Usher, "Confessions"

 


Never listened to this album, so I put it on yesterday and there's this spoken word kind of intro and then I realize I know the first song, because it's so ubiquitous in popular culture that I knew the opening notes by heart, without ever knowing who it was or where it was from.

I know, right?  The even trippier thing is I can't place where I've heard it but it's so immediately familiar that I must have heard it hundreds of times!  Wild.  A little digging around shows that it's been in movies like "The Hangover" but I probably know it from some of the commercial it's been in, like this.

Anyway, R&B is not really my thing but I enjoyed this album enough.  I mean, it sold 10 million copies in the US, so it certainly spoke to a lot of people.  I did enjoy the vocals in "Caught Up" quite a bit, and there is no doubt that Usher is a gifted singer.  But maybe just not for me, and that's ok!  Not everyone loves everything.

One incredible detail I came across while reading up on this record: "Philadelphia songwriter Daniel Marino, who filed a lawsuit over Usher’s “Bad Girl,” has been awarded $44.35 million following a court battle over the track."  It seems that Marino wrote a song called "Club Girl" which someone - apparently not Usher, who wasn't named in the suit - stole and reworked into "Bad Girl."  $44 million!!!!  For one song!!!!  The vast majority of artists, even successful artists, don't make anywhere close to $44 million in a career, and this guy got it from one song.  Amazing.

One other incredible detail, as long as we're all here: "With global sales exceeding 20 million, Confessions is the best-selling album by a black artist in the 21st century."  I would not have guessed that!

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