that dominates this song is pure gold. As long as the rest of the song can stay out of its way, that sting will carry the song. And the rest of the song generally does that. Other than some minimal percussion and bass, there's not a lot of other music here to interfere.
As for the vocals, I think I've said before that Usher has a good voice. I enjoy listening to him sing. The relatively stark soundscape shows off his voice, and it's great. Ludacris raps for a verse here, too. And I was right before, Ludacris raps well and doesn't need his voice to be manipulated weirdly to be entertaining. Ludacris's rap verse sounds really good. Ludacris and Usher have made two decent songs here and successfully fused them together in a way that works. Lil John has a really obnoxious voice and he's pretty terrible, but the song uses him in the best way possible: minimally. If Lil John had even a whole verse I'd probably be pointing to it as the point where the song broke down, but that doesn't happen.
Now, the lyrics are where the song starts to come apart. It seems Usher has a favorite theme for his songs: seeing an attractive woman at a dance club. I seem to be moving backwards through Usher's career, so maybe he's just copying the formula that worked for him here, but I kind of want to hear him sing about something else. Anyway, like the other songs I've reviewed, this one reduces the woman he's singing about to her attractiveness, and Usher implies he has no willpower to resist her, even though he has a girlfriend and totally should. Ludacris's lyrics are possibly even worse, including the line "if you hold the head steady, I'ma milk the cow." I'm not sure I've fully deciphered the metaphor, but I'm pretty sure he's just compared women to cows, or at least to milk. This song at least avoids using pre-teen words like "Boobies," and isn't about having sex in public, so I suppose of all the Usher songs I've done, it's the least offensive lyrically.
My verdict: Like it. I don't care about the lyrics. That synthesizer hook is a winner, and the quality of the vocals are a good thing. I can mostly overlook the lyrics.
Mostly.
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