( 2 Votes )

Written by King Kevo

Several artists have only few chances to prove that they are worth people’s attention. With Omarion, he may have his last chance to gain the respect that he wants in the R&B world.

His third studio album was released on January 15, 2010 and with all the trials and tribulations that O has faced with his label situation this past year, this new record stands as a statement for the people to view and see where exactly Omarion is in his life. This album also allows us to determine where he is professionally in the music industry. Like many, Omarion has grown up in front of us from his B2k band days to the joint album that he did a couple years back with Bow Wow. In both circumstances Omarion was not as triumphant as he should have been. But with this new album Omarion seeks to gain some momentum going into the beginning of this New Year. Omarion is still seeking to build a great legacy among the great R&B artists that are out today.

Can this new album show growth by “O” vocally, mentally, artistically and socially?

The new album Released by Omarion is titled “Ollusion” and it is the third studio album released by “O” for the first time on EMI. This is also the first time that Omarion’s album will be released with a parental advisory sticker. Now his first single released off “Ollusion” was “I get it in” featuring Gucci Mane. I thought this was not only a bad decision for the look of Omarion’s album but very typical for today’s struggling R&B artist. You must understand Gucci Mane is all over in the music world with many features. It is a risk releasing a track with Gucci on it because many can be turned off by Gucci being on so many songs with R&B artists. At this point in Omarion’s career his fans and critics only expect him to be original and elevate his vocal skills and dancing ability.

The first single could have been “Last Night”. This song was nicely produced by “Tha Drummahz”, and gave “O” that forum to show that he is stepping his creativity and vocal game up. The chorus was sharp and Omarion’s Lyrics was on point. Releasing a single with Gucci Mane only said to me, “just another R&B singer following the formula that others have already conquered”. The second Single Released off this album was “Speedin”, prior to the first decision for singles, this was a great decision. “Speedin” was a nice slow touching track that I believe his fans want to hear from him. This song showed that Omarion can be diverse and talked about other things aside from women and money. This song was good, but not one of my favorites; to me this song was a song that I expect Omarion to make at this stage in his career.

My three favorite tracks on Omarion’s “Ollusion” and yes I said only three on a twelve track album were “Temptation”, “Last Night”, and “Sweet Hangover”. “Temptation” is a song I would call reality. If you are a grown man or woman making money, meeting people every day and in a relationship, temptation is faced on a regular basis for many. One element that always makes a song good is the sense of reality, something that people can relate too. The song “Last Night” was well produced and lyrics to the track fit the production of the song. In most songs the lyrics can be excellent but the production can be beyond negative and vice versa. “Sweet Hangover” was produced by the Auto tune king himself T-pain. To be honest this song was the track that kept you listening to the album. First thoughts that came to me while I listened to it was that this is a song you can listen to on a Saturday morning after going out the night before and thinking “Damn what happened last night”.

The two songs that will probably annoy you as much as it annoyed me will be “Hoodie” and “Code Red”. To me it seemed that O was trying to rap on both songs and I didn’t hear him really putting on display his vocal talent in either song. With one or two exceptions this is always a setup for failure when you have a Singer trying to Rap (Ex: Tyrese aka Black Ty).

This is one of the factors that lead me to give Omarian’s album “Ollusion” two and a half points.

“Ollusion” was supposed to be Omarion’s chance to show people that he is mature now and can hang with the Best of the R&B elites of today, but this album doesn’t even begin to compete with decent up and coming R&B artists. Aside from putting songs displaying him somewhat rapping, the rest of the album was very average, difficult to locate a theme, and hard to pay attention to the whole way through. In order for Omarion to have any more success and longevity in the industry he must think ahead of others, dare to be different and create somewhat of a culture with whatever album he decides to release. If music doesn’t work hey we all saw “You got served” maybe he can step away from music and dabble in movies? Maybe?