For over a decade now, The-Dream has demonstrated a keen emotional intelligence, a willingness to throw his heart on the table, and an uncanny understanding of the female psyche—all while coming through with dozens of brilliantly dummy sing-along choruses made for belting and drunk dancing. As a songwriter/producer/singer, he’s breathed melody into his own songs as well as hits by Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Kanye West, adding humor and grace to their superstar personas. With his finest work—think “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” or “Fancy”—it can feel like he went to the mountaintop, met the god of song, and returned with a message.
But he’s never been able to truly take off as a solo artist; after scoring a few minor hits with his first couple of albums, his own work has been met with an increasing indifference by the masses across the last six years. His latest EP, Love You to Death, won’t do much to change that. It’s just as layered and melodic as ever, but unless a more adventurous quiet storm DJ latches onto it, it won’t make it out of bedrooms. Which is where some of it belongs. Over a squiggly flute on “Madness,” a musically adventurous booty call, he rivals the raunchiest of rappers: “I would die to put my lips on it/I would love to rub my face in it/But you just gotta rub my face in it.”
But blunt literalism isn’t his most powerful gift. He’s such a master of songwriting that he can play with language, lodging not just a phrase in your ear, but even abstract baby talk—think the “ellas” and “ehs” on Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” which he co-wrote. Similarly, Love You to Death opener “Lemon Lean,” the most obviously catchy song here, has no chorus other than some high-pitched cooing, but it’ll run like ticker tape through your head for days.
Along with lust, The-Dream is always drowning in desire or regret, wrenching emotions that live very close to each other in the heart. And suffer he does on Love You to Death. “Daddy told me good pussy could kill ya,” he memorably laments on “Rih-Flex,” a clever ode to Rihanna. “I forgot about them things you did in college/Can you forget about them things I did last night?” he asks on “College Daze,” in a subtle nod to “Be Careful” by Sparkle and one of his clear inspirations, R. Kelly. Like Kellz or Jill Scott, The-Dream taps into the real grit of relationships by using ’round-the-way colloquialisms (“Now I don’t wanna just buy you shit… girl I wonder how lit you get”), yet he also has no problem elevating language and extending metaphors, either, alluding to a relationship teetering on the brink of failure in “Ferris Wheel.”
By his own admission, The-Dream is less blessed as a singer than a songwriter and a producer, but that calling-card falsetto sounds crystalline here, and his note intervals are precise, shimmery, and sweet. The disappointments in this moody, make-up babymaker of an EP, then, have more to do with its tone. None of the songs trot along on his signature bright chords, and the closest he comes to going faster is at the very end (but if you’re using the EP as intended, well, perhaps it’s paced perfectly). While lush as ever, the songs never quite catch the “ghost”—that ineffable, humbling streak of god in songs that reduce you to tears—like “Fancy,” “Rockin’ That Shit,” “Yamaha,” and others did. Still, he has captured greatness more often than nearly any other modern-day triple threat, and that alone should make you scream his name.
