8701

08/09/2001 9:54 PM, Yahoo! Music
Dan Leroy

If it's true that the plug was pulled on Usher's latest album earlier this year because parts of it were being swapped on Napster, then Arista owes Hank Barry and Shawn Fanning a big wet thank-you kiss. Forcing Usher to record eight new songs for 8701 (renamed for its release date) turns out to have been a very good thing indeed. Of course, that's not surprising when half the new tunes come courtesy of R&B hitmaking locks like Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis

and the Neptunes--but both teams have also done some of their best work here with Usher. Jam and Lewis give him bedroom grooves like "Twork It Out" that suggest modern-day Marvin Gaye, while the Neptunes liven up their monochromatic hip-hop grooves with soaring choruses on "I Don't Know" and "U Don't Have To Call." The new tracks are good enough, in fact, that several of the old ones suffer by comparison--although Jermaine Dupri's hard-rocking "I Can't Let U Go" is a notable exception--and it's too bad the cover of Biz Markie's "Just A Friend" didn't make the cut. But 8701 is still a major improvement over Usher's "old" new album--and maybe his finest outing yet.