John Legend: Love In the Future
John Legend
Love In the Future
(G.O.O.D./Columbia)
John Legend’s fourth solo studio LP, Love In the Future, sells us on all the good and right parts of finding a perfectly imperfect love. The great thing about the singer is that he’s so believable in respect to his admiration and very public romance with his new wife (model Chrissy Teigan) for which most of the album is dedicated, that you do not get bogged down in the intensity of the entire project.
Following 2010’s Wake Up! with The Roots (which won a Grammy), the “Get Lifted†singer also hit it big last year with the single “Tonight (Best You Ever Had)†featuring rapper Ludacris from the Think Like a Man soundtrack. Though Love In the Future features a host of collaborations from Hit-Boy (Kanye West, Jay-Z), Ali Shaheed Mohammad, Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest, Lily Allen), as well as West and Dave Tozer as co-producer and co-executive producer, Legend still couldn’t lose by tackling what he does best — which is love. With covers of Bobby Caldwell’s “Open Your Eyes†and Anita Baker’s “Angel†(a duet with Brooklyn singer Stacey Barthe), the album is a wonderful mix of old school love and new love perspectives. And the newly released “All of Me†video featuring Teigan just solidifies the entire project’s theme.
Must-spins are “You & I (No One In the World),†“All of Me,†“So Gone†and “We Loved It,†featuring Seal.