Just two days after beloved Amp fave The-Dream announced a September 20th release date for The Love IV (Diary of a Madman), the hitmaker unveiled two songs from his latest Love series LP, "Body Work" and "F--- My Brains Out." (Listen here and be advised that for the remainder of this story, we're going to borrow from Cee-Lo and rename the latter "Forget My Brains Out.") Both tracks stick to the rigid blueprint Dream built for the Love quadrilogy: Go Prince, and go hard. These aren't just Purple Rain facsimiles though; they expand on the classic Prince sound, using instruments and studio techniques unavailable to Prince decades ago. Compare "Little Red Corvette" to The-Dream's "Yamaha," similar tracks that use modes of transportation as a metaphor for a woman.
"Body Work" sticks to the automobile theme while using Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" as its template. The song would not be out of place on Love/Hate, Love Vs. Money, or Love King, but "Forget My Brains Out" is the monster. Even though the F-word barrier has been obliterated, no Top 40 radio station in this hemisphere would touch it with that title (unless the verb changes to "Screw" or something, and even then it might be too provocative), but this multi-suite instant summer jam jumps from Paisley Park to Rick James' Street Songs and back again.
It's unfortunate that The-Dream's solo canon hasn't caught on commercially like his co-written hits -- Rihanna's "Umbrella," Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)," Justin Bieber's "Baby" to name just three of his many chart-topping productions. He certainly doesn't make it easy for himself when he writes on Twitter that he's refusing to give his record label the master tapes to "Body Work" and "Forget My Brains Out" so they can release them to iTunes. There's also always that concern that The-Dream will hit the wall, that all these tracks he's outsourcing to other artists will dilute his musical vault. However, with each passing solo album, it becomes evident he's keeping his top-shelf stuff for himself.