The massively anticipated follow-up to
GET LIFTED is here!
John Legend's debut earned the in-demand all-star studio session man a global fanbase and a reputation as a premier singer-songwriter-pianist-performer in his own right. Hits like "Ordinary People" and "Used To Love You" ensured was a commercial success and a critics favourite. The album also earned Legend an astounding eight Grammy nominations and Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, Best Male R&B Vocal Performance "Ordinary People"
and Best R&B album.
Here in South Africa, fans got a taste of Legend's amazing live show when he performed to a sold-out crowd in Johannesburg late 2005.
Now the supremely gifted Legend returns with a pop/soul album that is nothing short of magnificent. Fueled by intelligence, intuition, sensuality, spirit and creativity, ONCE AGAIN features the production talents of Raphael
Saadiq, Kanye West, Craig Street and will.i.am.
The Black Eyes Peas member contributed production to lead single, "Save Room” a joyful, cool love song, inspired by an old radio single,"Stormy" by the Classics IV (a 60's Top 40 band best-known for "Spooky". As John recalls, "will brought the sample. I didn't even know the original. I just knew it was a nice organ sound and wanted to write to it. I just started mumbling along to it, finding my place in the melody and it worked for me." Other standouts include the mid-tempo "Where Did My Baby GO" which was one of the few songs written by Legend before he began recording ONCE AGAIN.
Legend takes a somewhat political perspective on the stately "Coming Home" which he says is "about a soldier who wants to come back to his family and his uncertainty about being away and whether or not he might die. It's subtle but it still manages to speak to some important issues about life and death, war and peace." Relationship ups and downs are the subject of the swaying Kanye West-produced "Heaven Only Knows". "Show Me" was co-produced by Raphael Saadiq and Craig Street (Me'Shell NdegéOcello, Cassandra Wilson and is described by Legend as a spiritual song and it's a modern masterpiece.
The whole set of songs on ONCE AGAIN speak of authenticity something Legend wanted when he began writing songs from his heart and soul and personal experience Just three years ago, Legend was a highly regarded session musician. Today he's an artist who proves that, even in an age of expediency and crass commercialism, real talent not only still matters but will be acknowledged.