The Dream’s career is in relative obscurity at the top of 2017, as despite being a certified legend in R&B who has dropped countless classics that have transcended the genre, it’s been a couple years since he’s had a release that’s truly made a major impact. Unless you count the Jewel EP/Crown Jewel album that was released last year accidently by Soundcloud, and swiftly erased 24 hours later never to be heard again. The Dream never spoke publicly (on social media or otherwise) about those 10 records that clearly were never supposed to see the light of day, and what’s most unfortunate is that it was the best Dream album since Love King - as though it wasn’t Love Hate level (nothing is) - it was easily as good as IV Play and Terius Nash: 1977 - and arguably better than his sophomore Love vs Money. Basically if you’re a Dream fan it’s absolutely mandatory that you find a bootleg of the Jewel EP, as due to apparent business complications the Crown Jewel album is essentially the ‘classic that never was.’
Nonetheless with no explanation as to why the Crown Jewel project was scrapped altogether, The Dream is back with a brand new 5 track EP - one that is likely to leave his dedicated fans wanting a lot more.
Love You To Death is critiqued track by track below:
Lemon Lean
“Say ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh” The best record off the new EP will not be found on his Greatest Hits cd one day, and even though it’s the best of the 5 new records, it ultimately falls well short of the Jewel EP that leaked last Spring - which as stated above never officially came out. In comparison this one sounds like a recycled version of so many Dream records we’ve heard before - emphasised by his patented Falsetto technique that all of us know all too well.
College Daze
“I forgot about them things you did in college, can you forget about them things I did last night? and you can call it what you wanna call it, but I hope we had this fight for the last time” good concept for a Dream record but unfortunately it’s just not very good… has a nice mellow vibe to it but nothing about it makes you want to play it again
Madness
“This is ultra super random, but I want to know if you're busy tonight, girl we're like Susan Sarandon, girl we go back, let's go back like the old times” another record that’s regular by Dream standards, but arguably one of the better records off the new release.
Rih-Flex
"She on a Rihanna flexxx, and now you need that love, like you lost something that you never had, it was all that, now it's all bad, that Rihanna flexxx” after 10 spins I’m feelin this record a lil bit more… but it’s still not a major record by any means…
Ferris Wheel
“The fair is in town, we should go right now, go with what we know right now, I don't know if it'll ever come back again…” …. SKIP… couldn’t recommend this record to anyone.
This isn’t what we had been waiting for… in fact this is probably the most forgettable Dream project in his catalogue, as even in comparison to his other EPs this one doesn’t stack up - as Climax, Royalty: The Prequel, and of course the Crown/Jewels all had better records. It’s indeed surprising that Dream would step to the plate and go 0-5, yet hopefully moving forward he gets his business correct and puts out a studio album that can really do numbers.