Pretty Ricky - "Late Night Special"

By following in the footsteps of sexually-charged male R&B vocal groups like Jagged Edge, Jodeci and Dru Hill, the four-man group known as Pretty Ricky has some big shoes to fill. And unfortunately, they don't even come close to filling them. The only thing they have over the aforementioned acts is that some of Pretty Ricky's members also rap, and therefore incorporate hip-hop into most of the group's songs. But despite this added dimension, the group as a whole is somewhere on the shallow end of the talent pool. If it wasn't for sex appeal, they'd have almost nothing going for them.

If sex sells, then Pretty Ricky's second album will likely be a big hit on the music charts, because songs about sex is about all that this four-man vocal group has to offer. On all the album's 11 songs, from the album-opening title track to the last song, "Make It Like It Was," the group is fixated on sex.

Some groups, if they have the singing talent, like Jodeci for instance, can get away with this. But Pretty Ricky's members - "Slick'em" (real name: Corey Mathis), "Baby Blue" (Diamond Blue Smith), "Spectacular" (Blue Smith) and "Pleasure" (Marcus Cooper) - just aren't talented or innovative enough to appeal to anyone other than horny teenage girls (and some boys). Instead of coming across like smooth, savvy players, they sound more like a group of friends who got a recording contract by winning a local talent show.

Not only is their singing suspect, but apparently the members of the group who dabble in hip-hop are under the impression that rapping consists of just talking in a loud voice. There are several songs, such as "Love Like Honey" and "So Confused" that have good vocals and solid production, but their potential winds up trampled under bad rapping and/or hilariously corny lyrics like "let me do you after school like some homework and "I wanna end up in your stomach like some Robitussin.