★★★★★
Eh, not another one of these acronym-laden albums. You would think the ever-dapper Ne-Yo wouldn't need to buckle under the pressures of miming the titles of The Game's 2011 album or Taylor Swift's best-selling 2012 album, but his latest disc, R.E.D. (meaning "Realizing Every Dream"), feels like a last-minute effort to feel creative. But, that's what happens when your MJ-inspired concept album, Libra Scale, fails to connect with fans in 2010 and sells a fraction of your first two discs...
- www.soultracks.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
"R.E.D. (Realizing Every Dream)" is a comeback to smooth R&B Ne-Yo. The '00s saw an interesting trend in R&B music. The genre swerved into the Pop music lane, and one of the best results of that shift was Ne-Yo's rise as one of the genres premier songwriters. Since R. Kelly, there wasn't anyone like him jumping from one popular R&B artist to other more popular R&B artists. From Mario, Ciara, Mariah Carey, Mary J...
- www.hiphopdx.com
2012-11-19
★★★★★
Shaffer Smith, aka chart topping R&B; maestro Ne-Yo has taken a sharp u-turn away from 2010's concept album Libra Scale and its explicit lack of commercial appeal. R.E.D. instead sees his now trademark silky smooth vocals plastered over a new collection of radio-friendly hits that reads a little like the tracklist to the latest Now! compilation. It may at times feel inconsistent in its flow but taken on a case-by-case basis, it sees Ne-Yo competing in a whole new league...
- music.thedigitalfix.com
2012-11-16
★★★★★
Ladies and gentlemen, the search is over! We have done all the measuring, put liquids in test tubes, trained a theodolite at Ne-Yo's hat, and the results are conclusive: we have found the most brilliantly egotistical slow jam in the world, and it isn't by . It's called Cracks in Mr. Perfect, and it's a confessional, but a really, really specific one...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
On "Cracks in Mr. Perfect," the confessional opener on his fifth LP, Ne-Yo is the sort of beautiful smoothie who fucks you without a condom, then shrugs sheepishly and says, "It's our imperfections that truly make us perfect." Bullshit notwithstanding, his silky phrasing gilds an impressively broad mix: steamy R&B ("Lazy Love"), bighearted dance pop ("Let Me Love You [Until You Learn to Love Yourself]") and hip-hop soul ("Don't Make 'Em Like You," with a sick slow-mo groove and a charming Wiz...
- www.rollingstone.com
2012-11-09
★★★★★
Ican't remember the last time I heard a male crooner, in the R&B; fold or otherwise, use the word "boyfriend" as emphatically or invitingly as Ne-Yo dares to in "Single," one of the typically sensitive relationship ditties on his third album Year of the Gentleman...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2012-03-12
★★★★★
In Ne-Yo's latest video for "One in a Million", the singer begs and pleads with a woman who is made out to be his object of affection by singing sultry words ("You're so one in a million / You are / Baby you're the best I ever had" is a chorus that would make any female skip a breath) and by displaying dance moves smoother than a Caramello candy bar; and performing out of this world tricks (at one point, he somehow floats a rose through the air, landing it in front of her face)...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
The latest artist labeled the "Future of R&B" is Ne-Yo, a young songwriter (Mario's "Baby Let Me Love You") whose debut album, In My Own Words, hit the top of the charts in its first week, fueled by irresistible single, "So Sick." Unfortunately, the rest of the album disappointingly comes off like the one-dimensional diary of a horny 17 year old (I'm surprised he's not giggling as he sings)...
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
Like him or not, Ne-Yo and his Stargate-tweaked hits have earned him a strong presence in the R&B world. Since his ascension to the top as one of the genre's most trustworthy songwriters (writing for Beyoncé, Rihanna, Chrisette Michele, Mario and others), the content on his solo entries have gotten stronger and more polished; easily making him more confident in his craft and likable amongst the masses...
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
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