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Q MagazineJul 27, 2012If you're it the mood for a trawl through R&B's greatest hits delivered on R. Kelly's own terms, if not always in his own style, that's just how you'll like it. [Aug 2012, p.101]
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Jul 10, 2012Sometimes the best results, though, come when Kelly drops the exercise completely.
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Jul 6, 2012With the release of his 11th studio album, Write Me Back, Kelly has found a balance between both sensibilities, and forged an album that's a definitive career landmark.
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Jul 3, 2012Write Me Back isn't groundbreaking, even for Kelly, but the territory it does cover is glossy and confetti-strewn.
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Jul 2, 2012Kelly seems to have breezed through the writing and recording process here, and there's a fine line between breezy and half-assed.
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Jun 29, 2012The duology of Love Letter and Write Me Back has been his most soulful and inspired work since Chocolate Factory.
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Jun 28, 2012Although the flagrantly throwback Motown numbers are a bit warmed over, the album shines when Kelly blends his old-school approach with his modern club killa persona.
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Jun 28, 2012This-porridge-is-just-right uptempo mush.
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Jun 27, 2012Write Me Back proves that Kelly's mode throughout Love Letter was no fluke.
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Jun 26, 2012He delivers deceptively subtle music that retains all of the singer's seductive charms and inimitable style.
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Jun 26, 2012It's virtuoso pastiche – but Kelly's Seventies are freakier than your dad's.
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Jun 26, 2012Write Me Back won't totally please R Kelly fans who crave the silly pleasures of Trapped In The Closet, but it is without doubt an excellent record.
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Jun 26, 2012The lived-in uplift of Write Me Back finds him at a perfect sweet spot of nostalgia and modern skill.
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Jun 25, 2012His relaxed intonation shows a talent that doesn't need to be stretched to the limit to produce its best work.
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Jun 25, 2012For all his production skills, he remains first and foremost a vocal stylist of considerable ability.
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Jun 25, 2012Listeners may find themselves toggling between questioning Kelly's sincerity and admiring his facility as a producer and singer.
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Jun 25, 2012Kelly's party-host earnestness is far more infectious than his three-way scenarios ever were.
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Jun 25, 2012When it works, it works.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 14 out of 18
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Mixed: 1 out of 18
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Negative: 3 out of 18
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Dec 16, 2013
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Oct 22, 2012
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Jul 21, 2012