As a side note, I'm a fan of both rappers and hip hop in general, so it's not that I'm not "into rap". Snoop & Kanye West appear on 2 different tracks. My only gripe with the CD is the rap appearances. He's the male Alicia Keys in that respect! If you ever get the chance, see him in concert. His voice talent is also matched by his piano skills. His love ballads are cool and crisp, not overly syrupy, pop-sounding, or the borderline porn music most R&B is nowadays. The talent of John Legend shines throughout this album. This has to be one of the best R&B albums I've purchased in ages. I cannot think of a greater complement to give the 50 percent of this album that is amazingly good. If Keb Mo's style was a little less Delta Blues and a little more Urban Soul, this is exactly how it would sound. On certain tracks I had to check the album information because I swore that a song or two had Keb Mo as a guest singer but each time I realized it was in fact simply John Legend at his best. I had to play that track three or four times when I first heard it. My personal favorite is track 9, Stay With You. But starting with track 8, Ordinary People, it was like a light switch had been flicked and from then on every song is a potential Grammy award winner. They mostly seemed to lack real creativity. I was not a fan of the first seven tracks of the album with the exception of track 6, Number One. I love all genres of music from classical to jazz to popular music, when done well. It seems to me an intentional decision to save the best for last on this album. However, personally I feel rear speakers should be used mostly to pick up spacial cues and acoustics of the room and not deliver primary sound sources. After a few listening sessions I started to enjoy the way the music was mixed. While at times I think too much primary sound was coming from the rear speakers. Low bass through the sub is perfectly balanced. Like too many SACD's, too much bass is put into the center channel speaker (usually the two side speakers will reproduce better bass) but on this SACD the bass was done in a way that is better than most I've heard that are center channel focused. Tracks 8-14 are by far the best and if track 15 had been switched with track 6, then there would have been perfect alignment of the first seven tracks being so-so, and the last eight tracks being in a different, and much higher class. What I got was a fantastic SACD for at least the second half of the track list. But when you can get an SACD for under ten bucks, it is worth taking some risk not knowing what you'll get. I was not familiar with the music of John Legend other than the previews I could listen to on Amazon.
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