Friday, March 6, 2015

Flashback Friday: "So Sick" - Ne-Yo (2006)

Ne-Yo: the king of R&B sadness.



Are you sick of R&B being so uplifting? Well, come with me and check out Ne-Yo, a guy whose main strength is making your heart break and sing at the same time! This song is called "So Sick". It was pretty successful at the beginning of 2006, making its way all the way to the top of the Hot 100 in March. Apparently this song must have resonated with a lot of people in order to make it so high.

Do do do do do do do do

The lyrics get better. 

Gotta change my answering machine
Now that I'm alone
Cause right now it says that we
Can't come to the phone

Okay, they're still cheesy as hell, but honestly I like the imagery of these mundane activities that Ne-Yo has to do now that his girl left him. It's stuff that you don't really think about when writing a love song, but they do have some emotional attachment.

Gotta fix that calendar I have
That's marked July 15th
Because since there's no more you
There's no more anniversary

He makes fixing calendars sad! Somebody stop this man!

Like I said, Ne-Yo is the king of the sad R&B. But when I say that, it's not really because he's the best at it. It's because he does it the most often. I can't remember the last time I heard a happy Ne-Yo performance. Happy is just not an emotion he wears in his music. And everybody's got their niche, so that's not necessarily a bad thing. Ne-Yo's performances sometimes seem restrained, though.

However, in this song I think the restraint works. He's sick of his sadness and he wants it to no longer be a part of him. Of course, he's Ne-Yo, and he just broke up with a girl, so that's borderline impossible. But he tries to hold it back, and it works to the song's benefit. Overall, I can see the problems others might have with this song, but I actually really like it and I think it works well. I probably won't get sick of this song anytime soon.

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