POP/ROCK
Ne-Yo, "Libra Scale" (Def Jam)
Through a career as R&B lyricist (often for women) and performer of his own songs, Ne-Yo has positioned himself as a sensitive man who genuinely loves women, defying hip-hop machismo and its strip-club images of femininity. On his fourth CD, he once again promises to respect a woman, to love her mind as well as her body and to make himself vulnerable.
The settings are luxurious. Ne-Yo's tenor-to-falsetto croon openly imitates Michael Jackson -- the creamy sustain, the percussive gasps and gulps -- and is surrounded (also like Jackson) by his own backup vocals, harmonizing and responding like an army of confidants. Ne-Yo is by no means modest or guileless. "In my designer suit I make this look easy," he boasts. But he promises seduction rather than conquest. Until he's seduced and conquered himself.
Ne-Yo's best songs -- such as 2006's "So Sick" and 2008's "Closer" -- are driven by obsessive longing, not self-satisfaction. And halfway through this album, the tone changes. The music, though still sleek, turns more electronic, and Ne-Yo seizes on Jackson's anxiety as well as his vocal phrasing. Echoes of "Billie Jean" come through "Beautiful Monster" and "Cause I Said So," in which the woman clearly has the upper hand. In "Genuine Only," Ne-Yo warns, "You ain't always gonna like me, girl."
As the album ends, Ne-Yo sings "What Have I Done?" an apology and confession from a man left lonely. It's not a happy ending, but a place to start the cycle of romance and loss one more time.
JON PARELES, NEW YORK TIMES
My Chemical Romance, "Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys" (Reprise)
"The Black Parade" (2006) was one of those breakthrough albums that forces you to take a band seriously, a massive leap forward from a group that never looked like it had it in them. My Chemical Romance reaffirms its ambition by following it with another concept album, but while "Parade" was an empathetic, multitextured meditation on mortality from the perspective of a terminal patient, "Danger Days" has -- ugh -- a story. The inherently goofy vision of a post-apocalyptic California where music has (perhaps) been outlawed doesn't win points for originality, and a handful of tracks follow suit.
