In addition to serving as executive producer, Kelly wrote, produced, and arranged three songs: "Magic," the title track, and the Stevie Wonder-ish "No Words." Kelly didn't produce the entire album - the Platinum Brothers, T. Pain, and several others also help out - but whoever the producer or writer is on a particular track, the obvious goal was to make Wilson sound contemporary and modern by 2005 standards. And Wilson sounds perfectly natural alongside guest Snoop Dogg on the angry "You Got Nerve" and even Justin Timberlake (who has shed some of his more bubblegum tendencies of the past) on the infectious "Floatin'." Romantic slow jams are a high priority on this CD, and grooves like "Asking Questions," "What If I'm the One," and "Let's Chill" (a remake of Guy's hit) essentially take the Gap Band's classic "Yearning for Your Love"/"Outstanding" vibe and add a big dose of hip-hop. In other words, Wilson does exactly what Kelly, Teddy Riley, Sweat, and so many of his other admirers have been doing all these years. Charlie, Last Name Wilson isn't in a class with the singer's best recordings with the Gap Band, but it's a respectable and inspired demonstration of his ability to be relevant to the hip-hop-drenched urban contemporary scene of 2005.In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. How far can good intentions go? Bruce Hornsby & The Range’s “The Way It Is,” the gentle and florid soft-rock jam, is unambiguously a song about racism and about people with money doing everything in their power to keep their place atop the societal pyramid. Hornsby opens the song with a lyrical vignette about “the man in the silk suit” going out of his way to sneer at an old lady in a welfare line. For years, Sean Hannity, a man who continues to make his living performatively sneering at people in welfare lines, used “The Way It Is” as theme music. In 2004, Hornsby admitted that he wasn’t happy about Hannity using the song but said that he felt helpless to stop it: But Hannity didn’t use any of the actual words that Hornsby sang. I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it. If I make a stink about it, then they make you into a clown. If you go and raise your hand in protest, they just turn you into their new whipping boy. It seems like a cruel joke, but people have a great ability to tolerate cognitive dissonance in the music they like. You can spend years listening to a song that passionately argues against the way you feel. You can sing along with that song in the shower every day, and you can still feel the way you feel. That’s just the way it is.īruce Hornsby was born atop that societal pyramid. Hornsby came from Williamsburg, Virginia, where his father, a former oil exec, had become a hugely successful housing developer. Hornsby’s father, a former musician, kept a Steinway piano in his living room, and Bruce learned to play on it. In 1974, when Bruce was studying music at the University Of Richmond, his brother Bobby started a band to play Grateful Dead covers at frat parties. Just grab his collaborative hit "Beautiful" with Snoop Dogg from elsewhere, add this set, and then you've got Uncle Charlie's aughts on lock.Bruce joined Bobby Hi-Test And The Octane Kids, playing Fender Rhodes. Kelly, and if you need a reminder of how he acquired Don status, the original "Burn Rubber on Me" is tacked on to the end of the set, although that's certainly not enough to check the Gap Band off your list. Through it all, Wilson comes off as a more sensible and mature alternative to R. Old-school funk (the hard-struttin' "Musta Heard") and grown-folks R&B (the massive hit "You Are") mix with hipness at an Usher-level ("My Girl Is a Dime" or "Shawty Come Back"), while 21st century names like Justin Timberlake, will.i.am, T-Pain, and Jamie Foxx all come to pay their respects and vibe with one of the masters. His 1992 effort You Turn My Life Around is skipped but it barely fits with his much more successful later canon, which here is represented by the years 2000 to 2010. Trying a little harder than its generic packaging might imply, Playlist: The Very Best of Charlie Wilson kicks off with a 12" mix of the former Gap Band member's hit "Outstanding" before rounding up all the obvious highlights from the singer's solo career.