In reply to NΛVI.

It just goes to show you that's the way consumers think. The first single is always supposed to be the biggest indicator as to the direction of the album, but most modern artists don't use that direction, because the creative process is very scrambled now. Take for instance people like Ciara who use first singles as a way to garner fan reaction, and then do it FOUR of five more times over the course of a year...by that time the new material they begin working on is not even cut from the same cloth because it was all done out of sequence.

Usher really distanced himself from R&B fans because "Here I Stand", "Raymond vs. Raymond"/"Versus", and "Looking 4 Myself" were very lukewarm records compared to the energy and genius of his previous works. So the quality was not as good, and the way the record was marketed was not in an urban manner. He did that live concert streamed online with a mix of classic his and album cuts and the only new cuts from the album that he did were dance oriented "Scream", "Numb" and "Euphoria" I believe. I really only liked "What Happened To U" off of that album. Everything else was hit or miss for me. I listened to it for a couple days last summer, and that's it.