Usher's 2001 opus 8701 is great, an album that provided fodder to soundtrack a generation's middle school dances, as well as yielding a bevy of hits and one of the greatest out-of-nowhere R&B guitar solo of our time on "U Got it Bad." If you are reading this article, you already know all of these things. They are indisputable cultural facts Instead, what I'd like to draw your attention to is the album's tracklist, which is nothing short of amazingly, bafflingly samey. The tracklist is below:1. IntroLude 8701
2. U Remind Me
3. I Don't Know
4. Twork it Out
5. U Got it Bad
6. If I Want To
7. Can't Let U Go
8. U Don't Have to Call
9. Without U
10. Can U Help Me
11. How Do I Say
12. Hottest Thing
13. Good Ol' Ghetto
14. U Turn
15. U are the OneLet's consider the use of the letter U here. Usher's name, quite obviously, starts with U. U replaces every instance of the word You in the 8701 tracklist, like Usher's adhering to a style guide that only he, Tupac, and Prince have access to. And because of the cognitive dissonance of seeing U instead of You, it tends to jump out at you—between "U Remind Me," "U Got it Bad," "Can't Let U Go," "U Don't Have to Call," "Without U," "Can U Help Me," "U Turn," and "U are the One," U shows up on over 50% of the tracks on 8701.I get that Usher's name starts with U and so that's probably why he did this, but the fact that he did it EIGHT TIMES on one single album makes it jarring and hilarious (as is the proto-spelling of "Twerk" in "Twork it Out). Usher would waffle on the U/You dichotomy throughout his career, using it only once on his follow-up Confessions, making up for his lack of U-Songs with a Shyne jail phone verse on the "Confessions Part II" remix, and then dropping it for Here I Stand and Raymond Vs. Raymond, only to return to the U on Looking 4 Myself. I understand that Usher probably isn't thinking about this too hard, and maybe he isn't even the one who writes his own tracklists down and that a long tradition of artists from Prince to Tupac replace You with U and no one batted an eye. But Usher's waffling is disturbing to me. Perhaps on his next album he will use You and confound us all even further.Drew Millard is reading way too into this. U should follow him on Twitter - @drewmillard
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2. U Remind Me
3. I Don't Know
4. Twork it Out
5. U Got it Bad
6. If I Want To
7. Can't Let U Go
8. U Don't Have to Call
9. Without U
10. Can U Help Me
11. How Do I Say
12. Hottest Thing
13. Good Ol' Ghetto
14. U Turn
15. U are the OneLet's consider the use of the letter U here. Usher's name, quite obviously, starts with U. U replaces every instance of the word You in the 8701 tracklist, like Usher's adhering to a style guide that only he, Tupac, and Prince have access to. And because of the cognitive dissonance of seeing U instead of You, it tends to jump out at you—between "U Remind Me," "U Got it Bad," "Can't Let U Go," "U Don't Have to Call," "Without U," "Can U Help Me," "U Turn," and "U are the One," U shows up on over 50% of the tracks on 8701.I get that Usher's name starts with U and so that's probably why he did this, but the fact that he did it EIGHT TIMES on one single album makes it jarring and hilarious (as is the proto-spelling of "Twerk" in "Twork it Out). Usher would waffle on the U/You dichotomy throughout his career, using it only once on his follow-up Confessions, making up for his lack of U-Songs with a Shyne jail phone verse on the "Confessions Part II" remix, and then dropping it for Here I Stand and Raymond Vs. Raymond, only to return to the U on Looking 4 Myself. I understand that Usher probably isn't thinking about this too hard, and maybe he isn't even the one who writes his own tracklists down and that a long tradition of artists from Prince to Tupac replace You with U and no one batted an eye. But Usher's waffling is disturbing to me. Perhaps on his next album he will use You and confound us all even further.Drew Millard is reading way too into this. U should follow him on Twitter - @drewmillard