Lloyd released his third studio album 'Lessons in Love' last week Tuesday (August 5th) which sees the silky-smooth vocalist put together an album of love ballads and sex anthems. The album has solid production from the likes of Big Reese, Jasper Cameron, JLack and Polow Da Don among others. Although the subject matter shows progression in Lloyd's maturity, after a while, the album became monotonous with it's concept and the vibe that I was listening to one long song became unavoidable.Without a doubt, the best song on the album would be 'Year of The Lover' with it's pleasant atmospheric synths. And he even indulges the up-tempo dance direction with 'I'm Wit It' - a party stomper for the club that was produced by Usher's younger brother JLack (this young fella has a bright future ahead of him, move over Polow!). Previous single 'Girls Around The World' is pretty infectious and samples a beat from the Eric B catalogue of music. The Polow-produced 'Party All Over Your Body' has lots of appeal with it's synthy-production, whereas songs like Sex Education and Love Making 101 changes the atmosphere a little. Lessons In Love is better than I imagined it to be but a step down from his last album 'Street Love' and after a while the ladies-man theme grew thin and became played out.
Still, the album definitely channels the influences of contemporary R&B at best and marks the changes in the revolution of Urban music but the 90's oldskool influences that were heard in some of the songs were also appreciated. I am not quite sure of what to think of Lloyd being the millennium version of 'R. Kelly' or whether this album was an attempt to be an upgraded '12 Play' of the sort, but Lloyd's smooth falsetto vocal delivery could definitely woo me for a whole evening or two.
Rating: 3/5
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