John Legend is done playing it safe.
His new 16-track album Muse — out October 23 on Republic — is produced entirely by Pharrell Williams, and it's the first full-length project between the two after 20+ years of friendship. Legend said it plain: "I wanted to shake up the formula and do something fresh and new." No more piano-ballad comfort zone — this one runs gospel, doo-wop, classic soul, Afrobeat, hip-hop, and standards, pulling from Nina Simone, Nat King Cole, and Marvin Gaye.
The spark came from the Clipse comeback. Legend's performance on "The Birds Don't Sing" off Pharrell-produced Let God Sort 'Em Out made P want to build a whole world around that voice. They wrote and recorded Muse at Pharrell's studio inside Louis Vuitton's Paris headquarters. Pharrell features on several cuts including the title track; Clipse shows up on "Bodies On The Floor." Singles "Daylight" and "Fireflies" are already out.
The DAOS take: a soul legend letting a super-producer rewrite his sound at this stage of the game — that's a fighter moving up in weight and trusting the new camp. Respect.
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Sources: Channel 94.1
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