Apple cider vinegar Is Pilates for you? 'Ambient gaslighting' 'Main character energy'
ENTERTAIN THIS
Trey Songz

Review: Trey Songz, Ed Sheeran and 'Tremaine's 'nice guy' problem

Maeve McDermott
USATODAY
Trey Songz and Ed Sheeran.

Is Trey Songz the “nice guy” of R&B?

Think of the kind of playboy most in vogue in R&B today, and a specific character emerges. He’s callously dismissive, always on the road and only interested in expedient flings, from Drake’s promises to “call your (expletive) an Uber, I got somewhere to be” to the Weeknd’s plans to “only call you when it's half past five.” The stereotype doesn’t just apply to men either, with Rihanna’s Needed Me an anthem for “savages” everywhere.

Offering an alternative to R&B’s ominous bad boys is Trey Songz, an artist who famously proclaimed to have “invented sex,” and who hasn’t strayed far from his brand of relentlessly-positive sensuality his entire career. On his seventh album Tremaine, out Friday, Songz ditches the club hits and star features, focusing almost entirely on straightforward, catchy love songs in the lane of his 2015 bedroom anthem Slow Motion.

The cover of Songz' seventh album 'Tremaine'

Currently employing that same non-threatening sex appeal to top the Billboard charts with his new album Divide is Ed Sheeran, whose successful singles follow the same pattern as Songz', a mix of goopy love songs (Thinking Out Loud) and vaguely edgy late-night tales (Shape of You).

And where the sonic similarities between Songz and Sheeran end, the “nice guy” pervasiveness between their two new albums begin, a term that's recently come to define men who claim to be more worthy of women's affections then their lesser peers, yet often are misogynistic in practice.

Songz spends most of the album telling harmless boy-chases-girl stories with above-average gender politics, from bubbly lead single Nobody Else Like You to the album’s excellent Usher-channeling closer Priceless. Even on songs where he hints at his lothario status, Songz promises he’s a better man than his behavior makes him seem, as heard on Playboy: “Don’t know why I’m still kissing girls that I don’t love, still stumbling out of these clubs, still I’m just so hard to trust, don’t know why I’m still a playboy.”

But Tremaine falls into a similar trap as Sheeran does with Divide, portraying two sensitive men trying to prove they’re special, while betraying hints of their toxic masculinity along the way. Many critics pointed toward Sheeran’s disingenuous treatment of women on Divide, and many of Tremaine's most regrettable tracks sound like they could’ve been written by Sheeran, pairing hints of guitar with cringe-worthy wordplay, that aren't as kind to Songz' romantic partners as he'd hope.

She Lovin Its bassline and strummed chorus are the closest Tremaine gets to rock instrumentals, enjoyable until the track shows Songz’ questionable grasp on consent, Blurred Lines-style: “She lovin’ it / I know she say that she don’t, but she do.” Meanwhile, Animal’s John Mayer-style guitars devolve into painful sung-rapped lyrics, two Sheeran trademarks, with Songz employing far too many jungle-themed pick-up lines in his efforts to “prey” on his partner.

And considering Sheeran's recent interview where he bragged about his sexual conquests with the friends of his famous pal Taylor Swift, the Tremaine track #1 Fan is a little too on-the-nose, with Songz' tales of "having sex with my No. 1 fan” sounding less like a cute euphemism for his partner and more like an account of sleeping with a groupie.

(Warning: NSFW language)

While there's plenty to enjoy in Tremaine, Songz' new album exposes one reason why listeners are drawn to his contemporaries' darker tales of romance, from Drake's distrust and Rihanna's dramatics to the Weeknd's doom and gloom. At least these stories, in all their messy humanity, feel more genuine. And that honestly is something that Songz and Sheeran, in all their efforts to present themselves as the perfect guy, aren't able to deliver.

Featured Weekly Ad