On Charlie Wilson’s new album Uncle Charlie Underdogs are Wilson’s main collaborators. Theoretically, this is a great move. Underdogs are known for making the type of ballads that fits Charlie’s large voice. Too bad only one of their five tracks are as good as one could expect. I’m referring to ‘Homeless’, which has been out for almost a year by now. ‘Can’t Live Without You’ and ‘Love, Love, Love’ are both decent tracks but I doubt they’ll be in my mind a few months from now.The other songs worth listening to are all ballads. The uptempo tracks sound a bit dated while ‘What You Do To Me’, ‘There Goes My Baby’ and the LOS-assisted ‘Back To Love’, will stay in rotation on my iPod a while from now.

And I don’t get it. How could they ditch ‘Jump In’ from the album, and keep the horrible ‘Musta Heard’? The Fauntleroy penned song leaked last year and managed to reach #18 in our “Best of 2008″-chart; it would have been one of the albums strongest tracks. The same confusion is going down with the choosing of the first version of ‘Supa Sexy’, and not the later one (also leaked last year) which would have fitted in much better with the rest of the tracks.

Even when the song material isn’t all that, a good artist performance can save a album. Charlie does as well as he can with Uncle Charlie and proves that his voice still is one of the best in rnb, but it’s sad to know that things could have been much better than this. Wilson should work with people known for making music that brings out the best of an experienced singer. Next time around, my advice to Mr Wilson is to give R Kelly, Babyface, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and maybe even Teddy Riley a call. A gathering like that would sure be something.

We’ve already posted two songs from the album, and ‘Jump In’ that didn’t make it through the album cut. The links underneath will take you to these posts.

Charlie Wilson - Can’t Live Without You
Charlie Wilson - There Goes My Baby
Charlie Wilson - Jump In