Last night in NYC, Ne-Yo held a listening party and performance for his new album “R.E.D.” at Joe’s Pub. After going through half of the album and discussing how he created it, he then went on to perform four songs from the album live with his band. In discussing the project, he mentioned that half would be pop and half would be r&b so as to please both of his fan bases. He compared it to “Side A” and “Side B” of a cassette for those who were old enough to remember buying cassettes. Songs he played during the evening included “Don’t Make Em Like You”, “Forever Now”, “Unconditional” and “Carry On (Her Letter to Him)”. He then went on to perform “Lazy Love”, “Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself)”, “Jealous” and “Should Be You” for which he bought out surprise guest Fabolous. The contrast between the pop/r&b sounds were definitely evident, but as he mentioned during the evening, he even wanted to make his pop songs have substance, and lyrically they have just that. Ne-Yo’s fifth album “R.E.D.” will be in stores November 6th.
