Though he came of age during the heyday of the bad-boy R&B singer, Ne-Yo’s allegiances have always belonged to an earlier, more chivalrous era of pop music. Over his first four albums, the singer honed an image not just as the best dressed, best behaved guy in the room, but as the heir to the Rat Pack’s dapper legacy, embodying an ideal of class and sophistication that disappeared generations ago. A decade in, however, Ne-Yo’s class act routine doesn’t carry the novelty it once did, and his spotless image has never felt more at odds with the times. Today listeners don’t crave perfectionists; they prefer flawed idols. And so on his sixth album , Ne-Yo dares to rumple his exquisitely pressed suit a bit and join his contemporaries at the strip club. He stops short of letting his freak flag fly, but for the first time he’s hinting that he may actually have a freak flag in his repertoire.