never Miss a beat

Don’t know if you have realised… but Usher hasn’t made a better sex song since Nice & Slow in his career. His 1998 follow-up jam to Number 1 hit You Make Me Wanna… is nice and also slow but the title is actually a sexy double-entendre for Usher’s favourite hobby, which he is on the verge of doing throughout the song. Typical of the R&B music of that era, the song is real “getting it on” talk for people who think scented candles, ice cubes and mango slices are sexual. It is an ode to love: “I got plans to put my hands in places I never seen, girl you know what I mean” (not a large bag of Kettle Chips Sea Salt & Black Pepper FYI). Aside from Usher’s plans, your plan is to be “inspired” and get all nice and slow while listening to Nice & Slow. Nice & Slow is as close to a forced audio aphrodisiac as Another Level’s Freak Me or Jodeci’s Freek’N You. Just because it doesn’t have the word “Freak” in the title (Nice & Slow Freak would have sent the wrong message) doesn’t mean the people ain’t gon’ get their freak ON to the song (apparently). Usher even wears one of those condom things on his head in the video as an almost-there reminder of safe sex practices.

The sex-educatiing crooner had big singles after Nice & Slow but none have put a refreshing new stamp on his “I’m’a get my groove on” mantra. U Got It Bad, for instance, was merely Nice & Slow Part II: Feelings Post-Nice & Slow where Usher showed off then girlfriend, Her off TLC. Burn was Nice & Slow Part III: Thanks But I’m Bored Of Nice & Slow Now where Usher dumped then girlfriend, Her off TLC. Together these tracks formed the beginning, middle and end of a Nice & Slow trilogy: a relationship told through its various phases of sexual health. Usher would also often veer into club anthems, which acted as a preamble – the prequel, if you like – to Nice & Slow’s late-night physical antics. But this direction was not refreshing. Yeah! was a track that sounded like a BT call centre having a routine fire drill. It put me off ever leaving the house in 2004 – a problem for Usher whose purpose in life is to encourage mass sexytime. As far as his latest big hitter OMG went, I needed that on a night out like I needed a spinning class after six shots of sambuca.

Anyway, Usher must have had a meltdown last year because there were a lot of young dudes with universally-appealing babymaking voices muscling in on his previously-monopolised territory (when I say “monopolised” I’m totally ignoring Whatshisface… Did a song with Rihanna…? Wears a suit…? Likes hats…? NE-YO. Yeah, him). Ignoring Ne-yo, Usher has two main problems now; Frank Ocean and The Weeknd have been orgasming falsettos over each other for months via free, downloadable mixtapes that have spread like chlamydia across the internet and pushed Usher out of everyone’s little black book of bootycall soundtracks. What’s more these crooners are offering something outrageously alternative to anything Usher has given us before. Their music is genuinely thrilling and reveals new depths to the R&B genre, taking it to places it has never been before (hrnhrnhrnhrnhrn). For the first time in FOREVER, R&B is getting interesting. Usher would have to compete with this entirely different breed of R&B sex pest.

So having cottoned on to the fact that nocturnal beats and brooding production is catnip to horny hipsters right now, Usher went to work with Philadelphia-based producer Diplo to try and come up with a way of getting back in the loop. And he succeeds. Usher’s new track goes immediately to the point of all his lubricating exercises: Climax. Except this time he has (in the words of Simon Cowell) made himself RELEVANT again. Climax is already better than Nice & Slow which thereby makes it the best sex song Usher has done (even though it’s not ACTUALLY about sex - more breaking up with a girl having “reached the climax” of the relationship… ie, got bored of the sex). RECOGNISE THIS SHIT, WORLD. The atmosphere actually builds (like a climax), his vocal is the strongest its ever been and the track sounds nothing like anything Usher would ever do. 

I would say that Climax reaches the sky, hits the spot, takes you to Pleasuretown… but that would be excruciatingly lame. Besides, I’d rather hand you over to the online Soundcloud community whose honest reactions are far more succinct and authoritative… (Remember to check back in to Never Miss A Beat for the story of how R&B is getting cool again AS IT UNFOLDS LIKE AN EPISODE OF EASTENDERS).

“sex”

 “HOTTTTT”

“Da Fuck is this?”

“Get ready to see some more babies born now”

“MUUNSTER”

“sexay”

“Two words: “BAD” “ASS””

“I wanna climax”

“Epic!”

“GUSHER”

“hmm”

“usher bodied this song”

“Not gonna lie, this is amazing”

“www.epicbasstime.com”

“the way it Fucken should be”

“Wow… Touching”

“WhOse Diplo? HE DA SHITTTT”

“In lust w/this sick”

“Chills… fucking chills”

(check out Usher’s latest sex song below and remember to be safe at all times)