There’s a derivative YOLO song called “One Life” and the hook couldn’t be more uninspired: “We’ve got one life/I won’t waste it, one life/I’m gon’ taste the joy in every minute/Beginning’ ‘til the finish,” he sings. Following the lead of his Oscar partner Common, Bigger Love is risk-averse and platitudinous. This marriage of vintage and modern goes awry, as Bigger Love opens with a trap take on doo-wop and closes with a Mr. His 2019 protest song, “ Preach,” is curiously absent here so, too, is the effortless tonal blend of the album’s predecessor. The everymanisms of Love in the Future were replaced with personal reflections, confessions of a “FaceTime abuser,” and the politically minded expressiveness of a man clinging to hope in a darkening world Legend’s songs were suddenly richer and more textured.īigger Love reverts to a vacant pantomime and a less robust R&B palette courtesy of producers like Oak, Ryan Tedder, and Ricky Reed. They never quite conjured a “What’s Going On,” as they hoped, but Mills brought character to his music. He was inhabiting songs as a person and not just a dutiful soul man treating the piano bench like a cubicle. His last album, 2016’s Blake Mills-produced Darkness and Light, had a personality and intimacy that eluded him on previous albums. “Hopefully it can help them get through what’s been a tough spring, and hopefully this music will help them have a better summer.” Bigger Love is rife with this feel-good energy, buoyed by his stately voice and easygoing charm, but beneath its positive exterior is an emptiness that’s hard to ignore.
“A lot was going on, but I still felt like people need some uplifting music,” he told Oprah Magazine. Legend is pegging his new album, which was recorded primarily in 2019, as a sort of balm for the times. Fittingly, the album reunites him with producer Raphael Saadiq, who was behind his 2018 Christmas album. Legend believes in the power of love the way some believe in Christmas spirit-as a transmissible, irresistible force that extinguishes all negativity.