Do Androids Dream of Chris Brown At The VMA's?

In an interview with XXL Magazine, Kanye West claimed that the only real competition he had in the pop music game was Justin Timberlake. To be more specific, he compared himself to Prince and JT to Michael Jackson. Now, grandstanding aside, the comparison is apt.



Kanye is generally the main author of his own music, even if he uses drum machines and copious soul samples where Prince would use his seemingly endless repertoire of instrumental expertise. Justin is a dancing r&b juggernaut who relies heavily on all-star producers, Timbaland being Quincy Jones in the MJ metaphor here.

Its the type of throwaway pull-out quote Kanye is (in)famous for. Bloated ego kept unchecked. His arguement, does, however, raise an important question. If Kanye is Prince, and Justin is Michael (and I'm not saying this is absolutely true, but IF) then where the fuck does that leave Usher Raymond?



Kanye and 50 Cent may have played Sherlock and Moriarty for the cameras to bolster record sales, but there are no two other pop cultural icons I suspect wish each other untold levels of torment than Usher and Justin. They're like Supes and Lex. Bats and The Joker. The Doctor and The Master. Those niggas HATE each other.

When Justin took time off from recording to make mediocre movies (sorry Edison Force) and fuck mediocre women (sorry Cameron), Usher released Confessions, far and away the best recording effort of his weirdly long career. Both men steal relentlessly from Michael Jackson. In their particular niche its impossible not to, but with the drop of that album and the inescapable ubiquity of "Yeah!" and "Burn" Usher seemed to cement the crown.

Being the next Michael Jackson in pop R&B music is like being the next Shawn Michaels in wrestling. There's always an assload of candidates, but only a few real front runners. (How many times were Edge and Jeff Hardy crowned the next HBK, and really only because Christian and Matt Hardy were the de-facto Marty Jannetty?)

Each candidate has equal things going for him. Usher is a falsetto-rocking dancing fool who's been making music since childhood and Justin is a falsetto-rocking dancing fool who used to be in the biggest boy band in the world. They were my super-secret favorite music feud for a few years running.

Then Justin dropped Futuresex/Lovesounds.

I imagine that on that day Usher did him some crying. Like, real crying. Not that "Confessions pt.II"-I-wanna-sell-some-records crying.

Justin managed to, with immense help from Timbo, Danja and will.i.am, reinvent himself as some sort of David Bowie-MJ hybrid whose music could only be stopped if your iPod ran out of battery or your stereo was hit by rolling blackouts.

"My Love" owns your fucking life and you damn well know it.



Usher included, because I bet that vindictive, Chili-cheating anachronism has listened to the track far more than any of us have. Like I said: Hatfields and McCoys. Kree and Skrulls. Woody Allen and Philip Roth. Nemeses.

So, now Usher's gone through some life changes (a baby will do that to ya) and he's dropped a new single.



The video is pretty predictable:

- weird lighting flourishes that hip hop directors cribbed from Patrick Daughters videos with The Secret Machines and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
- A club production-designed to look like Lord of Darkness' banquet hall from Legend.
- More cameos than a DJ Khaled video.

What's strange is the morbid, broken-fantasy imagery. A club that "isn't" there. Women that whisper in your ear and disappear. The remnants of youth. If this video wasn't made by a new husband and father, I don't know what is. There's just one problem:

I hate this goddamn song.

It's so mediocre. This is some 8701 shit. This is the equivalent of what would happen if Justin released "Bye Bye Bye" as a single on his next album. Usher knows better than this, and if for some reason having a kid made him forget, producer Polow Da Don knows better than this.



"I never slip/I never fall" indeed, Polow.

What's more is he reportedly leaked this single. Now, either this nigga's a SKRULL or he's in cahoots with JT.

How else do you explain Usher releasing a certifably "ok" club song as his lead single. Its entirely possible this song will catch on and I'll feel differently about it. As it stands, I'm just disappointed. I wanted a rivalry, not a lynching. At this rate, Usher won't have to worry about Justin. He'll have to worry about Chris "Wall-to-wall" Brown.



The next in line to be Michael Jackson, sort of a Prince Harry here, if you will, and the boy's gaining heat like he's got fire coming out of his ass (an indelible image I wouldn't be surprised to discover on the cover of Brown's next release.) Anyone doubting the validity of his claim to the throne need only watch this past VMA presentation. Even I was awed, and I'd been cracking jokes about this kid for a year.

Usher needs to step his shit up. Where's the Weezy collab? Where's the crossover production of a DJ Toomp, giving the kind of street-club cred Lil' Jon supplied on Confessions? Shit, I never thought I'd say it, but "Where's Diddy?"

I got love for you, Ush, but if you want to stop crying yourself to sleep with images of Justin Timberlake getting hatcheted to death by a vengeful, blood drunk and listless Cameron Diaz, then you need to prepare yourself for war.