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Every Usher Song, Ranked
As a child, he seemed destined for stardom — and then reached even greater heights.
An early aughts song that starts with a Diddy verse is sus out the gate, but “I Don’t Know” has a few things going for it: the bridge where the otherwise middling beat unfolds into something elegant with synths and strings; Pharrell shouting out ghetto, suburban, and international girls; and Usher setting off the party after the average person’s bedtime. This song never wound up on a proper project (it was originally supposed to be the lead single for Hard II Love), but its simple pleasures — from Usher showing support to a stripper he’s got his eye on to the handclap and synth plinks that make up the beat to Juicy J’s unhinged feature verse — will glue it to your eardrums By the end of this tale, which simmers and skips like a lost cut from D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar,he gives up the game by belting his own guilt at the top of his lungs: “I’ve been blaming you when I’m the one that’s doing wrong … My guilty conscience is the reason I wrote this song.” We should be expecting this reveal, but the rug has been pulled out and here we are, mad at ourselves for trusting him yet enthralled all the same.
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