At the beginning of the '90s,
R. Kelly was seen as a lewd, lascivious soulman. By the end of the decade, he had stripped those adjectives away and was seen as a contemporary equivalent of
Marvin Gaye, thanks to the enormous success of "I Believe I Can Fly." Appropriately,
R., the double-disc album that followed "I Believe I Can Fly"'s parent album, finds
Kelly trying to live up to that legacy. He may be talented, but he has neither the vision nor the depth to match such classic soulmen as
Al Green,
Stevie Wonder,
Prince or
Michael Jackson, all artists he emulates on
R.
Kelly's main strength is fusing contemporary material together into a slick, palatable, radio-ready record. Nobody else could have
Jay-Z and
Celine Dion on their album, and he's about the only one who could make it work, since he can work sensuous grooves as well as he can deliver a soaring ballad. To some, this may sound like nothing more than calculation -- a big part of the reason why he doesn't instantly enter the hall of greats -- because it's easy to see how he pieces it all together. When he's on, however, such calculation doesn't really matter, since it all flows, but such incidents only occur through about 40-percent of
R. That's a major problem, considering the sheer length of the album. Clocking in at 29 long tracks, it takes real effort to sit through the record from beginning to end, especially since
Kelly begins to repeat himself. If it was pruned a bit, the album would arguably be his best record. As it stands,
R is an admirable effort, one that is among his better records even with all of its faults. [
R was also released in a clean version, with all vulgarities removed.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine