“So You Can Cry”
by Ne-Yo
(Def Jam)
Checking the liner notes of Year of the Gentleman, the album
this track isn’t yet a single from, two songwriters are credited:
S. Smith, aka Ne-Yo (born Shaffer Smith), and R. Perry. I took my
time ascertaining that the latter’s first name is Reggie, because I
wanted so badly to believe Ne-Yo had cowritten the song with Richard
Perry, the man whose soft-pop productions pretty much defined ’70s hit
radio: Pointer Sisters, Ringo Starr, and especially Carly Simon, whose
records this one sounds exactly like. Either that or Joni Mitchell’s
“Free Man in Paris” with more Oprah in it—this is a straight-up
advice song, albeit of the tough-love variety: “Well , I’m sorry/I
won’t attend your pity party/I’d rather go have calamari/And maybe a
drink/And yes, I think/You should come with me.” The woman he’s singing
to (unless it’s a man, which seems less likely but not entirely
improbable) can’t get over the man who left, a situation he paints with
quick, deft opening strokes: “So it’s over/He’s with someone else, and
you know her.” The chorus arcs upward so exquisitely that its
get-over-yourself message seems contradictory until you realize how
deeply frustration and concern tend to run in tandem. Or more simply:
my favorite song from my favorite album of the year.
“Oh Girl”
by Raphael Saadiq
(Columbia)
Ne-Yo is a certain kind of throwback: the sensitive lover who writes
great songs for women (“Unfaithful” for Rihanna, “Irresistible” for
Beyoncé) as well as for himself, à la Babyface. Raphael
Saadiq is another kind: For 20 years, most famously with Tony! Toni!
Toné!, he’s updated older R&B styles for modern consumption.
So of course he’s made his retro-soul move; The Way I See It is
a dozen ace ’60s/’70s replicas (plus a remix featuring Jay-Z, ah well).
Motown is the major source of inspiration, but this exquisite ballad
goes west a bit, to Chicago. The strings and bells and loud-as-fuck
snares, not to mention Saadiq’s aching falsetto, conjure a different
great record called Oh Girl, the one by the Chi-Lites, without
sounding especially like it. 
The remix of “Oh Girl” absolutely ruins the experience of this album and I recommend never listening to it, unless you want to hear Jay-Z bray “OH GI-RL” in a manner so tone-deaf it makes “Girls, Girls, Girls” sound like a Sinatra song.