R. Kelly - Double Up (CD)

All Music Guide

Like most of its predecessors, R. Kelly's eleventh album is stuffed to the gills, with 18plus songs clocking in at 76 minutes (or longer, depending on which bonus track[s] your edition includes.) And if Double Up is, inevitably, far from flawless, the level of novelty and listenability Kelly manages to sustain for that duration is quite a feat. It makes this his best fulllength in years arguably his best of the decade especially when you consider that its high points most notably the singles "I'm a Flirt [Remix]" and "Same Girl" rank among the licentious Chicagoan's very finest. Yes, Kelly's familiar, almost cartoonishly overstated brand of sexobsessed misogyny is as rampant here as his increasingly eccentric humor more so than ever, on both counts. So if you're not of a disposition to stomach the 40yearold (whose stillpending child pornography trial was set to commence several months after the album's release, before being delayed yet again) boasting about his plot to seduce a pa...ir of "freaky" first cousins for a ménage à trois (in the title track), or warning listeners to steer their girlfriends clear of his restlessly prowling libido (in "Flirt": "the moral of this story is 'cuff your chick'"), this could be a painfully long and humorless listen, or worse. But cut the man a little slack, at least on record or allow him the indulgence of his already comically blatant perversity (at least he doesn't present himself as someone who expects to be taken very seriously) and it's either an absurd explosion of standard RB tropes (nightclub bangers, babymakin' slow jams, overwrought breakup songs) or simply a treasure trove of questionabletaste comedy gold. Actually, those aforementioned scenarios are just the tip of the iceberg, strictly routine in comparison to extended Xrated metaphors in the vein of "In the Kitchen" or "Ignition" (the original, not the remix) involving jungle animals (the brilliantly nutty, if somewhat misleadingly titled "The Zoo"), dessert ("Sweet Tooth"), and interstellar travel ("Sex Planet"), or hammy, convoluted miniepics like "Same Girl," the onesided argument "Real Talk," and the multiplayer melodrama "Best Friend" (the closest this album comes to the preposterous serialized histrionics of the apparently endless "Trapped in the Closet" saga.) Subject matter aside (lets not even get into the incongruously inspirational Virginia Tech paean "Rise Up"), there's no denying that Kells is in top form productionwise. His occasional attempts at trendjumping have somewhat mixed results the turgid metal guitars of "Rock Star," featuring Kid Rock; the menacing Southernstyle synths of "Rollin'"; the fine but innocuous Caribbeantinged "Freaky in the Club" though it doesn't help that these are also the album's least inspired moments conceptually and melodically. On the other hand, he cops 2007's production gimmick du jour, vocodered RB vocals (à la TPain), to excellent effect on "Leave Your Name," a hilarious slice of lifestyleboastingasoverlydetailedvoice mailmessage. But when he sticks to his somehow perennially fresh style of lush, laidback, semiorganic, midtempo grooves, he's both unmistakable and untouchable. Even the album's parade of Alist guest stars (among them Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Chamillionaire, T.I., Ludacris, and Keyshia Cole), though it does help to keep things interesting, never threatens to overshadow the musical and vocal smoothness, and perversely compelling lyricism of the main event. - K. Ross Hoffman, All Music Guide Read more Less