via//chicago

"Like Jurassic Park, except I'm your sexasaurus baby"

There are a few things I like to hear whenever I'm in the mood to listen to an R. Kelly album, which is an increasingly rare event these days. But I still get anxious to hear what musical lunacy this dude cooks up whenever a new album drops. This has become especially true since the halycon summer of 2005 and the insanity that was the "Trapped in the Closet" phenomenon. Anyway, after giving it a quick listen, I have to say that his newest full-length, Double Up, manages to hit on everything I was hoping to hear. You can usually count on at least one incredibly catchy club banger per disc and this one does not disappoint, providing perfect summer anthem fodder in the remix to "I'm A Flirt". I also hope to hear a couple other pop jams that make for good driving music, here we get the slow burning duet with Usher of "Same Girl" and the menage-a-trois ode of the title track featuring a verse from Uncle Snoop. There are also a couple of really strong songs that sneak up on you, like the reggae-lite "Freaky in the Club" and the shockingly good "Rock Star" with Ludacris and Kid Rock (Luda's verse is, as usual, well worth checking out). But my favorite tracks on any Kels disc end up being those completely bonkers songs that usually feature a slightly understated beat and those hilariously bad lyrics that sounds like he's just tossing out off the top of his head. And here Double Up definitely doesn't disappoint, giving us not only the stupidly random answering phone message of "Leave Your Name" and the unintentionally lame prison drama of "Best Friend" but "The Zoo" which has to be one of his most awesomely bad songs ever (not counting "Closet", which is obviously on a whole other level). This jungle as sex metaphor finds Kels spouting off horrible one liners like the one found at the top of this entry and "banging on the skins like a bongo". But undoubtedly the most hilarious part is the chorus, during which he imitates a monkey call (exactly the same sound any four year-old would tell you a monkey makes, "ooh-oooh-ah-AH") and follows it up with a request for his girl to make those sounds during the sexing. "Sex Planet" comes real, real close to being this bad with its sex-related outer space puns but the laughs just aren't as plentiful as they are on "Zoo". So take a listen to a couple tracks from Double Up, one good and one painfully, yet hilariously, bad.

R. Kelly - "Rock Star (featuring Kid Rock & Ludacris)" (taken from Double Up)
R. Kelly - "The Zoo" (taken from Double Up)