Opening with “Adorn,” Kaleidoscope Dream is clearly intended to appeal to radio audiences. Both are singers with hearts on their sleeves, as is Miguel, but channeling is not the same as perfecting. That may be due in part to Miguel’s influences while his peers are shrouded in feedback and distance, he’s clearly up in the front, channeling Prince and James Brown. Kaleidoscope Dream is drenched in synthesizers and groans, but it often sounds too deliberate to compete with the sheer emotion of what’s going on out there in R&B. But as an album, it rarely takes risks, and considering the market he’s going into, that may be deadly. Miguel’s own voice is mellifluous and dramatic in turns. The production is clean and clearly intended for radio hits. There’s little debate that his songwriting is tight. Miguel’s sophomore effort Kaleidoscope Dream is a solid album. This is not to say his music is boring, but it’s certainly less daring than his contemporaries. While Abel Tesfaye traffics in the sordid bleakness implied by club R&B with the Weeknd and Tom Krell from How to Dress Well brings the medium to its saddest, most emotionally broken moments, Miguel (née Miguel Pimentel) prefers to stick to a middle of the road tactic. So where does that leave the purists? Miguel, who released his first album All I Want Is You to general indifference, wants to know. Kelly have come of age, and acts like the Weeknd and How to Dress Well have been perpetuating and inverting the tropes of sexy, beat ridden music to all effects. Singers and performers raised on a diet of D’Angelo and R. R&B is in the middle of an internet renaissance.
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February 2023
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