It’s a stark departure from Usher’s previous sound, but a firm declaration of everything Usher can encompass. If Confessions is a megahit of a bygone era, it’s one that continues to stand the test of time, still gaining new fans in the present.Īfter the intro, “Yeah!” blasts the listener like the thump of a bass in the club. But, surprisingly, none have matched the sheer ubiquitousness of this record. In the years since its release, we’ve seen blockbuster records from other Black artists of the genre like Beyoncé or debuts by new millennial icons such as Rihanna and Frank Ocean.
USHER CONFESSIONS VINYL RECORD FULL
"What 'Confessions' most singularly accomplished was usurping the tropes of R&B music - full of romance and devotion and sensuality - and laying bare the actual reality of contemporary relationships." Rolling Stone ranked the album at 432 on their Top 500 Albums of All-Time list in 2020. 16 on their Top 200 Albums of All Time list. Billboard named Confessions the second best album of the 2000s and No. Confessions has gone on to sell more than 15 million copies, making it the best-selling album by a Black artist in the 21st century. What comes next won’t be painless, but it is necessary and, perhaps, even healing. These are my confessions,” Usher says in the album’s introduction. But rather than shy away from the changing tides, Usher leaned into it, creating a record that uses manufactured salaciousness with apparent ease. The celebrity allure - and how we consumed their art - would never be the same once the new decade hit, something that Usher may have predicted with Confessions. 2004 was merely the beginning of the celebrity culture that would come to define the decade, one that was invasive, negative and built on a house of lies.
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If Usher was pushed and pulled in the world of entertainment, made to spur gossip and sell magazines and keep the churn of celebrity moving, then he would reclaim the narrative about himself, or at least shape it into one with a created and defined beginning, middle and end. Was the entirety of the record an admission of guilt, or was it a moment to tell a greater story - on the pressures of modern love, on the ease of infidelity, on the new essence of celebrity culture?
Here, Usher uses the album as a means of blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Surprisingly, it was still a relatively uncommon means of structure at the time, at least in the world of R&B. If his debut album was about the thrill of new romance and My Way focused on evolving sensuality, then 8701 was about the excitement of life as a young man and celebrity.īut Confessions, released in the spring of 2004, is a different type of record, one that uses storytelling as a narrative device. Released after a four-year break that saw the musician tour around the world, experiment with acting and become a bona fide celebrity, the album also gave us quick glimpses of a new Usher. His maturity grew even further on 8701, his third album. On his sophomore breakthrough album, My Way, released when he was 18, the singer began to mature, with songs progressing from the handholding of his debut’s “Think of You” to the new bedroom antics of “Nice & Slow.” By the end of this 17-track triumph, even the most buttoned-up listener can’t help but understand the true message of the record: A mistake is only as grave as we make it.īursting onto the music scene at only 16 years old with his self-titled debut album, Usher was primed to win the swooning hearts of teen girls everywhere. With a lesser artist, this may be impossible for the listener, but Usher’s charms are unfailing. Here, Usher asks us to sympathize with the philanderer, the heartbreaker. Bridging musical genres and stylistic eras (through both subject matter and production style), Confessions is an album set apart, and a masterpiece of tone and sound.
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