Vinnie Barone

Music Monday: Usher

Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.

As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatle’s songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.

So with that, let’s get started.

Usher Raymond IV was born on October 14, 1978 in Dallas, Texas. His talents were known at a young age, as he got a record deal at the age of 13. However, the nightmare that is puberty was causing setbacks for his debut album, due to the fact that he was having a difficult time adjusting his voice. His label became skeptical of Usher and put his recording on hold thinking about dropping him from the label. They smartly didn’t and Usher’s debut album was released in 1994. No songs got within the top 50. The album received backlash because Usher was singing about sex which the public had a hard time believing coming out of a 15-year-old’s mouth. (Which is really dumb if you think about it, I’m 25 and if I released an album talking about sex, people would have a hard time believing it came out of my mouth too, so I do not understand the controversy whatsoever). (Wait, I have another joke. It’s almost like a 14 year old Usher was singing about sex because he knew he’d grow up and contract herpes). Again, the label had their reservations about signing Usher because the album wasn’t as successful as they expected. After graduating high school he released his second album My Way. The album was a smashing success, going 6x platinum and spawning singles that went number 2 (You Make Me Wanna), 1 (Nice & Slow), and 2 (My Way). It was nominated for a Grammy. Usher followed this up in 2001 with the release of his third album 8701 which was another smash success, going 4x platinum, and spawning 2 number one hits (U Remind Me and U Got It Bad) and number 3 hit (U Don’t Have to Call). He won his first and second Grammy’s for Best Male Performance in 2002 and 2003. He joined Stevie Wonder as the only artist to win Best Male Performance two years in a row. He also became the only artist with functioning eyes to win Best Male Performance two years in a row. At this point, Usher was a bonafide superstar; it was with the release of Confessions in 2004 that he became an all time great. The album went Diamond (10 million records sold). It was the second best selling album of the 2000’s and was ranked as the 16th best album of all time by Billboard. The album spawned four number 1 hits (Yeah!, Burn, Confessions Part II, and My Boo). and a top 10 hit (Caught Up). How do you follow up a career defining album like Confessions? Well it was tough, Here I Stand was released in 2008 and had another song go number 1 (Love in this Club) and that was it. Nothing else is worth talking about off of that disappointment. Raymond vs Raymond was released a year and a half later and it was… better but it was clear Usher was past his peak at this point. Like every Usher album, it had a song go number 1 (OMG) on the charts, but it also had a top 5 (DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love), and two top 20 songs (More, Hot Tottie). Looking 4 Myself was released in 2012 and it could not hold up to the precedent that Usher set for himself. It became the first album Usher released since his debut, 18 years prior, to not have a number one hit on it. It did have a top 10 (Scream) and top 20 hit (Climax) but who cares right? Either go number one or get out of my face. Hard II Love was mistakenly released in 2016 and stunk outside of the top ten hit he did with Juicy J (I Don’t Mind). Same with A in 2018. He has Confessions II coming out sometime in 2019 and I think it’s a mistake to relate anything to Confessions but maybe he’ll surprise me, who knows. Usher’s career is so legendary I didn’t even have the chance to mention how he pretty much discovered Just Bieber. After Bieber was discovered there was a visible decline in Usher’s music. 2010’s Usher walked so Justin Bieber can run, so I’ll cut him some slack, he’s still getting those checks.

Usher has 9 number one hits and 18 in the top 10, so this is arguably the toughest ranking I’ve had to do to date. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I’m bias to bangers, and Usher has those. However, it would be ignorant of me to ignore the R&B side of the man’s catalog. Now, the moment I’ve been dreading since I started writing this post, I’m about to attempt the impossible and try to select the five best Usher songs.

Toughest Omission: Caught Up: This is just a personal preference. Caught Up is probably one of my favorite Usher songs. With any other artist I’m saying fuck it and putting it in the top 5 ranking, but I can’t in good faith do it. Caught Up is like the Wendy’s of Usher songs in a world full of Chick-Fil-A’s and Popeyes; It’s very good, but if you want a good chicken sandwich, you could go somewhere better. There are just too many restaurant options out there.

5. Love in this Club (ft. Young Jeezy): No lie, I put this song on every single time I step foot into Costco. This was the first song he put out post-Confessions and I think speak for everyone when I say that we all thought Usher would extend his neatly 10 year hot streak of HITS. 

4. U Remind Me: If I had to the rank the best bridges in the world, this would come right after London and Golden Gate but just above the Brooklyn Bridge.

3. My Boo (ft. Alicia Keys): This is one of the greatest duets of all time. Being single has its advantages; however, singing both parts in this song is kinda difficult and I’m tired of it. 

2. Burn: I already made an Usher herpes joke so I won’t beat a dead horse and make one here because I’m mature. The real travesty here is if you type “Burn” into YouTube the Ellie Goulding song comes before this one.

1. Yeah! (Ft. Lil Jon & Ludacris) This song is number one because it’s 2019 and it’s on every single DJ’s playlist at bars and clubs. This thing stands the test of time. No song in the past 15 years has come close to even touching this song, it’s part of the inaugural class of the Banger Hall of Fame. I actually want you to guess how many times you’ve heard Yeah! in your life. It has to be in the thousands right?

Usher has too many hits to only talk about 5, and I’m sure as hell not going to use the rest of the blog to talk about bad Usher songs. This list is bad and I know it so I’m just ending the blog here

Your Turn

If you had a blog and were to rank every Usher song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?

TitleYearPeak chart positionsAlbum
You Make Me Wanna19972My Way
Nice & Slow19981My Way
My Way19982My Way
U Remind Me200118701
U Got It Bad200118701
U Don’t Have to Call200138701
Yeah! (ft. Lil Jon & Ludacris)20041Confessions
Burn20041Confessions
Confessions Part II20041Confessions
My Boo (ft. Alicia Keys)20041Confessions
Caught Up20041Confessions
Love in This Club (ft. Young Jeezy)20081Here I Stand
Love in This Club Part II200818Here I Stand
OMG (ft. will.i.am)20101Raymond vs. Raymond
DJ Got US Fallin’ in Love (ft. Pitbull)20104Raymond vs. Raymond
Hot Tottie (ft. Jay-Z201020Raymond vs. Raymond
More201015Raymond vs. Raymond
Climax201217Looking 4 Myself
Scream20129Looking 4 Myself
I Don’t Mind201410Hard II Love

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