July 15, 2004 @ 3:08 pm

Mario Winans - Hurt No More (Bad Boy)

Dimitri Ehrlich

In an era when thoughtful romantics have been supplanted by multiplatinum playaz, Mario Winans is a charming throwback.

In an era when thoughtful romantics have been supplanted by multiplatinum playaz, Mario Winans is a charming throwback. He represents for those fellas whose main assets aren't ice or the long line of broken-hearted females left behind, but sincerity, sweetness, and openness. Maybe nice guys don’t have to finish last after all. The album’s lead single, “I Don’t Wanna Know,” has already proven the appeal of Winans’s refreshing outlook on love. “I don’t wanna know if you’re playing me,” he howls like a wounded puppy. Over a sample of Enya’s “Boadicea,” a mournful keyboard track (made popular by the Fugees 1996 “Ready or Not”), Winans adds a simple, stuttering beat that prevents the song from devolving into murky, saccharine Muzak. This is the secret of Winans’s magic; the soft touch of the synthesizers and his gentle piano playing blend with the signature sound of the kick and snare—hard, unadorned, punching through the music’s gauzy, elegiac texture. Winans’s knack for flipping the script on a tune’s original meaning is evident on “Never Really Was,” a sample of Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach.” With a pizzicato violin strumming throughout, Winans croons about being “a sucker for your love,” a stance that is the inverse of the Material Girl’s pansexual pimp. On “You Knew,” built around the 1983 DeBarge song “Love Me in a Special Way,” Winans sits around blaming himself for being played a fool, over a thick, spongy, slow-motion beat that seems to suspend time as it swings like a pendulum between two chords. The track is laced with a chopped-up snippet of Biggie’s voice, which helps inject a needed shot of testosterone. A slew of guest rappers do little to harden Winans’s vibe; instead, they end up highlighting his tenderness. Black Rob’s aggressive verse on “That’s the Thanks I Get” is like a faceful of ice cubes following Winans’s relentlessly warm singing. Similarly, “Pretty Girl Bullshit” features Foxy Brown, and the beat is crazy—a jerky, pulsing, cut-up collage of synth bass, hand claps, and boom-bap drums. But while Winans’s singing flows smoothly and holds the track together, Foxy attacks her part in a frantic rush of syllables that heightens the sense of chaos. And “How I Made It”—which reworks a sample of the Commodores’ “Celebrate,” offering a staccato rhythm punctuated by blasting horn hits—is one of the disc’s more invigorating cuts, despite Loon’s incongruously thugged-out appearance. More typical of Winans’s true style is “Already Know,” an interlude on which he plays all the instruments and comes up with a pretty, descending minor-chord progression that aches with emotion, something an 11-year old girl might dream of while clutching a tear-stained teddy bear. The album’s best cut, “I Got You Babe,” was originally written for Prince, which may explain why it’s the only song where Winans actually gets the girl. It’s a simple and uplifting old-school groove with echoing keyboards—perfect for rolling with the top down. Winans has enormous musical talent and a one-track mind when it comes to lyrical ideas. He can’t hide the fact that he cares too much, and always places himself in the position of ultimate vulnerability. He is the doeeyed innocent who invariably winds up blindsided by a scheming girlfriend, too lovesick to kick her to the curb. While most of today’s R&B exudes bump-and-grind, Winans’s style says pass the Kleenex.

Article tags: Mario, Winans, Hurt, No, More, Bad, Boy 

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http://www.vibe.com/music/revolutions/2004/07/mario_winans_hurt_no_more_bad_boy/

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