Usher's "Versus"; Little Big Town's "The Reason Why"

Usher, "Versus" (LaFace)

"Usually, I'm a one-kind-of-girl kind of guy, but now I'm a free to get at every girl kind of guy," Usher Raymond reveals on "Love Em All," the opening track and pacesetter of his EP-sequel to March's platinum-selling "Raymond v. Raymond."

Since 2004's "Confessions," the louche and libidinous crooner has mined the tumult of his personal life. Carefully revealing details but shrouding the specifics in a haze, Usher left fans guessing about his alleged infidelities with ex-flame Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas of TLC, and his marriage to and subsequent divorce from Tameka Foster. Yet on "Versus," the ambiguity is absent. Freshly single, Usher does everything but buy a waterbed and announce, "Mothers, lock up your daughters." "Lay You Down" channels '90s-era Prince. On the Michael Jackson-referencing "Lingerie," he rhapsodizes about sexy nighties.

Occasionally, Usher flashes why he remains on R&B's A-list. Bun B adds welcome grit on the Billy Ocean-homage "Get in My Car," and Justin Bieber earns the Tiger Beat covers on the "Somebody to Love Remix."

Though the title of "Versus" may allude to his divorce proceedings, it holds a double meaning -- Usher's at his best in head-to-head competition.

JEFF WEISS, LOS ANGELES TIMES

Little Big Town, "The Reason Why" (Capitol Nashville)

So it goes with Little Big Town, a country group that almost always chooses politesse over tension, letting its precise, sometimes clinical harmony stand in for feeling. The group comprises two women, Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman, and two men, Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook, with vocals distributed in roughly equal measure among them -- when they're not all singing together in heavily compressed, anodyne harmony.

Redolent of Southern gospel and feather-light country-rock, it's a comfort zone for this group, employed consistently in the choruses, which can be arrestingly sharp, and often elsewhere. But piled on top of plangent guitars, the convergence can become grating, with all the emotion of archery, prizing accuracy above all.

That's true here especially on the songs written by the group (which make up a majority), save for "Little White Church," which pops with acidic handclaps and needling harmonies between Fairchild and Schlapman.

But it takes an outside hand to fully untangle Little Big Town's wires. "Shut Up Train," written with Hillary Lindsey and Luke Laird, is the highlight here.

JON CARAMANICA, NEW YORK TIMES