/ 8 August 2022

Looking back at Usher’s best songs

Usher

‘Where was Usher at 7 o’clock on the dot?” 

Over the past year, that question has become the yardstick of the depth of one’s musical knowledge. If you’re a fan of 1990s R&B and your response isn’t immediately: “In his drop top, cruising the streets,” then I’m definitely judging you. He just can’t be anywhere else. 

There are several viral TikTok videos, both local and international, where people are put to the test with this question. So, it was hardly a surprise when during Usher’s recent Tiny Desk Concert he asked an intimate gathering at NPR’s Washington offices where he was at 7 o’clock. Someone in the audience answered without hesitation. 

Usher grinned approvingly. Then he proceeded to put on a vocal masterclass of Nice & Slow, the hit single from which the line is derived. 

Produced and co-written by Jermaine Dupri, the classic ballad from Usher’s star-making 1997 sophomore album My Way marked his first chart topper on the US Billboard Hot 100. It also set in motion the historic partnership between Usher and Dupri that would give rise to several more hit songs over the Atlanta native’s three-decade-long career. 

Usher came out guns blazing at NPR’s Black Music Month with vocalists Eric Bellinger and Vedo, as well as a full backing band. 

“I wanted to do something really special, so I brought my brothers with me,” he said at the start of the concert, as he introduced Bellinger and Vedo. Then he flawlessly dove into You Make Me Wanna, the lead single on My Way, before running through five other tracks spread across his signature albums, My Way, 8701 and Confessions

It was an absolute masterclass, already widely considered to be among the best we’ve seen on the platform. It’s certainly right up there alongside classic Tiny Desk Concerts from the likes of Adele, Mac Miller, Anderson .Paak and T-Pain.

While his singing and performance were phenomenal, it was the ease with which he went through those notes that struck me the most. It was a clinic on R&B excellence that put Ray J, Omarion, and the rest of the R&B posse involved in that recent shambolic Verzuz to shame. It would have been a frightening sight for anyone who’d dare step in the ring with him on that very platform. Here’s looking at you, Chris Brown. 

A few moments later, he jumped right into Confessions Pt. 2, a performance that begins with that hilarious viral meme of Usher whispering “watch this”, as he motions his fingers across his eyes. 

After the showcase, Billboard reported that Usher saw his streaming numbers spike tenfold. This rise was so significant that, a week after his performance, his Grammy award-winning and diamond-certified album Confessions re-entered the Billboard 200 at No 198, 18 years after its initial release. It triggered nostalgia that had us diving back into the vault to relive those special moments. 

As he noted during his performance, September marks the 25th anniversary of his debut album My Way. Having recently opened his new My Way residency at The Park, MGM’s Dolby Live theatre in Las Vegas, Usher is still in his bag and remains an in-demand performer. In celebration of the evergreen muso, we decided to have a little fun looking back at some of his early work.

Top 5 sexiest songs 

My Boo 

Usher’s fourth album Confessions has several entries on this list. Released in 2004, the coming-of-age record saw the pop star flawlessly craft an intriguing narrative around his personal life. 

An addition to the deluxe version, which added four new titles, the Alicia Keys duet My Boo is a timeless ballad that sees the two artists share a man’s and a woman’s perspective on a former relationship that lingers. So convincing was their chemistry that rumours of a relationship between the two swirled for years. 

Climax

When Usher released Climax in February 2012, he didn’t have much more to prove. He’d scaled the peak of the R&B hill and he could afford to just coast. But he wanted more. 

Climax, the lead single to his seventh studio album Looking 4 Myself, is a slow jam that blends elements of electronic music with R&B. It’s a sexually charged single that Usher has said is based on the complications of a relationship. 

The Diplo-produced record, which is one the best examples of his evolution as an artist, earned him a Grammy for Best R&B Performance.

There Goes My Baby

Falsetto Usher is probably the most impressive Usher. There Goes My Baby, one of the standout down-tempo cuts on his 2010 album Raymond vs Raymond, is soft and sultry, and the racy music video, which features steamy, intimate scenes with a lover, conveys this beautifully. For his efforts, Usher won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2011. 

Coming off the back of his messy divorce from Tameka Foster, which involved family disputes and paternity requests, There Goes My Baby was a much-needed distraction from the drama of his personal life. 

Love in this Club

Of the numerous records about seducing a woman in a club out there, you’d be hard-pressed to find one better put together than Usher’s Love in this Club. While the single saw him stick to a familiar writing formula (lust and seduction are the order of the day for Mr Raymond), this one felt more risqué. 

“Well, this song is about f*cking,” he flatly told Entertainment Weekly. “I will definitely say that I’ve had a moment or two in a stall.” 

Singer-songwriter Keri Hilson helped bring the heat, with her starring role as Usher’s love interest in the music video, and hip-hop heavyweight Jeezy took a break from gangster rap to deliver an appropriately sexually explicit verse here. 

Nice & Slow

By the time Nice & Slow hit in 1997, Usher was already a household name. Despite only being 19 years old, he’d already established himself as one of the most talented singers around. 

Nice & Slow, one of the lead singles on his stellar sophomore My Way is a down-tempo ballad that sees him turn things up a notch. Immortalised by that classic opening line, “It’s 7 o’clock on the dot, I’m in my drop top cruisin’ the streets,” this slow-strung stunner set Usher well on his way. 

Pitchfork quipped that Usher’s voice sounded like “it had weathered the storms of a thousand failed relationships”. A seemingly prophetic surmising about his future love life. 

Top 3 classic hits

Confessions Pt. 2 

A decade into a career that was getting a tad monotonous, Usher brilliantly flipped the script by marketing his fourth album Confessions around his breakup with TLC’s Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas. This move allowed for the rumour mill to go into overdrive, particularly after Confessions Pt. 2 became a mainstream hit. 

“These are my confessions, just when I thought I said all I can say, my chick on the side said she got one on the way,” he sang convincingly. Jermaine Durpi, a co-writer on the song, would later reveal the lyrics were based on his life and they were merely baiting the media for hype. 

Well, it worked. Confessions is one of the best-selling albums of all time. 

U Remind Me

Who can forget that scene of Usher dancing in the middle of the street in U Remind Me’s iconic video? One of those rare classics that can fit in seamlessly at the karaoke bar and at midnight in the club; when this song comes on the radio, you turn it up and sing along, word for word. 

While 8701, the album it’s from, is notably lukewarm and has not stood the test of time, U Remind Me was a runaway success that topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart and also earned him his first Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.

Burn

On Burn, an indecisive Usher expresses his unhappiness in a relationship and, instead of stringing his lover along, he contemplates letting the relationship “burn”. “See, it’s burnin’ me to hold on to this, I know this is somethin’ I gotta do, But that don’t mean I want to,” he croons, conflicted and uncertain. 

It was the perfect setup for the narrative Usher was building ahead of the release of Confessions Pt. 2 as a single later that year. 

Top 2 dance hits

Yeah! 

I always found crunk-influenced Yeah! a peculiar opening to Confessions. Sure, it was an absolute smash hit, topping the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for 12 consecutive weeks, but it was so different from the rest of the album that it almost felt out of place.

But so eager was Usher to break out from the lovey-dovey music he’d become so synonymous with that he made this Lil Jon and Ludacris-assisted anthem the centrepiece of his album. It’s safe to say that this approach worked. 

OMG

Written and produced by Black Eyed Peas frontman, will.i.am., OMG landed around the time Usher was reinventing his sound and finding a new pocket to fill. 

Blending dance, pop and R&B in a medley of sounds, OMG was a true international hit. Usher’s generous use of autotune was widely criticised by fans and critics alike at first, but it worked for the dance and club vibe he was going for. 

The infectious choreography on the accompanying music video helped make this a summer anthem of note.