Album Review: R. Kelly - 'Love Letter'

Ever since his debut in the early 1990s, R. Kelly has been hailed as a music visionary, someone who can not only capitalize on current music trends, but is also influential enough to create and sustain new trends. So that makes it really interesting that on his 10th solo album, Love Letter, Robert chose to revisit R&B music's past rather than chart a new path for it's future. Love Letter, released in the U.S. on Dec. 14, 2010, is about as retro as retro can get. As the old school cover image suggests, the album's very influenced by legendary '60s singers like the late, great Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye.

Although Love Letter has a decidedly vintage sound, all the album's tracks are actually completely new, and were written and recorded by R. Kelly specifically for this album (with the one exception being his version of Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone," which is included as a bonus track on some versions of the album). And throughout the album Kelly shows that he's a true student of R&B music history. Some of the album's songs sound so old school that they could likely fool some people into thinking that they really are classics from decades past.

A perfect example is "Love Is," a duet with rising singer K. Michelle. The song sounds uncannily like something that Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell would have recorded in the mid-'60s. The doo-wop beat and vocal arrangement both pay tribute without sounding like a cheap imitation or ripoff. And K. Michelle, the album's only guest vocalist, manages to more than hold her own alongside the seasoned veteran. Another outstanding song fitting the old-school theme is "How Do I Tell Her," a song about leaving the woman whom you always said you'd stick by. "She's been honest, faithful and true/My God, this has gotta be the worst thing that I ever had to do," he sings in an anguished voice that's dripping with pain and guilt. But the album's centerpiece and best track is arguably the first single, "When a Woman Loves" an instant classic about how deep a female's emotions and feelings can go.

It's "When a Woman Loves" and the album's title track that best exemplify his other, more overarching theme on this album: love. Or more specifically, the love of a man for a woman. And not just romantic love, but the appreciative and grateful kinds of love. Or, as Robert puts it on the album's opening track, the 49-second "Love Letter Prelude:" "This album is dedicated to the girls who stood beside me, and even all the bootleggers who couldn't afford to buy me/Even the ones who wants to have my baby, this is my love letter to you."

And Kelly, being the smart man he is, knew that not all his dig old-school Soul or doo-wop, so there's also a few songs on Love Letter that cater to his distinctive style, such as the sexually-charged "Taxi Cab," where over a seductive beat, Kelly sings about a one night stand in the back of a moving vehicle; and the romantic "Number One Hit," where he compares the love of his life to blockbuster chart toppers like the movie Avatar and his own 12 Play album.

This album represents a remarkable change in direction for R. Kelly, who just a few years ago seemed to be going in a different direction with the hip-hop concept album Double Up. Love Letter is a brilliantly romantic album that once again proves that Robert is still R&B's leading man and one of the most inventive artists in the genre's history.