Kelly, 1998’s smooth-playing double R.) and songs (the party-hearty “Ignition (Remix),” the mock-scandalized Usher duet “Same Girl”) have steered away from overbearing and overcorrecting altogether they’re just nice. More often than not, Kelly’s best albums (1995’s Isley-swirled R.

An immaculate singer, self-producer, and relentlessly conceptual songwriter, he’s flirted with earning this dubious distinction throughout his dubious career, but geniuses have historically made a lot more great albums. You can’t buy that kind of PR move.Īnd so a tune called “Sex Planet” that builds to - uhuh - a joke about Uranus came to exemplify the third act of his career, which peaked with a 33-part soap opera called “Trapped in the Closet” that began the narrative proclaiming Kells to be a genius.

One development that made the cognitive dissonance more palatable post-trial was that the man behind such straight-faced mating calls as “Bump ‘n’ Grind” and “Feelin on Yo’ Booty” developed a sense of humor that sort of preemptively parodied himself before the growing mass of haters could reroute his success. Per usual, we’re confronted with the prospect of an allegedly videotaped (and several-times testified against) statutory rapist trying to sweet-talk us for almost the duration of the thing. Kelly’s 13 th album, is like the 12 before it: hard to enjoy objectively.

R kelly double up album song list