Music Corner: Revisiting Usher’s iconic album Confessions, 22 years later

7-0-2, we can practice in the music corner.

Take that, rewind it back, earth sure got the voice make it go.

Take that, rewind it back, ludicrous got the floater make it go.

Natasha Raymond featuring ludicrous and Lil Jon, a song called Yeah,

take less than 14 minutes before 10 o'clock.

That's how we kick off the music corner for this week because

we're talking about the album Confessions.

It was released this week in 2004.

I think it's gone on to become Ash's biggest album.

There was a time shortly after you see he released Confessions after 87-01

and people couldn't tell which was his best work.

I think 20 years later Confessions has surely endured and I think

it is his magnum opus.

And so we're talking about the enduring and impact of this album

and how it shifted R&B as well.

But also I'd like to hear your favorite songs from this album.

Give us a call on 011-883-07-02.

Send us a message on 317-02 and send us your WhatsApp voice notes on 07-27-02-17-02.

Joining us on the music corner is Dr. Sheldon Leal.

He's a musicologist.

Academic registrar of the Academy of Sound Engineering.

Good friend of the show.

Dr. Leal, a very good morning to you.

Good morning, good.

So we're talking about Ash's Confessions.

It is 22 years old now.

And I think it's proven because there was at some point a bit of a debate

because he had an incredible run.

He released 87-01, then he released Confessions.

And people couldn't figure out which was his better album or his best album.

I think Confessions has clearly proven that Confessions is the better album.

What do you think?

I definitely think that is the case.

You know, this was his fourth studio album, actually.

He had released two albums before, three albums before,

they were two before 87-01 and then there was Confessions.

He was very young when he was discovered he was 16 years old.

So he was a very, I think he needed to go through album number one, two, and three

to really formulate his sound.

And that he succeeded with in Confessions.

What really differentiated this from his previous albums is that the first three

were very much like Boy R&B, you know, like what we've heard before.

We've heard it with Bobby Brown and all of those new Jack Swing R&B artists.

And with this, he really pushed the boundaries of what R&B was.

With this new sound, specifically with this song, Yeah.

Which had, it was more like a crank R&B sound, which was really something that was emerging at the time.

But no, it was mainly a thing within the hip hop world and not really within the R&B world.

And by adopting this like new crank sound, he really set himself apart from all the other R&B artists

that were in the industry at the time.

And so, I mean, part of what was interesting about this album was the storytelling, right?

Yeah.

This kind of an even in the title track Confessions, the story of a man who has an affair.

And then his mistress, false pregnant, he then makes this confession to his main partner

that, well, you know, I've been doing some terrible things and now there's a baby and I'm really sorry.

And it was, I think part of what made this album so cool was the storytelling.

People thought it was his life, but Jermaine Dupri has repeatedly said it wasn't about

Usher's life at the time, because I think he was dating Chile from TLC at the time.

And Jermaine Dupri has said actually the events that inspired Confessions that made it so juicy

were actually about his life.

But there was something about the storytelling in this album.

I think that made it so good.

Yeah. And that, I mean, interestingly enough, yeah, I'm sorry, I mean to say this,

but like little Jermaine was, so that song, yeah, wasn't even meant to be on Confessions.

So what Usher had done is in 2003, he had finished Confessions, he delivered it to L.A. Reed,

who was the head of Arras Direct with his record company at the time.

And L.A. Reed was like, there's no hip here, you know, you need to go back into studio.

And like for an artist to go back into studio after such a prolonged period of time in the studio,

it's quite a daunting prospect.

They didn't know what he was going to do, and he was really anxious about the whole thing.

And they approached a little Jermaine to write a few songs, and P. Diddy even wrote a few songs.

And what happened was little Jermaine had just been asked to write some music for Mystical,

who was an iconic rap at the time, and he had written 15 songs, but Mystical had only taken two.

So he had some songs that he could chop around, and he gave the song to Usher.

But at the same time, what he didn't know is that his record label had given the same song to another rapper called Pablo.

Anyway, he was then forced to go back into studio and rewrite something that sounded like the song called Frita League.

And that's where, yeah, was born out of.

Now, so the interesting thing about this whole album is that Usher was highly inspired by Eminem's storytelling in the creation of Confessions.

It was like he liked the idea that someone could expose themselves in their totality to their audience,

and that Eminem was a big inspiration behind that, for almost like exposing your Pandora's box.

That was a good and a bad thing because, you know, like it really brought in the audience, and the audience really brought into the album.

I mean, to date, it sold over 17 million units worldwide, and I'll tell you in a few moments why that's such a big thing.

But it did go awry a little bit because of some of the misogyny.

And you can even hear it in the rap, although that ludicrous rap is iconic.

There is a lot of misogyny, which was right at the time.

And so, Usher and, you know, the album was heavily criticized for this like misogynist undertone.

Is it acceptable? You know, are we willing to to celebrate that kind of theme?

Well, you know, a year later, at the Grammy Awards, they'll end up getting four Grammy.

So, I guess the music industry really did buy into what the album was.

But I think more so, the sounds and the craft of the music making on the album more than the messaging of the actual songs.

But it was a storytelling album, and your main debris has said on multiple occasions that it wasn't directed at Usher himself.

And actually, Usher made a very interesting observation.

So, when he wrote Confessions, he had ended the relationship with Chile.

And he was with another woman at the same time.

And he said cheating wasn't what caused the end of that relationship.

And that's something that sometimes people miss out on.

It's like the relationship could have already been gone for quite some time.

And that it wasn't the actual cheating that's cheating was just a symptom of like other problems that were already permeating through the relationship.

Before we run out of time, you said you wanted to touch on why it's significant that this album is sold 17 million copies.

So, in 1999, there was this big case in the United States called the Napster Case.

And what that Napster Case did was a pivotal moment in popular music history.

It basically opened up the doors to digital music, downloads, et cetera.

And for the next between 1999 and about 2015, the music industry went into a downward spiral.

And actually, people weren't selling albums.

Record companies shut down or merged.

There was like big chaos in the music industry.

So, for an album to actually sell 17 million units in the midst of that downward trend in the music industry,

it just showed you how powerful that album was.

And for an album to sell that many units at that specific time,

it would have meant that I should would have been a massive power broker in the music industry at that particular moment.

Dr. Leal, it's always a great pleasure having you on the show.

Thank you so much for your time this morning.