Transition - Ryan Leslie

Released months after his first, the R&B singer Ryan Leslie churned out his second 2009 album late in the year to get things rolling nicely for him after a slow start in the game with his 2005 debut shelved until he managed to find the sort of fan backing that he is currently work with. “Transition”, as with his self-entitled debut record has him bringing forward an album filled with his own production, writing and vocals and all done in a futuristic ...
...Break Up”

The album kicks off with song hardcore Funk that completely takes you over from the start as you se just how this “Transition” theme on the record has altered his ways from the first time around when it was filled with the spacey synth,. But on this occasion he has taken things back with some live instrumentals to add to this and in doing so, incorporating styles that suit this leads to the creation of a perfect opener.
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Released months after his first, the R&B singer Ryan Leslie churned out his second 2009 album late in the year to get things rolling nicely for him after a slow start in the game with his 2005 debut shelved until he managed to find the sort of fan backing that he is currently work with. “Transition”, as with his self-entitled debut record has him bringing forward an album filled with his own production, writing and vocals and all done in a futuristic style unlike any others.

1. “Never Gonna Break Up”

The album kicks off with song hardcore Funk that completely takes you over from the start as you se just how this “Transition” theme on the record has altered his ways from the first time around when it was filled with the spacey synth,. But on this occasion he has taken things back with some live instrumentals to add to this and in doing so, incorporating styles that suit this leads to the creation of a perfect opener.

**Five Stars**

2. “Something Like That”

With this one we get the one and only guest appearance on the album and I felt that although it wasn’t the most obvious choice, I felt that Pusha-T of The Clipse suited Ryan Leslie’s work as we are used to Pusha on The Neptunes’ beats and they share many similarities. Here. Leslie decides to rap this one and he does a good job at bringing some more Hip Hop-based beats to accompany this turn.

**Five Stars**

3. “Zodiac”

He doesn’t stop either of the two main styles being made very prominent here as we see that we get a tune that is built up upon some freaky Hip Hop and Funk. I felt that it was a perfect time to take inspiration from Old School Hip Hop in particular as he bases this all around zodiac signs, commonplace in the late seventies and early eighties stuff in that genre, and it all seems to come together nicely for him as he takes a throwback turn (and manages to fit in some raps here again).

**Five Stars**

4. “Is This Real Love?”

The Hip Hop breaks comes through with this one and force the atmosphere to get a much more intense, but he finds a great way to break off its power with the light synth and (of course) his light vocals) which give it so much more of a depth that I felt would have made a perfect choice for a single from the album. The tune begins extremely well, and from that point just gets better (as the album up to this point on it).

**Five Stars**

5. “Sunday Night”

With this one we see that we returns to material that sounds much more like the kinds of things that we came familiar with when he dropped his eponymous record at the start of 2009. Here he makes a smooth tune that has him gently working through the thing as he makes one that is designed to depict a Sunday night atmosphere, just lounging with a loved one, you can’t fault it in any way whatsoever.

**Five Stars**

6. “You’re Not My Girl”

Dropping as the first single from the album, this song is simply perfect, it could not have gone any better for him. Upon initial hearing, you are guaranteed to think its a Michael Jackson song from “Off The Wall” with all its Funk and Disco and really I don’t see why this should be an issues as he gives you this as intensely as possible with another throwback-feeling tune that forces you to boogie down (though I don’t see how its ability to force you to dance relates to the subject matter of the song).

**Ten Stars**

7. “To The Top”

He just doesn’t stop laying down the killers as we see that here the Washington, D.C. artist comes out with a tune that find him offering a tune that features what song that features production that takes from Seventies Soul, but it’s all twisted in a way that sounds as if it was manipulated by a Hip Hop producer out of the Mid-West (Detroit and Ohio state in particular) for another rather different one from him.

**Five Stars**

8. “Nothing”
Here we get another tuen that seems to have the cleanness that you tend to expect of tunes that have been made to sound a little more commercial, but when you consider that he didn’t hold back in having “You’re Not My Girl” as its opener, then I don’t see why he’d opt for something that has to sound as if it suits contemporary trends at all. Here he sings desperately about how he wouldn’t be able to cope without his girl.

**Five Stars**

9. “Guardian Angel”

He calms things down further with this one as we find that here he really does make the change towards something a lot more typical of 2009’s R&B. we still get lots of his originality past all the conventional approaches where the vocals are concerned, but for the rest of it we get him experimenting with a little rapping on another composition that brings in lots from a variety of sources.

**Five Stars**

10. “All My Love”

He gets back to the Funk that the record started off with and I felt that it was the perfect time to lay it all down on us as we see that here we have him injecting this through with its synth melodies and he goes over the top of this with some of the hardest Hip Hop beats to punctuate everything along the way. Here we get a nice expression of just how in love he is at this point and how it’s affecting him.

**Five Stars**

11. “I Choose You”

He ends the album on this one and decides to come with one that has him twisting it towards his interpretation of a futuristic ballad. I felt that he did a very good job at it, although I expect that it only sounds this good because of its positioning on the record and all that it comes after. However I think that it draws it all to a close perfectly and ensures that if you don’t typically go for this kind of thing, you will fall for it by this point.

**Five Stars**

Coming right off the back of a highly-consistent debut record, Ryan Leslie still finds it within himself to better it by managing to go just a step further by taking an album filled with lots of very good songs, and making a new one with nothing but killers. I simply couldn’t fault it and it competes with records from Trey Songz, Joe and other contemporaries from this year and recent times.
 

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