On
Love King's "Sex Intelligent Remix,"
the-Dream announced the title and arrival date of his fourth album. 6-6-2011 instead brought the substandard double single "Body Work"/"F*ck My Brains Out," followed a couple months later by the hyper-indulgent "Internet album"
1977, credited to Terius Nash. In 2012, two middling singles -- "Roc" and "Dope Chick" -- poked radio in the eye rather than killed it. A week before Christmas, as the fourth
Dream album remained unfinished,
Def Jam altered
1977 and gave it a quiet official release. After several title changes and two years of delays, the fourth proper
Dream album arrives with none of those previously released tracks and not much in the way of foreplay. It's more "Panties to the Side" than it is "Playin' in Her Hair," and there are only slight traces of the inspired creativity -- the ebullient melodies, the clever couplets, the emotional lows and highs -- that fill
Love/Hate, Love vs. Money, and
Love King. As
the-Dream sleepily declares in the title track, he "can give a f*ck about the foreplay," and that's symbolic of the album. He's never been one for lyrical subtlety, but this set contains several stretches of monotonous, joyless carnality. "Equestrian," an unimaginative homage to
Ginuwine's "Pony," is quick to dispense with euphemisms, with a hook containing "We gon' f*ck all day/We gon' f*ck all night." A robotic "Are you ready to put it in your mouth?" finishes the song. In the plodding "Michael," he performs a poor
MJ impersonation that sounds like it was recorded prior to passing out and tosses out lines -- "I just wanna f*ck you," "F*ck a love song/I need to f*ck you," for instance -- like he can't be bothered to think. Even the introspective and relatively romantic songs are dreary, lack vitality, and are 2007-2010 bonus track level.
The-Dream produced all but four of the songs by himself and adds some new sonic tricks that are a little brow-raising if not all that momentous. "P*ssy" (as in, "Got my left hand on that booty, got my right hand on that p*ssy") resembles a Mike Will collaboration rather than a desperate imitation, while the strung-out slow jam "Too Early," a standout featuring blues guitarist
Gary Clark, Jr., sounds little like anything else in the catalog. The guest appearances from
Big Sean,
Pusha T,
2 Chainz,
Kelly Rowland, and two members of the
Knowles-Carter clan are, like most of the album, trivial. [A Deluxe digital download added four bonus tracks.] ~ Andy Kellman