R&B singer Ne-Yo "bored" by urban music
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - As he prepares to release his third record album in as many years, R&B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo says he is "a little bored" with urban music.
The genre has served him well, to be certainly. His get-go 2 albums experience both been certified atomic number 78, and he has co-written such fiend hits as Beyonce's "Irreplaceable," which spent 10 weeks atop the Hot one C singles chart in 2006.
Simply "Year of the Man," due June 24 from Def Crush, finds the 28-year-old AR native -- real name Shaffer Smith -- venturing into "more worldly" territory.
"There's more or less material on there that sounds like something the Beatles might've done," Ne-Yo told Billboard. "There's just about stuff on at that place that sounds like something He-goat Joel might've done. I can't do simply straightaway urban euphony no more, because to be totally honest with you, I'm a little bored with it. I'm precisely moving with what music excites me at present."
An too soon preview does indeed indicate something a little different from traditional R&B: "Closer" is a Stargate-produced baseball club track with pulse strobe synths and a high-energy house beat that calls to intellect Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music."
"So You Buns Call out" sports a mellow, easy-listening vibe, with Ne-Yo making a priceless verse of "pity party" and "calamary." Guitars and cymbals figure conspicuously in "What's the Thing," which Ne-Yo likens to "a Beatles-style rock record."
Simply will the little girls understand? Def Block wants to inflate Ne-Yo's hearing beyond its core of sixteen to 24-year-old females.
"The records he's written don't just talk to young black girls," says Ashaunna Ayars, Def Jam's VP of selling. "We're trying to build an adult audience that appreciates his music as well."
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